Seefeld Part 2

Skiing Day 2:
After a quick stop at the rental place to switch out boots we still made it to the lifts pretty early. This time it was the largest of the ski areas around the town. One option to get up the mountain is a funicular. It has only one track so it is up to a 15 minute wait for the next one. All of the school holiday folks have arrived and it was very busy. They jam so many people into those compartments, everyone standing with ski gear in tow. It does get up the mountain quickly, but you have to take the skis off and sometimes wait for several minutes. This was not our favorite lift. We had a little trouble figuring out the layout and how to get from one lift to another without getting stuck on an intermediate slope or an uphill area where you have to pole to get across; and the kids have no poles. Katherine started out cautious and slow but soon enough we took her down an intermediate portion of a piste to get to a lift and she did great. It was only after she finished that we told her it was a "red".

After waiting too long for lunch the day before and getting stuck in the busiest time at the restaurant we stopped just before 1PM at a self service place at the top of the mountain. After lunch we explored some more of the pistes and found the run that is also open at night four nights per week. We decided to get some day time practice in before our night skiing in a couple of days. This run was really busy and not as wide as the other slopes during the day. People were flying by non-stop even though Katherine was going much faster than yesterday. At this point David is looking for the little jumps and paths just off of the main course. He is doing so great and really pushing himself without doing anything dumb. He was falling several times but he was under control. Some of the falls are due to the equipment. His bindings are too loose and popping off for no reason.

David was also doing a slalom run several times during the day. It has a fancy starting gate and timers. He did really good at it too. By the last part of the day Katherine was asking to do some of the jumps on the edge of the trail, her decision making was not as good. She was taking some paths with no warning that are just too much for her to handle. The worst part is that she kept doing it, even after talking about making good decisions and telling her that we were tired and just wanted to finish the day without any drama or injuries. She finally complied and we finished out the day with no injuries.

Since we are so close to home we brought a bunch of food with us. Breakfast and dinner has been at the apartment so far. It is nice to get off of the slopes and be able to come back to our apartment and chill for the rest of the day. The weather is so great that the kids and I were sitting outside for a while watching the sun go down.

On Tuesday we have scheduled a rest day to check out the town and get ready for our last two days on the slopes. Man do I need it. Yesterday evening my legs starting cramping up and it was painful. Not as painful as that night when I woke up to pain like I have never felt before. My right thigh was cramping or someone was peeling away muscle fibers one by one, at least that is what it felt like. It was several minutes of extreme pain before it finally went away. The rest of the night was a little tough with more minor cramps. Hopefully a day of rest will help and I will be ready for the second half of the trip.

Rest and Recovery Day:
These kids just want to ski from open to close every day, can't do it. This group really does not sleep late, but we did have an easy morning at the apartment. Around noon we went in to the city center to check things out. It turns out that in addition to the school holiday falling at the same time in every country around it is also Carnival time. On this day there were various parades and musical acts going through the streets with a lot of people around.

We just walked around and shopped and ate lunch around the town.

We wanted the kids to get a little energy out so we walked over to the sporting center to try out the ice skating area. Cindy and I sat out and watched as the kids skated.

The setting is really nice with the old church, the mountains, and the hotels around this area. As many downhill alpine skiers as there are here I think there are as many cross country skiers. This area also had the start and finish of a cross country route so we saw tons of people walking with their gear to do this. Cindy compared the cross country folks to the walkers and runners of Texas. It is just what they do here to stay active and it is less expensive than buying a lift ticket to ski. Cross country is work enough, there are still a lot of people that bypass the mountain lift and walk up the mountain to ski down. We saw this last year skiing in Austria and France too, but I still cannot imagine. Each day skiing we saw several people trekking up the mountain. It is kind of dangerous when you come over the top of a steep hill and see someone there walking up at you. 

All of these pictures are from this area around the sport complex. Katherine used the helper even though she has skated without it recently. She just wanted to use it this time.

We returned back to the apartment for some more rest. David would get in all kinds of positions on the couch playing and watching videos. 

Wednesday morning it was back to the slopes. We woke up to fog covering the village but by the time we got up the mountain we were above the fog and it was breaking up to reveal the dark blue sky that we had seen every other day. The shot was towards the sun into another valley where the fog stayed for a while. The picture turned out kind of cool. All of the pictures were taken with cell phones. We had the big camera but never took it to the mountain.

We had a really good day of skiing on Wednesday. The temperatures were colder the night before and it was not as warm so the snow stayed better longer. That combined with the kids both skiing really well by this point, we covered a lot of kilometers. We also took a really short lunch break because we had food with us that we needed to consume or haul back with us. By late in the afternoon we were worn out again and the snow was getting slushy again so we headed back for the evening. Our skiing was not done for the day however. The kids had their heart set on night skiing. We had an early dinner at the apartment, bundled up and made our way back to the mountain for skiing under the lights.

We got there just a few minutes early and managed to be the first in line for the lift. This was until we figured out that David's day lift pass was interfering with his night lift pass keeping him from getting through the gate. All of the people behind us passed us until we got him through. There we not that many people still so it was no big deal.

We only skied for about half of the three hours. The first run was nice because the snow was freshly groomed. It did not take long for the dropping temperatures and more people to make it not so much fun any more. Most of the people here at night seemed to be there to go fast. There are less people than during the day so they just fly down the mountain. This was not ideal with us being worn out already and Katherine going slow compared to the rest of the people. There was also an area that was exposed to the hot sun all day and now was icing up pretty bad. We had enough and headed back to rest up for the last day.

Thursday morning we had to pack up everything to get out of the room. We were able to leave our luggage in the garage of the apartment while we did a little more skiing. It was once again a beautiful morning and we still managed to make it to the lifts pretty early, even after packing. We did several runs in a row quickly. At this point David is getting really good. Both of the kids started using poles and both like it better with them. At times David and I are splitting up to take some jumps and intermediate slope with more speed. He is looking really good and in control. I can still beat him, but he is getting closer. The problem with this day was that it was so much busier than the other days. The lift lines were so long after the first few runs. We talked the kids into an early lunch break on top of the mountain. Below is the view from the table.

After that the lines were still bad. The kids decided they wanted to ride the short button lift up the short beginner run and do that over and over for a while. Cindy and I claimed a bit of snow behind the safety net to watch for a few minutes. It was great, we could see the kids from the lift all the way to the top of the run and back down. This was us enjoying our break from the skis.

Eventually the main lift line got a bit shorter so we made one more run up the mountain. After that Cindy was done. I ended up taking them up one more time before deciding I was also unable to enjoy further torture to my tired body. Cindy managed to find a great seat at a bar that was still in view of the button lift and slope. The kids went up and down many more times while we got to enjoy the setting. It all came to an end once the afternoon ski school classes took over the button lift. The kids finally agreed that they were ready to be done.

We had no problems getting our skis turned in to the rental shop, packing up our luggage, and heading back to Germany. We actually got out of there a couple of hours before the lifts closed so we beat the traffic back towards Munich for all of the day trippers. I am happy to say that we have all recovered from our soreness after four days plus night skiing. David wants to go again before the winter is over but I think Katherine and Cindy are done. I might have one more overnight trip in mind that may include a night stay on top of the mountain in an igloo. From the feedback I am getting it might just be me and the kids, or maybe just David. We will see soon.