Category: March 2013

Die Nockspitze bietet eine Vielzahl an verschiedenen Abfahrtsmöglichkeiten mit kurzer Aufstiegszeit… Praktisch vor der Haustüre… Nachdem das Wetter nur für die Vormittagsstunden halbwegs stabil war, fuhr ich mit Waldi mit den Öffis in die Axamer Lizum… Von dort mit dem Birgitzköpfllift auf eine Höhe von 2035m… Weiter mit den Fellen über die Mayr-Rinne schön gemütlich in einer Stunde auf die Nockspitze, 2404 m.
Im Tal ein Nebelmeer, oben ein 360 Grad Panorama mit Stubaier Alpen, Kaisergebirge, Karwendel usw… Allerdings bedeckter Himmel und vom Süden machte sich bereits das nächste Tief bemerkbar…

Über den Vorgipfel der Nockspitze auf 2379m gibt es eine interessante, nordostseitige Abfahrtsvariante, die schon seit langer Zeit im Visier steht… Sehr gut von Innsbruck sichtbar…

Die Einfahrtsrinne, ca. 45 Grad steil, öffnet sich nach dem ersten Drittel, flacht auf 40 Grad ab und bietet eine herrliche Abfahrt bis zum Skigebiet der Mutterer Alm… Immer noch super Bedingungen am Berg! …und mittags waren wir bereits wieder zuhause…

Danke Waldi, cool woars 🙂

Change in plans…
Actually we wanted to go West, to Chamonix, climb and ride some steep stuff there but due to the unstable weather right now, we had to change our plans…
Instead Michi and myself went South again. Back in the dolomites. Love this place 🙂 Awesome food, no stress, great atmosphere and best conditions at the moment…

I guess we were one of the lucky ones…

Day I / our aim for today: Canale del Prete-Vallencant, North colouir, sect. 55 degrees steepness, 45 degrees/300 m

Forcella Staunies lift gives you easy access to the top of 2905 meters. Riding with this old chairlift is already a cool adventure! You feel so small inbetween those huge mountains! The ambiance is just stunning! Above the cloud line we had just perfect weather! Yes, we were the lucky ones 🙂
From the top station we had to hike to Rifugio Lorenzi and from there a via Ferrata leads along the ridge (more or less) to the entrance of the colouir. Altough it’s just 80 altitude meters of climbing, it took us more than one hour to get to the colouir. No tracks and fresh powder made it quite hard to stay at the Ferrata and get along and climb there. We managed it to climb everything without crampons and ice axe but it’s better to use the equipment. This is definetely something for experienced mountain people! One mistake and you’re gone…
Finally we managed to get to the entrance of the colouir, quite windblown snowpack at the top, narrow and hard to ski in these snow conditions at the upper part… But lower down powder was waiting for us!
After skiing the colouir we decided to put on our skins and hike up into the direction of passo del Cristallo. Soooo good powder there!!!
Skied down, out the canyon and valley to Schluderbach… Waiting for the bus to get us back to Cortina and back to the car…
What a great day on the mountain!

what a stunning panorama!

Michi climbing the ridge…

Mel.. In the back rifugio Lorenzi…

Michi skiing the colouir…

hiking up again…

dropping into nowwhere… bad visibily but still a good shot 😉

Back in Cortina we went to a Internet place, checked the weather and decided to stay in the area of Monte Cristallo for another day of skiing. Marmolada has to wait – to unstable conditions…
The girl at the tourism office organized us a very charming and cheap place to stay, 7 km’s out of Cortina. 35 Euros for B&B, perfect! As the clocks work a bit different in Italy, we had late dinner and a nice eve, looking back on a cool day…

Day 2:

Changing plans again… Took the funivia Faloria up and wanted to traverse to Canale Marcoira before heading over to Monte Cristallo… However, the weather was to unsecure, clouds were moving in and around the route to fast, so we decided to take a few powder runs in the ski area instead… Supercooooool!!!! The area is a big playground with a lot of short but steep runs…

