The new Dopplmayr at the Gaislachkogl

Well finally I find some time, to write about my last powderhunting trip before xmas. As you know, I was in Innsbruck again. The weather forecast was predicting a short rise in temperatures followed by extensive snowfall. Well, unlike the last two forecast, this one was completely off. Expecting storm skiing we got a bit of a weird mix. It was dumping like crazy in France and Switzerland, but in northern central Alps, were seemingly left out in the dry. Going over WebCams, weather models and snow forecast predictions, I was a little baffled. The original plan was to head for the trees at Schlick 2000 near Innsbruck. Of course, the change in weather meant that we would have to head for higher terrain as West as possible. My gut was telling me Sölden, and that’s where we finally ended up. My powder apprentice Gabi, her roomate Michi, Ziga and myself were hungry for some lines.

Sassy XD

When we arrived the weather was surprisingly good, with the exception of some gusty winds. The upper part of the glacier was completely closed, so we spent most of the day at the right part of the resort trying to find some untracked lines. It wasn’t all that great, but we did find something. Next up, we headed to the left part of the resort, the part with the new Dopplmayr 3S cable car had been built last season. Since I have a bit of a fetish for cool ropeway constructions, this was as cool as it gets. Even at high winds the thing still worked, and we even managed to get to the new vantage point above the station where I found a little red blob hovering in the wind. Of course I could not leave it there. We descended to the right from the gondola station through some semi tracked terrain. The first run was not that much fun, but the second one was noticeably better. If there had just been another 20 cm of fresh powder it would have been awesome. I also had to stop in the middle, take out my camera, and shoot a giant Tyrolean Eagle. After close inspection at home it turned out to be a small crow. So much for my animal skills.

Every run a little more to the right XD

An eagle my ass XD

Hithing a few more runs it was already getting late and we headed back to Innsbruck. Of course we thoroughly scouted the area and have a ton of runs left for our next visit when there will hopefully be more snow. There though was another thing I had planned for that Friday. Before heading off we found a Xdrive station that filmed our Worldcupclass runs for the eternals of the Internet. Don`t ask me how but it just showed up on my skiline account XD.

Me vs. The Blob.. in the end it was mine !

Billabong AIR and STYLE goin down in February.. Ziga living billboard XD

The day before, saw the European premiere of Peter Jackson’s the Hobbit, the first film in a new prequel trilogy to the Lord of the rings. Fortunately for me Innsbruck’s IMAX Theatre was equipped with a projector capable of handling the 48 frames per second high frame rate version of the film. Since we arrived back late we only had about an hour and a half to get something to eat and head to the cinema. Our friend Aljosa called and invited us to come along to Innsbruck’s Premier all-you-can-eat location :a “local”Chinese restaurant where you can eat all you want for 20 bucks for as long as you want. The whole idea was perfect, since we were lazy and tired, but it did have one little catch. Since we were so late we only had like 45 minutes to eat and get our cinema tickets. Of course we bravely managed to stuff as much as we could into our tummies and then, with excessive power walking tempo headed off to the cinema. I must’ve eaten  like five plates and two soups… soo much food XD

The Hobbit is a good film. Even at  three hours of length it passes quite quickly. If you’re into fantasy, or are a J.R.R. Tolkien reader I think you’re going to like it. On the technical side the new high frame rate 3-D projection technology seems to be the solution for a lot of stereoscopies infancy problems. Again, this way of shooting a feature is only a tool to tell a story, and therefore not applicable to all productions just for added ticket revenue. For this film, it works great. The added depth of field coming from the additional levels of parallax, make vistas a truly breathtaking experience. One that needs to be seeing to be believed. Also the added frame rate does wonders for details in high action scenes. All in all a lot better, and more mature, then I had originally anticipated. 

But enough of hobbits and film porn. The weekend was not over yet and we had two more days to find proper powder and guess what, in the end the next two days proved to be expectedly unexpected.