Category Archives: Snowboarding

Stuhleck

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We drove into Semmering at night after a late departure from Budapest. Stuhleck at Spital am Semmering is the highest summit of the Eastern Alps and is the largest ski resort in East Austria. It’s also a very easy three-hour drive from Budapest. That is if your Garmin GPS is working correctly and doesn’t have any trouble guiding you around a closed mountain tunnel pass.  And doesn’t take you up the entire opposite face of the mountain where there are no lights and suspiciously no cars.  And then doesn’t suggest that you try to drive up a utility road with about 2 feet of snow on it.  And then doesn’t suggest you drive all the way down the mountain weaving through hair-pin steep turns, turn around, and then drive up again as the Alps blizzard is doing everything it can to test out those new Audi back-wheel drive quattro power system…

But we eventually made it.  And we didn’t end up in a ditch at the summit of the Eastern Alps. And the moon was so beautiful glowing behind the mountains we were almost able block out the quite perilous situation we were in.  After all, we were going snowboarding in the morning. So it was worth it.

The hotel was snow-covered and pretty much exactly how you would imagine a guest house on the slopes. Outside there was a small pub where on Saturday a brass band was playing as people sipped Austrian wheat beer at the tables and on the sun chairs, and rotisserie chickens sizzled on the open-air spit.

The weather on Friday was amazing. Sun so bright you almost couldn’t feel the freezing temperatures because your skin was too busy filling itself with rays. From the lifts, the trees looked exactly how I would imagine them in ancient, northern forests. These evergreens look hardy, for sure, survivors in temperatures and altitudes where other plant life just can’t make it.

At full speed it would take maybe 30 minutes to get down the mountain from the very top. Though I can’t be sure.  We weren’t going full speed, and we often pulled over to the side to just sit down and admire the view. The light was so bright that my point-and-shoot camera couldn’t discern the sparse cloud-cover for distant snow-covered ranges. But trust me, it’s magnificent.

At almost the top there was a great restaurant where people would stop to eat lunch and have a drink. On Friday we had the daily offer, which I think every single person in that huge venue was also eating:

To our credit we didn’t drink any beer until we made it all the way down. If you are at nice grocer you may be able to get Edelweiss, which is an excellent wheat beer. I’m not a big fan of fancy beers myself, but it was really good. And for Györgyi who is typically Hungarian, therefore a wine-drinker, she said she really enjoyed the Edelweiss. (Though last year when she had it she said it tasted like banana bread, so maybe you shouldn’t take her advice.)

The more I go snowboarding, the more I can understand those people who abandon their office jobs, move to a little ski town, and become a ski or snowboarding bum. Amid the pines and peaks it almost seems reasonable, especially mid-February when the sun feels like a warm, velvet blanket. But for now I’m going to have to be a weekend snowboarder, and try to enjoy any time and peace I do have on the mountain.

Boots & Alps

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In a few hours we’re leaving for Austria’s Eastern Alps. I’ve been hearing amazing things about the resort and I can’t wait to snowboard above the cloud line. [And dutifully write about it as well--ahh the difficulties we traveling travel writers face].

Györgyi bought me an early early birthday present. I just adore Burton’s preppy line.

Now of course I’m going to have to accessorize with a new jacket and board. It wouldn’t be fair to the shoes to mismatch.

We will be staying mid-mountain, so I’m not sure if they will have internet access.  If so, I’ll post a slope report.  Otherwise, pics and stories when we return.

Donovaly

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As I mentioned last week, we spent a few days in Donovaly with our friends Szilvi and Meme.  Donovaly (Dóval in Hungarian) is a small, Slovakian village in the Banská Bystrica Region.  It’s located between the Veľká Fatra and Starohorské vrchy Mountains in the Low Tatras National Park, which lends itself naturally to a very popular ski resort.


The drive to Donovaly from Budapest takes about three hours.  There is some warranted criticisms about Donovaly that it is crowded and full of a too-posh crowd (or–not-friendly-to-Hungarians crowd–though we didn’t experience that attitude at all). And of course, it’s not Austria.  But for a three hour trip through mostly small villages, it’s a nice weekend ski resort.  You could, I would imagine, even just go for the day if you left early enough.  As you can see from the pictures, the weather was ghostly.  That gray haze from the ice and fog didn’t clear the entire trip.

