Holzgau 2011

Snow Paradise in Austria 2011

This year I joined the ski-group who opened their skiing season late December. We celebrated Jeroen's birthday and the New Year on the snowy hills of Tirol, in Holzgau in the Lechtal.

One week to enjoy the very nice ski resort of Warth-Schröcken, one week to go for some nice slopes and loads of fun ... except we couldn't quite enjoy every day of skiing due to a couple of very snowy days.

We were able to have some snow fun on the two first days, then it got worse and we even had to stay one whole day downtown in Holzgau because of the storm.

Up on the Salober we heard it was heavy snowing and wind up to 80km/h. So we had some kind of après-ski the whole afternoon at Sigi's place. We played Uno, had fun, changed the rules and even more fun, and continued like that until the evening.

Eventually we managed to go to the ski resort. One day it was still snowing and it is quite exhausting skiing, the other is was a bit better, less snow, less cold and almost, almost less people. One thing was sure, driving up there was always adventurous and very nice.

After New Year there were again a couple of days of heavy snow. But we still managed to get two nice days :)
Monday and Tuesday were sunny and clear. Time for everyone to get up early again and enjoy the slopes.




Unfortunately, 95% of the Lechtal had the same idea :P
Was resulted on very, very dense tracks. Loads of people, too many newbies, too many schools and so on. But, wonderful landscapes, great air, full sunshine :) Snow Paradise!

Like two years ago we again had some evenings of high gastronomic pleasures. The "Chateaubriand" from Hotel Bären; a meat, vegetables, fruit and fries fest! (with whom we had an amazingly good Pinot Noir btw)
We also went to the Fisch Stübe where we ate some trout. I was wondering what to eat as I don't like trout. But following the general advise I gave it a try. And it was worth every bite!
The trick is: wild water trout is good, lake trout is bad (shortly explained).


We left Tirol on Wednesday January 4 in light snow showers and heard it was supposed to snow harder the day after. It was right on time because that whole part of Tirol (as well as some other regions in France, Germany, ...) got completely cut out from the world some days later. Such heavy snow storms that even the webcams of Holzgau, Warth and the Salober were under snowed!

But I'll keep this beautiful image of our last trip down the mountain:

(more pictures here: Holzgau 2011)