After that we decided to move over to Monte Cristallo once again and skied Canale I di Creste Bianche… However, we were lucky again, clouds moved away for the time we were there, so another cool run down into the valley with lots of powder…
In german I would say: “Wenn Engel reisen…” ;-)…

Michi riding the pillows…

Got back with the bus to Cortina, checked the weather forecast again for the next day and had to admit that it wouldn’t make sense to drive over to Marmolada… Therefore the conditions have to be more stable… But as the mountains are here for many, many more years it’s another great project to look forward to…

It started snowing in Cortina when we left and we took the good memories back home! Hopefully soon we’ll be back for more adventures in the Dolomites…

THANKS Michi for the great, joyful and happy company!!! It’s awesome to have such a cool guy around who also loves the mountain spirit and adventure in the mountains!!! Thxxxx buddy 🙂

Here’s another edit, enjoy watching 🙂

For more information about the diverse options in the Dolomites I would recommend the book:

Freeride in Dolomiti / Francesco Tremolada (italian + english version)
Map Dolomiti Ampezzane / 1:25 000

Our tours were an inspiration from there… 🙂

Finally got to ski Canale Holzer & Co 🙂 wohooooo!!!!

The Dolomites are such a beautiful place on earth, just a few hours away from Innbruck… It was time to go there, riding the Canale’s and explore the terrain down there… I was already amazed when we went there in autumn for biking, this time even more impressive!

day 1:

Andi and me started in Ibk quite early to get the 9 a.m. cable car up to Pordoi. Passo Pordoi is especially known for Canale Holzer, named from Heini Holzer, one of the pioneers in steep skiing. Unfortunately he died very young but left a tremendous list of steep skiing decents behind…
What a beautiful day! We arrived earlier than expected and stopped by in the close hotel for a coffee. Best coffee on earth and soooo cheap compared to our prices back home 🙂
The Pordoi cable car gives you easy access to great terrain! We started with Canale Joel, a south facing colouir, 40-45 degrees steepness, that you can see directly from the pass. Perfect for warming up! Actually we wanted to do a panorama ski shot up at the top but when we turned around and saw around 20 people following us, we decided to escape and ski in front of them 😉
Got another ticket (single ride 8 Euros) and were now dropping in Canale Holzer. 1100 altitude meters, with a steepness between 45-50 degrees. The snow in the North face was defineteley much better than in the south face… Actually you have an abseiling place but we could get down over the ice field without rapelling. This winter is defineteley a very snowy winter in the dolomites with a very good snow pack! To soon we were down, have to have skied the Canale Holzer!
Getting back to Passo Pordoi was then quite a mission. After 15 min trying to hitch-hike back, we decided to ski down, get the cable car and skin up to the Passo again… The counter at the ticket service was closed, instead we had to discuss with the lifty, that he gives us a ticket… He was really grumpy but could get one ticket, and the other one was free… Lucky us!
Back to Passo Pordoi, lunch break, so relaxed atmosphere – unbelievable!
One more colouir for the day… The plan was Canale Larsei Est but we had to change plans at the entry of the colouir. The south east face snow pack was so shitty that we had to skin up and ski the other option: Canale Larsei, South face, 1100 altitude meters, 45-50 degree steepness. At least it was better from the snow conditions but there was no chance of skiing it. You never knew if you turn that the snow pack would break or not. We call it Bruchharsch and that’s really shitty snow to ski in that kind of steepness… 😉
No rope needed again, the abseiling place was covered in snow to slide it down…
Skins up again, hiking into the sunset, letting the memories stroll back…

We decided for the next day to go to Monte Cristallo, skiing some more Canale’s there… So we drove to Cortina, luckily found a cheap B&B place and moved on the next day…

