Servus!
So I am back in Europe! I have been here since the 1st of october and I thought I would wait to blog about my time here till I actually had something to say!
We started our camp in Soelden, Austria. It was absolutely crazy how little snow they had and how warm it was !!! We were only able to ski about a quarter of what we where able to ski the year before! The rest was glacial ice imbedded with ancient dirt! We had to get rental skis to go up the t bar on because it would have absolutely wrecked our skis otherwise! In the afternoons we were able to go and play beach volleyball in tank tops and shorts it was soo warm!! My team mates and I had some great games! This was my first camp back with my team mates. It felt great to be back with them but at the same time I had a hard time at the beginning with how far ahead of me they are. I guess it helps when you haven’t missed 10 months of skiing! They are skiing really well which is great. When they were in New Zealand they were skiing just as fast as the world cup girls...and even beating them. This is great for all of us on the development team because now we know that we can be fast! Now I just need to catch up! It was slightly difficult being in Soelden because of how well I skied there last year. I wanted to ski just like that right off the bat. I had to separate my feelings of how I should be skiing and how I am skiing...not comparing myself and trying to work off what I accomplished in Zermatt instead of trying to achieve what I did last year in Soelden. After 7 days in Soelden we moved to Pitztal.
I was very nervous about going to Pitztal as that is where I tore up my knee last year. We had a day off the first day we were there. The same as the year before. We went for a walk down the valley as it was a beautiful sunny day. Same as we did last year. We were staying in the same hotel as last year. It was starting to feel like deja vu which was really not making me feel great almost as if I was being drawn into a vortex where it would end up the same as last year. Luckily that night there was a wind and snow storm. We were unable to ski the next day. It was really too bad that we weren’t able to take advantage of some time on snow but on the otherhand I was happy that it was different than what it was like last year. I felt relief at the slight difference from last year. We ended up having the next three days off due to the weather which was not great. On our last day we were actually able to get up on the glacier but the snow was too soft to ski gates on. As well the gondola system they have is very inefficient and by 11 30 we had only been able to do 3 runs as the lines were so long for the gondola. Even though we didn’t ski gates there I was actually really glad to go up and be on the glacier.
It made that little nagging feeling in the back of my brain go away! I survived/conquered Pitztal! No need to panic about going there anymore! That felt good! Because of the incredible amount of snow that fell and the prediction that the weather was to remain the same for the rest of the week we decided to bite the bullet and drive to Hamburg in Germany where there is an indoor ski area.
We left right after skiing on wednesday. It is a 9 hour drive ( I am sure it usually takes longer than that as we were averaging 160-180 km/hr in our loaded 12 passenger van!!) It is a good thing autobahns exist! We found out there are areas on the bahn that actually have NO SPEED LIMIT!!! We passed a police car going 170 km/hr and he did not react at all! CRAZY!!! I officially love germany for its roads! We stayed overnight in a place called Hof and continued for the last 4 hours the next day. This is the farthest into Germany I have ever gone. Usually we fly into Frankfurt or Munich and drive immediately into either Switzerland, Italy or Austria. I am actually pretty excited about being near Hamburg. I am hoping we will be able to go look around one day. OUr plan is to have double sessions while we are here in Hamburg. We will ski and then drive back to Munich on Saturday. I think that is is going to be very productive skiing indoors! Lots of runs with good snow! Perfect for someone just returning to gates!
Servus and goodbye!
