Melissa Presslaber *** adventure woman – certified ski mountaineering guide, ski instructor, ski coach, bike guide, Bachelor of Education
…unbelievable but true – powder in May!!!! 15th of May 2011!!!!! Snow was forecasted for the weekend, so me and Claudsch decided to enjoy the last valid day of the Tirol Snow Card… Though the visibility wasn’t that great, we had sooooo much fun shreddin’ the powder 🙂
Here is a short video cut by myself…
The conditions were sooooo good on Sunday, so we added another day and had great conditions and fun today!!!!! Powder on the 17th of May 🙂
It’s been a blast! Such a great time travelling through the beauty of Western Fjord Norway, hiking up and skiing down beautiful mountains, awesome vibes within the group of four motivated girls who love being out in the mountains….
After our first days in and around the region of Romsdalen, our trip went on to Alesund where we actually planned to stay for skiing and hiking the Sunnmore Alps. Due to bad weather, warm temperatures and the snow conditions we decided to move on to Jotunheimen Nationalpark. Higher altitude, higher mountains, better weather and better snowconditions… But before that we stayed the night at UNESCO Worldheritage Reinheimen National Park at Geiranger Fjord…
Some Pix from Alesund…
Finally the weather cleared up and we got sunshine and blue sky… Our first day with a decent and good conditions to ski down.. Second day in Jotunheimen Nationalpark lead us through the flats, 14 km’s from Leirvasbu to Olavsbu. To the left and right the highest mountains of Norway. Due to the Easter holidays the mountain huts were quite busy but still nothing compared to the Alps 😉
5 days without Internet access, cell phone, radio, tv, hot water, electricity – wonderful 🙂 The following days just sunshine, hiking peaks and skiing down nice faces…
After 13 days in and around the mountains we headed back east. Back to Oslo. Sightseeing and hanging out there for the day… It’s been a great adventure – thxxxx to Kata, Claudsch and Lisa for being part in the team 🙂
Here is my helmcam-edit from Norway – enjoy watching 🙂
Four girls who love being outdoors, experiencing the beautiful West Coast of Norway with the skis – that’s the mission for the upcoming, nearly two weeks…
I’m one of the happy and lucky girls in the team 🙂 Kata Mihaljevic (Ski), Lisa Horst (Ski), Claudia Mareck (SB) and myself will be exploring the beauty of the Norwegian nature… Right now we are here in Andalsnes (Romsdalen), sitting in a cosy, nice little hut, making plans for the next days…
Hopefully the weather god is meaning it good to us, for tomorrow we’ll try to hike and ski Kirketaket mountain, 1439 m high… Already looking forward to 🙂
The past two days were just for travelling from Oslo/Gardemoen Airport to the west – driving in Norway is a quite mission, speedlimit at the highway is 100 km/h and there aren’t many highways 😉 So taking it nice and slow 😉
It’s pretty warm already, spring is greeting but snow is still more than enough to find 🙂 We’ll keep you updated how we are doing 🙂
My head is still on winter mode but due to those warm temperatures, even my head is turning on summer mode… So past weekend instead of skitouring or being on skis, my Freeride bike and climbing shoes got active 😉
Together with Manu, Hanni and Petra we went climbing on Sunday. Spring temperatures, still snow-covered mountains, blue sky, what a beautiful day! Climbing in the Zillertal valley is very popular and I didn’t expect that less people but I guess a lot of people went down to lake Garda for the weekend… So chilly atmosphere and another great day outdoors…
Tuesday was a powder day on the Arlberg and I got a call from Birgar if I would have time for shooting… Well not on Wednesday but Thursday… So I went on the Arlberg to meet Kata and Birgar and try to get in some good shots. Bad luck I would say as the temperatures were already quite high early in the morning. We went up to Stuben but the faces we wanted to ski and shoot were already in bad snow conditions. Still a beautiful day on the mountain, not productive but enjoyable…
The prognose for the past weekend: 23 degrees! Swimming – no, biking – not yet, Skitour – yes 🙂 Okay, I have to admit that I’m NOT a typical touring person 😉 Who else would hike with her skiboots and Freerideskis including the Duke on a 2000hm Tour?!!!! 😉 hahhahha…. It has really been a mission…
Three mountain-girls – Theresa from St. Anton, Karen from Norway and myself… We started our tour in Piösmes/Pitztal late in the afternoon and had to get up to Arzler Alm, 1900m…. 20 kg on the back, OMG 😉 hard work… Backpack included my skis, skiboots, sleeping bag, matress, helmet, camera, down jacket, crampons, pickaxe and some more stuff… After a while we were able to put on the skis and skin up to the hut… It was already dark when we arrived at the hut… The hut was just the base for this night as we had to camp out underneath the clear, stary sky… Sooo beautiful!!!!
