Mountain Time!

As the weekend approached, we decided we were ready for some mountain time.  After a handful of big European towns in succession (Venice, Munich, Salzburg) we were ready to escape the city.  We discussed a hut-to-hut trek, but many of the high alpine huts close in October and we wanted more of a base-camp... the deal was sealed when I discovered an open ski area outside of the town called Mayrhofen in the Zillertal valley.

Our first night in Mayrhofen we accidentally stumbled into a restaurant that was above our normal budget range.  Instead of bailing we decided to indulge in some good Austrian Alp food.  A very worthy splurge.  I had venison medallions and Shannon had a local beef specialty.

The next morning the weather looked good so we headed to the Hintertux Glacier area for skiing.  The glacier tram system tops out at over 10,000 feet and we were staying around 2,500 feet.  There is a LOT of vertical relief in the Alps.  The skiing was fantastic with almost 24 km of trails open and groomed (in OCTOBER!).

Some quick ski cultural observations:

-In the US we have green/blue/black ski levels of difficulty.  Here they have blue/red/black (in that order, blues are easy, red is intermediate).  We found the difficulty to be similar to the US.

-They groomed mid-day here which was appreciated.

-They are serious about skiing and racing.  The terrain leads to the racing bias, open alpine terrain with good grooming = speed.

-We rode only t-bars and gondolas.  In the winter I think they use more chairs at the other lower elevation (less-prone to storm) resorts.

-We rented equipment and it was (by far) the nicest rental equipment either of us has used and we didn't pay extra for the performance stuff.

-Apres ski culture seems very high energy with bumping music and vibes.

-Apfel strudel with lunch = Success.