Melissa Presslaber *** adventure woman – certified ski mountaineering guide, ski instructor, ski coach, bike guide, Bachelor of Education
After the great days in South tyrol, me and Lisi decided to go on a bike tour and explore our beautiful home mountains 🙂
Lovin’ it:-)
We started from Hopfgarten/Brixental (620 m), biked to Westendorf – Kirchberg further to the Wiegalm (1505 m), up to the Kreuzjöchlsee (1700 m) and with some wrong short cuts we arrived Westendorf and Hopfgarten again…
…it’s been another awesome weekend in the mountains 🙂
…went climbing FR afternoon with Erik, wrote one of my seminar works and followed my friends on Saturday to South Tyrol…
On the way down there I had to stop by in the beautiful “Valsertal” where I haven’t been before… Well, there are still a lot of unexplored areas on my to-do list 😉 But on the way there I had to follow the snow… Snowcaptured mountains, there is still a lot of snow on top, as it has been a snowy and rainy month… So I drove into the valley, took out my bike and biked all the way up until the valley ended… Beautiful 🙂
It’s really incredible how beautiful our nature is :-)!!!!
Back to the car, drove to Brenner and further on to the Jaufenpass, puhhh, still a lot of snow up there and quite chilly and windy… My final destination for tonight was Naturns but I couldn’t get hold of Toni, so I decided to go wild camping… 😉 Found a cool spot near the river in the Schnalstal and stayed there overnight…
Met Toni, Josh and Madeleine for climbing the next day… We went further into the Schnalstal to find a very cool climbing garden… Awesome rock, cool to climb… Of course we weren’t the only people there but great atmosphere and a great day there!
After a beautiful day outdoors we went down to the Camping site to cook some dinner… Mmmhhh 😉 Good to have some food 😉 Nice eve with party music from the local soccer team who won the finals… As the campsite was fully booked I decided to stay at my place from the day before…
Next day another climbing session – this time in Juval… Also close to Naturns… Another beautiful climbing garden with a lot of options to climb… Due to the bank holiday we weren’t alone 😉 But great scenery and beautiful surroundings…
After another great day of climbing, the team went back to the campsite to pack their stuff, I decided to drive in direction Reschenpass and go biking… Haven’t had enough of climbing and was still full of energy… So I found a good spot to start and after a while on the cycling path I saw a sign leading to Switzerland, so the border wasn’t to far away… Challenge for the day 😉 Biking from Italy to Switzerland 😉 One and a half hours later I was crossing the Italian/Swiss border, took a pic there biked back to the car and started my way home… Reschenpass, Reschensee and in the back the impressive mountain range including Ortler, 3905 m
What a great weekend – Thxxxx to the team ;-)!!!!
…I’m in the happy situation that my life is awesome and I may share it with great people! Of course it’s not always like that, as life is a rollercoaster but having a bit distance from winter now, I realize how lucky I am!!!! Not only in terms of skiing of course! But I’m a skifreak – YES I AM ;-)…
Wow, went to the photo-copy shop and got printed out some of my ski pix from this winter – wow – AWESOME!!! Looking really good and quite a cool feeling to see myself hanging on the wall 😉 Big smiling Mel:-) (That was sometimes hard work, therefor it’s really cool…)
And what would life be without friends – at the moment everthing is really perfect – THANXXXX to my friends!!!!
I’m still working with my physiotherapist Klaus on getting stronger and I’m really happy that my koordination is really well 🙂 Finally I’m able to stand up on the gymball, do some “Kniebeugen” (to lazy to look up that word right now;-)…) up there, jump back down on the floor again…
Looking back, what should I say – it has been an awesome winter and I’m already really looking forward to the next 🙂 I’ve met impressive personalities, such as Giulia Monego who is so down to earth – such a cool woman! Sandy was awesome throughout the whole winter, organizing and keeping us up for our movie! Kenny put it together like that: “Such different characters, 6 girls all from different walks of life, all with 1 common passion”… How true!
Yeah, the past months have been all around skiing – that’s part of my life and hopefully it’s gonna stay like that for the rest of my life 🙂 I’m lovin’ it!
It’s weekend again – a long weekend… That’s the cool thing about being a student – a looooot of holidays 🙂
We are leaving for South Tyrol for the next couple of days for a climbing weekend… Looking forward to that!
Wish u a joyful and happy weekend!!!!
Take care, Mel:-)
…It’s been another awesome day, great times with the film crew, the last official filming day where the team has been together… Our Girls Ski Movie… Premiere autumn 2010… Looking forward to that!!!!
Location: TOP SECRET
Sandy, Lori, Pia, Laura, Giulia and me had a “big” performance… Feeling like a diva for a day with our own Make-up artist Michi… 🙂 Thanks to her for the great styling!!!
Thanks to everybody involved in this awesome project for making that possible!!!! Especially Sandy!!! Without you there wouldn’t be this film… We are ALL looking forward to see our performance on the big screen 😉 It has been a great, awesome winter and I’m already looking forward to the next 🙂
Enjoy the day!!!!
