Snowboarding weekend in Austria

Last weekend, the weekend of passover I went snowboarding Austria with some friends.

I was afraid I wont manage to go snowboarding this year, making it the third year in a row. Luckily this weekend came along. As I posted before I finally got around to buying my own board and I was looking forward to testing it on real slopes. Thursday evening we left fro Kaprun in Austria. The mountain we went boarding on is called the Kitsteinhorn. Its a 3000m high and has a glacier so we knew we would have enough snow. The trip there is quite long though. Its about 11 hours by car. We arrived in 6 in the morning. Quite tired as you would imagine. The other group’s car arrived 2 hours later.

I gave sleeping my best shot but by 9:30 I was wide awake. I just couldn’t wait any longer so I picked up my board and hit the slopes. The experience was incredible. The board was just so great to ride on. Rent boards are beginner boards. That means they are soft and forgiving. The downside is control. Once you start going hard they get jumpy and are next to impossible to keep under control. The board I bought is not the stiffest but its way stiffer then a begginer’s board. And I felt it right away. I had no problem controlling it at speeds which would make me loose balance on beginners board. That’s when I noticed going fast also means going strong, and by strong I mean leg muscles. Oh body did they hurt in the end of the day. The board gives back everything you put into it, but it also demands you put energy into it. I could cruse at low speeds but that just felt like driving a sports car at 50 km/h on a straight road. No fun at all. Later on that day Erwin joined in. He was able to give me a few small tips that immediately improved my cornering control and speed. Its nice to know people in the know .

The rest of the weekend was great. We snowboarded or skied all day, and had fun in the apartment at night. Speaking of which, the apartment was huge. There were the 6 of us sleeping in it but it never felt cramped. Compared to the tiny places you get in France this was a grand palace. It will be hard for me to move back to the tiny France standards next season. Or I could just stick with Austria.

The weather was quite acceptable. We had good snow showers, which led to really great piste and off-piste rides. Unfortunately we also got snow during the day which sometimes led to visibility so low all you could see was white with no texture.

All in all it was a great weekend and lots of fun. My board was all I hoped and more and we all left with a taste for more.