Up in the Mountains, with Sights Unable to be Seen

Ahhh Austria, what a place to be! It’s weird going from a sunny Italian city into the snow capped mountains of Austria, but hey, we did it! Took a train on Monday after leaving our amazing hostel, and for the next 7 hours we sat, observing the sights all around us. Italy is a very interesting country to travel through, with mountains, valleys, and red roofs everywhere. Some day I will return to my home land and really see the sights, outside of a train.

After quickly buying groceries from some store in Jenbach, Austria, we hopped back on a train which took us 40 minutes away into Mayrhofen, a village in the Zillertal Valley. It mainly consisted of hotels, bars, and restaurants, but we had our own hotel to get to. Sadly, Uber is unavailable in this part of Austria, so we had to take a 40 Euro taxi from Mayrhofen to Madseit, where we found the Alpinhotel Berghaus, our wonderful hotel.

Now, let me tell you, this place was dope. Full kitchen, beautiful balcony, bath robes, and, most importantly, a frickin’ SAUNA. All in the room. While this place may have been designed as a couple’s getaway, Walker and I were living it up. We quickly unpacked our snowboarding gear and proceeded to chill before a long next day.

Woke up around nine, dawned our gear, and went to check-in at the front desk. Hopped on a ski bus, and went directly to the Hintertux base. We bought tickets, picked up our rentals, drank some coffee, and before we knew it we found ourselves 3250 meters up in the air, ready to rumble.

Now, the thing about our ski trip, is that we didn’t pick the best days for good weather. While it was raining around our hotel, at the top of the glacier the sky was pumping out snow. Not only that, but we were practically in a cloud the whole time, so visibility was quite low. Nevertheless, we persevered. We had a shorter day on Tuesday, so we took most of the time to get a feel for the mountain, and make sure we were fully prepared for what lay below us. Otherwise, the snow was darn near perfect, there were few people on the glacier, and we were quite cozy in our gear.

Overall, the ski trip was a success. While there were points where we couldn’t tell where the snow stopped and the sky began, we still had a great time shredding our way down the mountain. There was one close call, where we went down a run with fresh powder up to our waists, only to discover that the run was entirely closed and led to an unreachable part of the mountain. Luckily, we were able to climb our way back to the top and continue our way down the actual runs available. Definitely a scary experience, but hey! We lived. In the end, we were able to eat some delicious food, see some wonderful scenery, and hone our skills in the art of snowboarding. What a fabulous experience!

Tomorrow, we board the night train heading up to Munich, then directly down to Rijeka. Back to Croatia once more! Some Germans we met today were sad we weren’t able to see more of Germany, so I’ll have to come back some day and see what all the fuss is about. I’ll leave you with a picture of Walker and I at the top of the mountain. While you may be able to see some fixtures behind us, if you looked behind the camera all you would see is white.