…it’s May, the weather at the moment is like in April, so after two days of great biking, I had to make use of my SnowCard and went SKIING 🙂 When you have soooo many possibilities, it’s always hard to choose…
So Saturday, biking in the woods of the Innsbrucker area and on Sunday I went to the Stubaier glacier… YES, I went skiing – CAN’T GET ENOUGH OF IT 😉 I was quite surprised how many cars where parked on the parking place… Smiling like a little girl, I went up the cable car, enjoyed the beautiful view, inspected some new lines to ski for next winter and was just amazed about the awesome surroundings 🙂 Sooo cool, that my knee also felt good, wasn’t that great the last few times on snow… and still isn’t…
Just took it easy, some off-piste skiing, cruising around… I forgot my camera, my cell phone was in the car… so just have my memories 😉
After the ski session I drove to Neustift, took my mountainbike and went on a cool tour to the Pinnisvalley… Not a very long tour but quite intense the first few km’s…
pic taken from http://www.almenrausch.at/mountainbiketouren/touren_tirol/stubaital_wipptal_seitentaeler/pinnisalm/foto_pinnisalm.htm
Had soooooo much fun with some of my friends up at the Nordkette…
Xtreme Golf and Zipflbob Comp organized by www.sportyfriday.com and www.freistil.or
Thanks to everybody making this event happen – it was soooooo much fun 🙂
Here are some impressions…
…long time no hear;-) …It’s been an adventurous and challenging week… My first week teaching in school, oh man – HARD WORK!!!! 😉 There wasn’t that much time for anything else, well training and physiotherapy of course and a cool biking tour with Dani 🙂
I was sooooo looking forward for the weekend to relax and find new energy for another week of teaching… Will I EVER end up as a schoolteacher?????
I DON’T KNOW!!!!! 😉 Still 2 semesters to enjoy beeing a student and there are sooooo many other possibilities…. So will see… Taking it easy till then;-)
….
…what a day yesterday 🙂 Went with Matthias, our cameraman to Hintertux to film the rest of my ski-part for our girls ski movie…
As I’m not able to jump off big cliffs due to my several knee surgeries, I wanted to do something special for my part of the movie… So that’s gonna be a surprise for everyone 😉 including me…
Just a few comments on the day… I never skied on such “tooth-pick” skis before… NEVER;-) Even in my racing career the skis were already more shaped and not that long… So it was quite a challenge for the first few turns to ski on 2,05 m Skis and with “front-step-in” skiboots (softer, than soft) but already after those first turns it was like skiing on normal skis – EASY!!! 🙂 And soooo much fun 🙂
Me and Matthias had definetely a fun day on the mountain and I’m already soooo curious how that scene is gonna turn out in the movie;-)…
Here a pic…
…Gurgl/Ötztal today… It’s all about being spontanious, flexible and making most out of the day!!! (I had to be back at 4 p.m. to take part at our seminar…, was close but I made it…)
…I called my skibuddy Mankei to accompany me to Obergurgl, where I spent quite a few years of my life… Wanted to check out how the snow situation is up there and to check out new skiing stuff for the next winter…
Also Andi came with us, so it was fun to guide the guys around 🙂 First run down the Hohe Mut ended up in skiing grass, as there was NO MORE SNOW anymore;-) I was really surprised that even with having had not that much snow this season, that this part was already completely snow-free… Well, no worries… Was fun 🙂
That’s one of the projects for next winter…
The next face (Hohe Mut North) is not skied very often… In the year 2001, where I worked as a ski-instructor there, I skied this with Martini (czech ski-instructor in Gurgl) and another guy (can’t remember who that was…) I won’t forget where we skied, on this pic there is quite few snow, we definetely had better conditions but it was pretty much that line that I drew in… It didn’t take long that it was spread out and a lot of people knew that we skied it… Was fun, a challenge and of course we were proud that we did it 🙂 Skied that on a Salomon Ski (Scream 10 Pilot), 180 cm, 110-75-100… My first freeride ski 🙂 (won’t forget that…) GOOD TIMES!!!! 🙂
I’m quite done with skiing now and it was probably one of the last days on snow for this winter… My knee has given me quite some trouble the past week but I still couldn’t resist to be out in the mountains for skiing… But know it needs some good treatment, the bike-season has already started – the best health-care for the knee;-)…
…when you live in Innsbruck and take a look into the Stubaier valley, you can see an impressive mountain – the Serles, 2718 m high…
Already last year I wanted to ski one of the colouirs but due to my knee surgeries I had to postpone it for this year… And this year nearly the same… Knee problems couldn’t keep me away from it this year… I wanted to do this! Well, it’s not the steepest face or that hard to ski but the left colouir is hardly skied by any people, as you can’t ski in from the top of the Serles… So you have to hike up all the way in the colouir… And that is not so safe, as there is always a danger of falling rocks… When we were hiking up we always heard some rocks and became aware… If you got caught by a rock, well… bad luck…
It took us nearly 3 hours to get up there with our touring gear (never expected that;-)…) from the parking place at Maria Waldrast… But we took it easy, didn’t hurry up the mountain and those bloody switchback-turnings…;-) …3 hours for 2 minutes skiing down…;-)
…after some days of studying and training at the gym and not feeling really good with my knee, I couldn’t resist the awesome weather, had to join the guys at Friday and accompany them to the Stubaier Glacier…
What was meant to be an easy skiing day turned out to be another awesome day with some big mountain skiing :-)…
Hiked up the Schaufelspitze, 3333 m, had an awesome view there and skied this impressive mountain… Entrance is a very steep colouir, 50° steep but than it flatens out…
MELs' Blog 