Austria Part II

A little pillow here, a little pillow there = FUN

After waiting for five days for some fresh snow we finally got some, about 30 cms to be exact. Apparently we had great dumb luck when we choose this valley for our trip, it seems that when a storm from the southwest comes through Austria the Defereggental Valley usually gets the brunt of it. Since the first day of new snow was going to be a cloudy, stormy day we decided to stick to the trees and do the unique experience of tractor skiing. What fun! The tractor has a sleigh attached to haul people up a snow covered road, and most utilize the tractor to reach the restaurant/hut at the top and then go tobaggin sledding down the road. It's pretty awesome when you have fantastic pillow skiing to yourself. At the end of our day we switched it up to the sleds and raced each other to the bottom after having some locally-brewed schnapps and beer, typical Austrian style.

Cody in playland

The next day went blue so we headed up the resort to see what we could find. What we found was avalanches on every aspect all over the valley, and then the wind kicked in as the morning progressed so going up high was completely out of the question. We were able to find a small zone that worked fine (the snow was quite nice), but by the end of the day the avalanche conditions became worse. We completely anticipated this and worked with the conditions accordingly, but when I ended up propogating a substantial slide we decided to call it for the day. No need to put ourselves in anymore danger. That just about sums up our sweet little trip to Austria. Good skiing, good beer and good friends equals great times!

The tractor that gets us up to the goods

I don't mind making powder turns

Cody logging in some airtime

Hmmm... which sled looks the fastest?!

Getting ready for some sledding

Cody bringing out his dorky side, the GoPro cameras have a knack for that

Saucer sledding was a great way to kill downtime

Austria = Beer

Cody making pow turns the Euro way

A quaint little village in a dangerous canyon

As you can see, natural slides eluded no faces

Ben, the cameraman, also enjoying the pow

At the beginning of my slide, you can see it propagating around me

The outcome...

Contemplating our trip. Well... we had a blast!

Austria Part I

Aline Bock checking out our competition venue before our hike up

After leaving Utah, having a day to do my laundry and pack my bags, I found myself on an early flight to Munich with the ultimate destination being Austria. I am here in Austria to film a Salomon Freeski TV webisode, but since it worked out timing wise I left 2 days before the rest of the crew to participate in the Women's 2nd stop of the Freeride World Tour in Fieberbrunn. The competition venue was pretty cool, the women's field was loaded with tons of talent and I was excited to compete for the first time this season. Unfortunately I ended up crashing at the beginning of my run. The snowpack is very thin in Austria and my line accentuated the numerous amounts of rocks just lying beneath the powder. What a bummer! At least I can walk away and chalk it up as a learning experience. Congrats to Ane for laying down a solid run for the win!

View from the start

Later that afternoon the guys picked me up and I was headed to my next Austrian destination, St. Jakob in the Defereggental Valley. Since we definitely need some fresh snow in these parts to get after it, we have spent the last few days exploring and getting our bearings down in this valley. I can't wait for it to snow, which it is suppose to heavily at the end of the week- wahoo!, so we can take advantage of the great terrain offered. I'm with a really fun crew of Cody Townsend, Ben Mullin and Ian Coble, and I'm sure we'll find plenty of things to keep ourselves occupied with in the meantime. Like watching the Olympics live in the restaurants and bars here in St. Jakob, which is so cool. Last night we watched the men's Downhill: every single racer with no commercials and stupid 15 minute bios. Astoundingly we will get the optimum Olympic coverage going half way across the world!

Aline Bock, myself and Ane Enerud enjoying the sun by the judges tent while watching the men

St. Jakob in Defereggental, Austria

Cody and I hamming it up while checking out our surroundings our first day in the Defereggental Valley

Cody making a nice slasher, the snow was not ideal

Apres on the sundeck, very nice...

Ben Mullin, the cinematographer, and Ian Coble, the photographer eyeing the delicious plate of cheese and meats with a side of Schnapps

Julia Mancuso Going for Gold in the Olympics again...