Photographer: Andi Vigl

Photographer: Andi Vigl

day 2…

Left Cortina and drove up direction passo Tre Croci. Of course we were not the only one’s there but there were much more people than at Pordoi. Mostly italian Freeriders and Alpinists though…
Bought a lift ticket from a very unpolite lady (she was just to lazy to talk in English to us 😉 but with my little italian we got what we wanted…) The Cristallo lifts give you easy access to forcella Staunies and other Canale’s. Our aim was to ski the Canale Staunies (north face) first, get back by ski bus and hike and ski Canale del Prete…
But sometimes plans happen to be different ;-)…
At the top of the lift station the nice, cool lifty asked in Italian to leave my name and phone number there… Just in case, as the have to have some infos who’s skiing the terrain and if something happens they have a contact… Of course I understood just have of it but didn’t matter 😉
The section giving you access to Canale di Creste Bianche etc was quite crowded, about 15 people in line, waiting and climbing up the section…
@ Canale Staunies we saw just two guys far down, nobody else behind… The colouir was already quite tracked but still very good conditions to ski! Especially here you have to be one of the first, to get untracked powder… But that didn’t matter at all… Just happy to ski in this epic terrain!
Andi wasn’t feeling very good this day, I felt sorry for him but couldn’t change the fact… Poor guy! We skied down to the bottom, hiked to the bus stop and waited… And waited and waited… We should have read the fine print at the bottom of the bus stop’s info because then we would have found out that we have to go to the other bus stop, in direction of Cortina… Well, now we know 😉
So instead of getting back to the car and lift in time, I managed to go back with an Italian family, to get the car and get Andi… Andi wasn’t able to ski anymore, so I decided for myself, not getting back to Cristallo anymore and skiing one of the Colouirs by myself, instead I had late lunch with Andi… Canale Prete has to wait but that doesn’t matter at all 😉 The mountains are here for a much, much longer time 🙂
Thxxxx Andi for joining in and the cool adventure 🙂

waiting time…

Canale Staunies Nord…

Mel…

Mel…

Andi…

Andi…

middle colouir: Canale del Prete, right: Canale Staunies

waiting for the bus that didn’t come…

And here’s a short edit:

The past heavy snowfalls in the south were the reason to drive home and to find powder there… And yes, we had awesome conditions!
Thxxx Lisa & Luis for joining, thxxx mum and dad for the great short stay :-)!

fatty’s below my feet – thxxx Fischer Big Stix 122’s 🙂 Love them!

Lisa & Luis…

pow, pow 🙂

wohoooo 🙂

The last week of my skitouring instructor education… This time in beautiful Sellrain…
The first three days we spent the time with diverse tours, focusing in how to lead a touring group…
day 1: Wechnerscharte, 2758 m
day 2: Zwieselbacher Rosskogel (not to the top…), 2947 m
day 3: Roter Kogl, 2834m

Althogh the weather forecast didn’t promise us good weather, we were lucky and surprised how good the conditions were
during the first three days…
day 4: avalanche safety day
day 5: exams

Here some impressions:

Kühtai, Speicher Längental…

in direction to Wechnerscharte…

our mountain guide Gerhard…

last bit to Wechnerscharte…

in direction of Zwieselbacher Rosskogel…

…

Lüsener Ferner…

our group…

beautiful!

Perfect, stable snow pack and best weather conditions – it was time to hike and ride the Granatenkogel, 3304 m in the Ötztaler Alps.
It was also on my to-do list for quite a while now, finally together with my Fischer teambuddy Steph Skrobar, we could ski it…
When I was in Obergurgl for shooting on thursday, no tracks in the face. Unfortunately when we hiked up there, quite a few tracks where in there already. But the mountains belong to all of us, so enjoying the beautiful panorama and being out in nature – what do you want more 🙂

Thanks for the day Steph!

Together with young, talented photographer Paul Masukowitz, I spent another beautiful day out on the mountain. We could get some great shots in still very good conditions – already looking forward to see the results 🙂
Will keep u posted when the pix are finished 🙂