We stayed at DamiSport right at the top of the blue slopes.  It is a 3-star hotel/restaurant/bar/ski rental/ski school.  And actually it was a very nice three-star establishment.  The rooms were lodge-inspired, though with modern shower and electronics amenities.  And free wireless Internet, which even certain five-star hotels don’t offer these days.  For less than 200 Euros we had lodging, breakfast, and dinner for 3 nights. They are also open in the summer and host the wild downhill biker crowd.

Since we are still learning, Donovaly was a good choice for us.  The blue slopes were high enough, though allowed us to spill out toward the untouched sides of the slopes and come down slowly as we practiced.

By the beginning of the week, the crowds weren’t as bad, which of course made it much easier for us.  And actually we did really well.  I can now confidently say that Györgyi  is just as hooked on snowboarding as I am.

Probably one of the best parts of the days spent on the mountain were the time we sat down in the powder to the very side of the slope and just looked into the haze.

As cold as it is out there, you can really work up a heat in all of the gear (since we’re still beginners, we were wearing FULL body armor, like snowboarding football players).  So it was nice to just sit down in the snow and listen to the sounds and look at the snow-logged pines.

And of course, we had some amazing meals and drinks in the most adorable little folk-lodge settings.

I was a big fan of the Urpiner beer, which was the local beer from that region in Slovakia.  Györgyi enjoyed 1 or 2 Becherovkas, which is a bitter made in Czech Republic.

And ONLY because we were getting so much exercise on the mountain, we decided to have a few rather rich meals.  The top selections were from a delicious lunch we had on the second (and third) day.  On the left–Chicken Paprikas with dumplings and cream.  And on the right, (I don’t know what it is officially called, so I will give it a name) dumplings’n cheese with fried bacon.  Seriously.

We had a wonderful time in Slovakia.  The pines were beautiful and the weekday slopes weren’t too crowded.  And for the price, it was really worth the trip there.  (But I hope it won’t be our last snowboarding trip this season.)

Slovakia

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We’re in Szlovakia for a few days on a short snowboarding adventure. The weather here is cold–about -6C and no sunshine, though the constant snow and fast slopes are invigorating. There are tall, amazing pines everywhere and they are pillowed by the most amazing white covering. Today I saw a man nordic-skiing UP the mountain.  Following close behind him was his little Jack Russel terrier. When they reached the top, the man skied down with the Jack following closely and happily behind. I am so happy to be back in this part of the world.

Mountains, Sun, Snow

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gondola_sun

Departure and arrival of mountain gondolas

Since I have lived here, I almost always have done my writing while sitting at a nice, solid and simple Ikea wooden desk, which allows me to gaze out my balcony window and over the thirteenth district’s old European rooftops.  But today I am writing from the couch.  Why?  Because my arms are so sore from snowboarding that I can’t lift them high enough to reach the computer keys on the desk.  But I’m getting ahead of myself.

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At least we felt 100% prepared

Györgyi and I had everything planned for our long weekend at Kreischberg resort in Murau, Austria.  We had our cute snowboarding outfits bought, our helmets, pads, braces, goggles, snowboards, boots and bindings rented, and we had satisfactorily read the prep book and watched the videos on idiot’s guide for learning how to snowboard.  For those of you who have never snowboarded…You. Cannot.  Imagine.  how difficult the first day is.  Nor the amount and kinds of muscles you can strain and pull allll at the same time.

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small Austrian village

We left Budapest early on Thursday morning with Zsolt, Györgyi’s boss, and his fiancé Szilvi.  The trip was really great actually.  After we passed west of Vienna, the landscape  started changing dramatically.  Suddenly there were MOUNTAINS and old castles on remarkably sharp ridges.  And tunnel after tunnel after tunnel as we drove through the mountains.