The 2010 Winter Olympics are kicking off this weekend, how exciting?! In honor of Julia Mancuso, a friend who won gold in the last Olympics, I am posting a really cool Team Visa video edit of her. When Cody and I were in Maui this past November, Julia actually showed up for a week and we got to hang out with her a bit. After spending a month there I can completely understand why she heads to Hawaii to train in the off-season. Anyway, I wish Julia the best of luck at the games- Go Jules!

Skiing in Jan/Feb

It was a big congregation out at the Buttes in Tahoe after the big storm broke in late January. There was the TGR crew, a snowboard film crew in addition to me and my pals.

The last few weeks I've been doing lots of snowmobiling, skiing, searching for snow and a little bit of filming. This winter I am working on the female film ski project called "Say My Name" and have found myself in Utah for the past week to meet up with the crew. Utah is definitely hurting for snow this year and still has some pretty bad avalanche conditions, but we still managed to get some work done. It's a unique experience- rarely is there another female involved when doing a film or photo shoot. This week it was Lynsey Dyer and I in front of the cameras. It's been great fun! I'm heading to Austria in a few days but I can't wait to get back and really get after it for this project.

We found this hut in the middle of nowhere and decided to take a break from the cold. Next to me is Wiley Miller and Greg Lindsay

Lynsey Dyer skiing into an air, the zone we were skiing was really small due to the high avy conditions

Lynsey getting shacked in typical Utah pow

A History Lesson in Freeskiing

I absolutely love this new episode of Salomon Freeski TV. We all could use a little brushing up on our freeskiing history and remember our roots...

Come heli-skiing with Cody and I in Girdwood!

This coming March Chugach Powder Guides is hosting an Epic Athlete Experience with Cody and I! I am very excited to have this opportunity. We get to go heli-skiing with clients, not as guides but as athletes. We will be based out of Girdwood and there is a 5 day or 7 day package available. I think Girdwood is one of the best possible situations for heli-skiing for so many reasons. First off, Girdwood is one of the coolest towns in Alaska, with lots of good restaurants (Double Musky here I come!) and interesting people to mingle with. Secondly, if we can't fly we get to go Snowcat skiing. CPG recently opened 500 more acres for cat skiing in addition to upgrading to a new, super posh cat. I actually got to experience this cat skiing last winter. It was a blast and totally worthy! Thirdly, there is Alyeska Resort, one of the best ski resorts in the world, at your disposal for down days as well. But down days in Girdwood with CPG are fairly rare, only once has a group been unable to get in a helicopter in their 13 year history. No other heli-operation in Alaska has it this good! If this is something that interests you click here to view more info on the CODY TOWNSEND & ELYSE SAUGSTAD HELI-SKI EXPERIENCE. Hopefully we'll being seeing you there...

Skiing Squaw

The KT-22 lift line at 8:30 this morning. The line never died due to the fact that the storm picked back up as the day ensued and thus, only the lower mountain was left open.

Squaw Valley has had a pretty good start to the ski season. Luckily the combination of a decent snow pack in Tahoe and a lack of it in other parts of the U.S. has allowed me to stick around the last few weeks. I have been enjoying myself immensely! So, I figured I would post what I have been up to. Last week after we received about 6" of butter up top, I did a morning session of filming with Ingrid and Arne Backstrom with Scott Gaffney behind the lens and Adam Clark as our photographer. It was exciting to get early ups with this crew and get a few lines in on Granite Chief Peak before the public trounced it.
This week Tahoe is being blessed with multiple storms. I think storm skiing is one of the most exciting parts of skiing. I love the fact that you can get fresh-ies lap after lap as the snow just keeps filling in the tracks. As of right now, there is no end in sight of the snowstorms ceasing according to NOAA. Yes!!!

Skiing Patrol Chute. Since it's early season with a low snowpack the chute is more fun because it has more features.

Looking back up at Granite Chief Peak

Gaffney with Patrols Robin and Dan