The night was quite cool but in the sleeping bag it was okay… Anyway or wake-up call was at 4.30 a.m. At 5 a.m. we started our tour in the dark. Although we knew the map it was good that there were already tracks, so we could follow them… Hiking in the dark is very peaceful but you really have to know where you’re going ;-)…
We were under quite time pressure as we wanted to be back or at least ski from the Rofelewand (3353 m) at 10 a.m. We knew that if it would be later than that, no good call, as the temperatures rose already early in the morning… I wasn’t feeling that fit this day, a bad cold was showing me the limits, so I told the girls that they should go on and leave me behind… So I went on but on my pace and hiked up to 2900 m, enjoyed the sun there and the firn snow on the way down… So instead of making it to all the way to the top with the girls I had to accept that my physical condition wasn’t as it’s best due to health problems… Anyway it has been a great adventure and I’m so happy for the girls that they made it all the way up to the Rofelewand!!!!!
Awesome girls!!!! Proud of you!!!!! What a great mission 😉
Here are some impressions…. Sorry, the pictures somehow aren’t in the correct order… Last picture would be the first ;-)…
It’s definetely spring, or should we say summer???? The temperatures feel already like summer!!! …and this weekend, up to 22 degrees… Time to get out the bike??? Noooooooo 😉 Still on winter mode… Yes, I’ve been on the bike for some time but still love to be on snow 🙂 Don’t forget, it’s the beginning of APRIL!!!! 1st of April!!!!
I’ve been on the Worldskitest in Zell am See yesterday and high up in the mountains it’s still there – SNOW!!!! Slush skiing but still good conditions!!! Together with lots of pro’s like Marc Giradelli, Pepi Strobl and Christian Mayer, I was the lucky girl to ride and test next years skis… Was fun to be back on quite short Carving skis ;-)… Haven’t been on them for quite a while 😉
Lots of familiar people there, the Fischer Masterminds Tim Lohmann (skiboots), Klaus Manhardt (skis), Powder8queen Dani Schuster, Ziener Teamcoordinator & 24hours working man Dominic Fenkl, Lizz Görgl, Stefan Görgl, Manni Mair and lots of other people from the sportsbusiness…
Thanks to organizator Gerhard Brüggler! A very good organized ski-test!!!!