When we finally made it to the hotel, we found that our room looked right over the lower slopes.  It seemed high and steep from our view, but we learned that what we could see from our balcony was only about 10 percent of the height.  The rest was hidden by the ridge where the gondolas disappear.  In fact, even though we didn’t go to the very top of the mountains that can be snowboarded and skied down (just the part for beginners) it still took us over 10 minutes to ride up the mountain on the gondola.

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The hotel, Relax Resort, is Hungarian owned, and it seemed like the majority of the people there were Hungarians, like in our group.  The Austrian presence was felt, though most strongly when the waiters brought us exactly measured glasses of wine (1/4 or 1/8 liters) and then mistakenly tried to serve some of the guys in our group a single short shot of Jägermeister instead of the more generous, let’s say, Hungarian pour.  The food at breakfast and dinner was all buffet style and for the most part quite delicious.  There was a mixture of Austrian and Hungarian classics, and a wide variety to give plenty of energy for the long day of snowboarding, or as we knew it on the first day, falling down the mountain.

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Szilvi and Andrew with much needed Beer

Now, we didn’t go snowboarding unaided.  We had a really amazing guide, Andrew, who is a snowboard enthusiast and adventure store owner who at times, while you were lying on your back face covered in snow and ice, leaned over you and waxed poetic about his snowboard-as-life philosophy that was quite touching and actually quite motivating.

Andrew discussing fundamentals

Andrew discussing fundamentals

The four women I was in a group with were all beginners like me, and Andrew would hold our hands about 25 meters down the mountain and then run back up and get the next person, waiting on their stomach or backs after falling.

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Here, Andrew is holding both me (just fell) and Brigi

He did this all day long.  I really don’t know how.  And while it only takes him about six minutes to get down the whole lower part of the mountain, it took us over three hours to get just HALF WAY.  Luckily, at the half way point, there is a cute little mountain lodge where you can buy drinks and food and simply rest on a picnic bench, take off your jacket, and relax in the sun before taking the gondola back up for another run.

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Györgyi and mountains

It was much as you would expect the first day to go.  We learned how to stop on our toes and on our heals, which is more about feel than anything else.  After you’ve fallen about a hundred times, I suppose your body just doesn’t want to get hurt anymore and you learn how to stop yourself.  And we eventually did.

I smile and wonder if I will be able to get up again

I smile and wonder if I will be able to get up again

The next day the storms of the first day had subsided and the skies opened in a magnificent burst of sunshine.  Though we could barely walk, lift our arms, lift our legs, or move our necks from side to side, we got back up the mountain and finally learned how to do the S turns.  Once I finally figured it out, Andrew, who was finally able to be on his own snowboard, met me toward the end of the first slope, and held my hands all the way as we zigzagged down to the lodge.  He spoke English well enough for me to understand his instructions, though I especially adored his gleeful shouting go, go, go, go, go, and he pointed me down the mountain in a kind of tandem dance.  Suddenly all of my fear about falling and correcting and perfecting left me.  I’ve always considered myself to be kind of a beach girl.  I love to swim.  I love the ocean.  I love water sports.  But after this weekend, I definitely have a new-found passion for snowboarding and I really hope that I will be able to go again soon.  Once I can lift my arms over my head again, of course.

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Regardless of how well or quickly people caught on, or if they did at all, the experience was absolutely beautiful.  As I stopped every fifty meters or so and sat down on the snow to look out at the panorama, I was astonished by the beauty, exhilarated by the view.  Snow-capped mountains.  Ancient pines.  The modest, almost sleepy town hugging the snow-dusted valley.

The skiers and snowboarders on the mountain in their swaying forms, those just resting in the lodge, others collecting sun on the chairs, and even the guests they brought with them to enjoy the winter rays at the top of the mountain:

This dog had a seriously awesome hat

This dog had a seriously awesome hat

It all made me realize how fortune I am to be here and having these experiences right now.  Not only was I dazzled by the resort and the region, but I feel overwhelming gratitude to Györgyi for inviting me, for the incredible generosity of her company, and for the kindness of her colleagues.

Hovi, Zsolt, me, Györgyi and Andrew

Hovi, Zsolt, me, Györgyi and Andrew

It was truly one of my most favorite winter adventures.