It has been two weeks since we went to the Naighbourhood snowpark with the GrabIt dudes but rest assured with the new year approaching and eager to put a few days on my Tirol Snowcard after a short pit stop at home in Maribor I was back in Innsbruck to spend some time hunting for powder with the Innsbruck crew.
There was only one little problem. The weather. The powdergods had heard the prayers of the south and The Piemonnte and Aosta Valley as well as parts of Switzerland and France were getting hammered. In Tirol on the other hand, the situation was dire. There hadn`t been a proper dump since our surprise powder opening at Kaunertal in October.
Looking at the projection thou my powder sense was tingling. And like two years ago my bet was on the West southern side of the main Alpine range in Austria. Three destinations were in the game. Sölden, the Gurgls and of course Kaunertal.
And boy am I happy I made the call. Beeing called the Gurgl test Ober- and Hochgurgl are known for there sharky terrain. Even with a lot of snow the Gurgls are usually exposed to a lot of winds that transport lots of snow into the valley compressing the tree runs in deep and leaving the marvelous tops exposed with tons of sharks hiding beneath the surface. Sure it`s not avalanche sharks the movie but it does come close. So in that sense the Gurgls are always a gamble.
Another thing that had us on the conservative side *not only because Aljoša managed to destroy his board on his first line on day 2 on a invisible deadly subsurface shark on our second day* was the avalanche danger. The unstable situations in the Tirolean alps made my alarm clocks go up. Three plus to four, unstable snow pack, temperature fluctuations… looking into the direction of Schalfkogel the whole mountains S side had come down.
So for the first day we stuck to the regular fun in the Trees and a few of the standard lines we were familiar with from visits past.
On the second day thou the connection lift to Hochgurgl was working again and we could find tons of fresh in the Königstal that was finally somewhat safe to ride. We even got some reinforcements with Janik, Max etc. joining in. Hell on that day we were coordinating around 15 people or more all across the Gurgls XD.
The trees that followed into the main valley were just insane fun:) Still even after two Gurgling days a lot of terrains remains to be covered and with the advent of freeriding as a “fun activity” we are going to have to start doing ascents on foot to get the feeling of riding completely untracked terrain. Well at least the Königstal remains mostly unclaimed thanks to the unstable steep entry from the Hochgurgl side. Question is just for how long.