Had a lot of fun shredding the slope 😉
cu next year 😉
More infos: www.worldskitest.com
The last time I’ve been to the Dachstein region is a looooooong time ago… I haven’t been skiing there yet but know how good it is there…
Freeskier and local guy Andy Kocher took Pia and me with him and we joined him on some great spring skiing in the Dachstein region… To access the backcountry terrain at the Dachstein you have to climb a quite steep ladder, walk through a small tunnel and at the other side of the tunnel great skiable terrain opens up… We skied with Andy in his homespot and were impressed of the region and the freeride possibilities…:-)
Thanks Andy for guiding us around, has been fun to ski with you :-)!!!! We’ll be back 😉
Here is also an impression of the day by my helmcam… The cam wasn’t fixed that well, sorry, it’s quite shaking when I’m riding ;-)… but still worth a watch 😉
After three days in a row of filming I needed a recovery day… That was really good and needed 😉 But I knew the next days would still be good on the mountain… and I can’t stay behind if the weather is beautiful and the snow conditions are good 😉
I joined Martin and Roli for a skitour in the Arlberg region… It’s just unbelievable how much skiable terrain the region offers 🙂 When you leave the beaten tracks it’s just great to enjoy the peace and quiet of the mountains 🙂
Still found some good powder and just had a great day… We were sitting in the sun a little to long and didn’t make it to the last chair lift up in Kappl… Somehow I managed to convince one of the ratrack-drivers to take us up to the top, so we could ski back down to the car in Pettneu… Lucky us he took us up and we could find some more powder turns 🙂 The last few hm’s were skiing a bit, taking of the skis, putting them on again, skiing a bit… 😉 Spring conditions were greeting 😉
Another great day on the mountain 🙂 Thxxx guys 🙂
How lucky we were 🙂 After the last dump with lots of fresh powder we headed West. Destination: Arlberg… I love it there! It’s really the “cradle of skiing”, so many possibilities to ski and with hiking you can access unbelievable great terrain… As it’s already spring and due to the lack of snow this winter, it wasn’t so crowded up there as usually – good for us 🙂
The two Basti’s, Sandy and myself were out for filming with our cameraman Kenny Cowburn and Birgar Olsen for the Fischer White Crest Trailer coming out in fall 2011…
Day 1: Bluebird, fresh powder – perfect conditions! We were actually surprised how stable the snow pack was as the avalanche bulletin was saying something different and we knew that we had to be careful… The Basti’s were jumping off high cliffs whereas myself was just going for cool lines without any cliffs as I’m taking it easy because I’m skiing without ACL ;-)… Filming is always quite a challenge because you don’t have that much time to study and remember your line but have to go for it as the camera is on 😉
Day 2 was just myself and Sandy from the White Crest Team (Basti B was invited for a heli flight and Basti H injured himself after the landing of a big cliff…). Together with Freeskier Andi Kocher and Telemarker Lothar Hofer we went out filming for another day. This time in Stuben… Still very good conditions in the north faces, so we could collect again some good lines and capture them on the film camera… Hike your line was our motto 😉 Hiking for half an hour, waiting on top for the “rolling” sign from the cameramen, skiing down for a few seconds – hard work 😉 It’s really hard work because you hike the whole day, have no time for stopping in a restaurant, the sun is so strong already, hardly anything to drink and to eat but it’s worth everything! There are just very few people in this happy position to be out in the mountains the whole day, film lines, enjoy the sun and powder and ski great faces…
Day 3… Actually it was planned that we just would stay for two nights but due to the perfect conditions (the best throughout the whole winter) we decided to come back to the Arlberg for another day of filming… This time just Sandy and me, accompanied by our kameraman Kenny Cowburn and Photographer Birgar Olsen… We were proven to be right, it was definetely the right decision to get some more footage in… Although my feet weren’t that fresh anymore and I somehow didn’t ski the lines I actually planned, we really had a good day 🙂 Sandy stomped a cool cliff in her line, was totally stoked for her… I was a bit frustrated as nothing worked out the way I wanted but whatever… 😉 There are some days like that 😉 This day we were really hiking for our lines and it was late after 6 p.m. when we got out of the Maroi valley…
Perfect days on the Arlberg – thanks a lot to the TEAM!!!!! It’s been great!!!!
After weeks of spring temperatures all over Europe, Mrs Holle strikes back and sends us some snow 🙂
Actually I should have been going to Macedonia for 10 days on a skitrip with Kata Mihaljevic, photographer Lars Schneider & Co but due to the bad weather circumstances it was a NO GO very short in time 😦 Well, pretty sad but the trip is postponed and I hope we’ll be able to make it down there next winter when hopefully the temperatures will stay like winter in winter and like summer in summer…
But it’s all relative when you see what’s going on in JAPAN!!!! That’s a real tragedy and I wish all the Japanese people a lot of strenghth and power for the upcoming months!!!!! I feel with them, especially when you see all that harm…
Nevertheless life goes on and I’m really thankful that I’m able to call my home AUSTRIA 🙂 It’s just such a great place to life and somehow it feels like nothing will happen here 😉
So powder is back but the avalanche danger has grown and it’s quite dangerous out there! So please watch out where you are going!!!!
Here’s a short edit from today’s powder session… Quite wet, heavy snow but good to ski powder again 🙂
MELs' Blog 
