I sent out an invite to nearly every company grade officer in the battalion to come skiing in Austria with the MWR trip. We ended up getting around ten people to go which was a pretty good turnout.
The bus ride down was a drunken mess (as usual) and it continued when we reached the lodge.
Ed is excited about how much fresh snow is coming down the night we got there
The next morning we started late for some reason and Ed, John, and I decided to take the lodges sleds down the mountain to the bus. The road up to the lodge was solid packed snow...
It had snowed pretty heavy the night before our first day and it showed.
Looks cold, was cold
Even the kitties were cold
The little town of Flachau
We got stuck in a terrible stau and didn't move for a good two hours but found some ways to keep ourselves entertained. Doing backflips into the snow was a good idea
After a few minutes of that, I returned to the bus to drown my sorrows and have a stau party
I went with the "A" group and was a little slower than most of them but I held my own. I had the GoPro mounted on my helmet but it didn't last long. One time it fell off when I fell on my head. The second time it fell off when someone pulled down the lift bar down without fair warning. I held the camera in my hand the rest of the day but it didn't turn out too well. The first lift up the mountain...pretty stoked
Pretty mountain shots
Heading into the woods and the POW!
One of the best parts about these mountains is all of the ski lodges with great food and beer. This one had a disco party in the middle of the day with ski lift chairs as bar stools.
Outside one of the outdoor gazebo drinking tents
There was this little girl there that was 18 months old who was very interested in me. She was the daughter of the family that owned the lodge and wanted to play with me nonstop. I didn't mind it too much until she started saying things to me like "Dada" which I later found out "Da" means "there", as in "sit there". She also said "Papa" a lot which I'm thinking also means something else.
The next morning I mounted the camera on the board using the surf mount and lost it within the first five minutes of my first run. I pulled over and told everyone to continue without me. I hiked back up the mountain to where I thought I had lost it. There was so much good snow though it could have been buried right in front of me and I wouldn't have known it.
Although that was a bummer I kind of expected it and had downloaded my video from the previous day onto a buddy's computer. Besides, there is a new version out which I want and my housing was a little damaged from the South Africa wreck.
The weather wasn't always perfect
I spent the rest of the morning boarding by myself and met up with everyone for lunch. I rejoined a the group in the afternoon and we went in search of back country powder through the alpine forests which was exhausting to board down.
Some of the "A" group on the mountain
That night we watched some of the NFL playoff games, played some poker and some more games.
Natalie even got a "Royal Flush" during the game
The next morning we packed everything up for the last day. Ed and I got separated from everyone when we went through the "Absolut" terrain park. It was a lot of fun and we got the opportunity to scout out this fresh powder run from one of the chair lift rides. PS: Do not leave a beer on a frozen bus...
Beautiful sunrise over our lodge
We saw something strange that morning, it wasn't a double rainbow, but almost a quadruple rainbow
Ed and I heading into one of the terrain parks
Ed hitting a jump
We ended up hiking up a ridge line for about 30 minutes and got a great 30 second run of pure POW. I now understand why people heli-ski to remote places in search of un-tracked mountain faces.
The face we scoped out...
One problem Ed and I have is that when one of us does something (trips, spills a beer, etc.), it's only a matter of time before the other one suffers the same fate. Here is my spilled/broken beer...
Followed not even an hour later by his at another ski lodge
Natalie enjoyed herself so much she had to travel back to the 80's and tell her infant self about it through an iPhone/tape deck
The entire MWR group at the end of the last day
The way home most people slept and we ended up getting back home at 2130hrs which was earlier than expected and the first time the bus and MWR crew had not annoyed me with their poor planning (not having enough taxis ready, kicking us off the bus to stand out in the cold, not stopping for people to use the restroom, etc.). All in all it was a great trip and it makes enduring the winter a little more bearable.
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