Since  Nassfeld last week it`s time to return to new years Innsbruck advantures.  After spending most of the evening and prior day at the hospital after Steffis accident at Stubai, we couldn’t stay idle on the next day. Before going into surgery Steffi said one more thing: “go riding for me tomorrow!”. Of course, that had to be done.

Just leave to the left of the upper cable car station to enter the woods.

The forecast was not exactly great so we decided to check out one of the closer resort, that usually has a lot of nice treelines, hidden from the masses. We were going to Schlick, this little “skigebiet” at the beginning of the Stubai Valley goes up to around 2100 m. Temperatures were high again. So we were just hoping for the best. I had been here before as a kid, when we were spending our annual winter holiday in Tirol. But that had been more than 10 years ago. Upon arriving, I noticed that the resort hadn’t changed a lot. Sure there were a few new chairlifts, replacing old ones, but the planned connection towards Lizum, yet remained an elusive master plan,one still unaccomplished.

Ziga dangling form the rocks while trying to remove one of his skis.

David knew the area well, so we followed his lead. Once you are at the top of the gondola, you can enter closed off terrain to your right. This presents quite a big area of up to seven couloirs, ranging from wide to very narrow, winding down to the woods and ultimately to the ski trek that leads back to the gondolas middle station. 

Aljos board hurtling towards my head on. Luckly I stoped it.

The problem here is that it`s very narrow, and in bad avalanche conditions, if something gets triggered your only way out, is “pedal to the metal” and through the chutes. Our plan was to traverse as far to the north east as we possibly can to reach a very wide open space, that should still have been untracked. 

Its steeper that youd think. One of the nice coluars needed to pass.

It was quite a bit of a gamble, because we were very early in the season, and rightly so. The amount of snow was not sufficient everywhere. That meant that we could`t drop certain parts, that usually don`t present much of a technical challenge. I almost tripped while traversing once but luckily I didn’t. Sometimes even the second when you’re not paying attention, can end in disaster. As much as the day was extreme, it was also good to know, that our group had the skills, to pull this off safely.