We arrived in St. Anton late Sunday afternoon amid the final impotent flurries of a mild winter storm. We are staying at the SkiHotel Galzig, less than a minute walk from the main Galzigbahn gondola and ski rental shops. Pre-dinner rental skis were secured for Anne, Brian, and Cam; predictably Cam opted for big backside all-mountain skis and Anne and Brian for some versatile on-piste skis. Then to a classic Austrian dinner at the Post Hotel. Werner Pamminger joined us for dinner. Werner was an au pair for the Lawler boys in their pre-teen years. Werner is currently the Executive Director of the Upper Austria Economic Development Corporation and has maintained continuous contact with Brian, Anne and the Lawler boys for the past 2 decades. Werner and Cam have skied together before.
Day # 1. Bitter, bone penetrating cold. Cam and Werner head up early. They also take top honors in coverage and vertical.
The 'senior' Lawlers wait for the sun to unfold and hopefully soften the mid and upper pistes. We started with several warm-up runs, then retreated mid-mountain for personal warm-up.
More runs, lunch stop, more runs including a drop down to St. Christoph when we decide after 7 runs and 18-knot winds to take the Galzigbahn back down. Cam and Werner stayed on piste for shots at the Krazy Kangaro to ski down after sunset.
Day #2. Bright sunshine morning and warming. Cam and Werner are up early again (Werner was unsuccessful in convincing Cam to stay out for the traditional St. Anton late night apres ski drinking.)
We are more comfortable with our skis and navigating the Valluga area pistes. Anne is not comfortable with the start of our 1st run on a Black, yet skis well the pitch amid traffic and sketchy snow. We ski 12,011 feet of vertical over 11.3 miles in 7 runs.
We stopped for a late lunch at the Ulmer Hutte where we connected back up with Werner and Cam. Brian is familar with the Ulmer Hutte as it was an aide station during several of his Trans Alpine Run adventures, and I suspect probably prefers arriving via the gravity of alpine skis to the personal pedal power of mountain running.
We headed down @ 3 PM. Werner is departing to return to his family and career; he and Cam have exhausted each other after 2 days of non stop skiing.
Day # 3. Sunny, warm and Spring like skiing. Cam is skiing with friends from Oregon (small planet we live in). Anne, Brian & I decide to ski to the other two areas of St. Anton -- Gampen/Kapal and Rendl. After 2 connecting lifts, we arrive at top of Kapal in brillant sunshine, bluebird skies and low 30s temp. After 3 laps to Gampen lift on buttery snow, we decided for a top to bottom run, with a pit stop for skiwasser.
At the bottom, we clicked out of our skis and ported them to the Rendl gondola. Up on Rendl, the Women's European Cup Series was in a 2nd day of racing. We navigated to a piste on the right side of the race course to ski down to a lift to upper Rendl. A final run down for lunch on the deck and our St. Anton ski adventure is over...all smiles!
Courtesy of Werner, I am posting the following public service notice before we head to Kitzbuhl in the morning:
ok, so the bottom line is? you are one crazy skier, living the dream, with family and friends. Du habst gut gemacht! Viel Liebe,