I must admit, I’d always wondered what on earth possessed folks to travel up hill in winter when all the fun, as far as I was concerned was in zooming down. Full disclosure, I’m not that keen on skiing really, snowboarding is my addiction and how many of us do you see ever going up hill? Well, as fate would have it, Santa bought me some snowshoes this Christmas and having been tempted by a fellow snowboarder of how much virgin powder awaited, I strapped my snowboard to an old backpack, strapped on my snowshoes and headed into the hills! For my first adventure I followed what would be a walking trail in summer with my snowboarding buddy, even though he had turned to the dark side that day and was ski touring. This turned out to be a blessing as it meant the tracks I followed were semi compacted, so I didn’t sink through the otherwise waste deep champagne powder.
After a steady but beautiful climb up taking in the scenery, stunning views and the peacefulness and calming effect of the snow covered landscape, we reached the down section and began our floaty descent combining forest tracks, closed/abandoned pistes, farmer’s fields and even snow topped roads before reaching the valley floor for a well deserved beer. It was a great day out and I instantly knew I’d found a new aspect to my addiction, and whilst the descent was great fun, it was really enjoyable going up too.
Is that the right way? It was…
…and well worth it 🙂
As the forest cleared, the views began to appear
The ascent was over! Our lunch spot with a view from the Predigstuhl and a powder field to snowboard back down!
