Today, I spent much time thinking of Helmut Von Moltke and Mike Tyson. The former, a Prussian general, said "no plan survives contact with the enemy." The latter said: "everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face." The skiing equivalent is that one can have a plan for the ski day, but it often does not survive contact with the snow and with the conditions.
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| Even looking away from the mountains, Lech is pretty |
- I couldn't retrace my steps on the second half of the White Ring. I wanted to try it again with better visibility and fresh snow, but the lifts to that area and within that area were all closed.
- The lift lines were longer and they don't set up long queues here, so a large mob has to merge into lines of four or six. I didn't have to wait too long, but I am spoiled by my experiences this year.
- The slopes had more traffic--instead of being distributed all over the mountain, the crowds were all in the same places. Which made me a bit nervous as my ability to stop was impinged by the spring snow.
Which means I am now a bit conflicted about next year--with another three months in Berlin for my second half of the Humboldt experience, I will definitely ski some Alps again. But the question will be whether to try this area again and enjoy it more as it will be earlier with hopefully better conditions and with much greater local knowledge or try Italy, Switzerland, France, Germany, Slovenia (?), or some other part of Austria. Due to the overabundance of German (Franconian) food last week and Austrian food this week, the decision next year might be driven by culinary factors (Italy!).
I ranked my fave ski days and areas after the Japan trip. I don't really have to revise the former list, as I enjoyed myself but not as much as I did on those key days. A large part of that is that I do enjoy skiing with other folks, and I was solo this time. No ski buddy in the Austrian Alps.
Re the top places I have ever skied, I think this place--Zurs/Lech/Zug/etc fit in at 5th.
- Whistler and it remains not so close
- Niseko---just so much fun terrain including widely spaced trees and shrubs and a great gully and fun steeps.
- Lake Louise
- Copper
- Alberg Austrian Alps
- Alta
- Sunshine
- Rusutsu
- Jay Peak
- Tremblant
Why? It has a heap of terrain, which is great. Not much in the way of tree skiing as most of the places are above the tree line. The hard pack meant that I did not go off-piste much, and there is a lot of great terrain off of the groomed trails, but not for me this time. The White Ring and other versions of it are pretty special. But with such flat light and mixed snow, it got into my head so that I couldn't it enjoy as much as I would have liked. I have enjoyed my trips to Whistler and Lake Louise in part because of I have a good understanding of those places--where to ski, where to avoid. Here, I didn't have to avoid bumps much, but I did get stuck in some flat areas akin to Sunshine
, and I only developed a sense of preferable runs when... they were all inaccessible. Oh, and Niseko has this place beat in terms of food options as well. And, no, no souvenirs because they don't have souvenir shops here, and the t-shirts cost 80 euros. One last big complaint: they need better trail maps because every single map--on the app, printed out, the big signs at the ski areas insisted on having all of the different areas on the same map. Which meant the scale was wrong, and it was hard to distinguish trails from each other.
I have no regrets as I had a good time and my body survived the experience. I wish the conditions were better and the maps were a little more helpful, but I had fun even as I flopped around far more than usual. My one fall today was trying to stop at a restaurant near the top end of a chairlift. I just laughed.
And here is a shot of the Lech ski area from inside that restaurant
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