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Austria

We had a great time in Austria, staying in Kirchberg. From there you have access to all the Kitzbühel slopes, via a fantastic bus and cable car system. It’s not cheap, but you get access to a huge amount of slopes – and that was just sticking to the blue runs.

There were some pretty big empty areas. If you were into off-piste skiing, you could have a pretty good time. Check out the snowed-in place – no idea how you would get to some of these places before spring.

Empty spaces Snowed in

A good idea here – one of the chairlifts had a bubble cover that swung down, providing some respite from the cold. Although the weather was generally good, it was very cold, going as low as -18°C on our last day on the slopes.

Bubble Chairlift

This next shot shows some of how cold it got – that’s ice on the INSIDE of the door in our hotel room.

Ice on the INSIDE of the door

A small river runs through Kirchberg. Suprisingly, given the cold, it wasn’t completely frozen over, although it was frozen in the parts where the water wasn’t flowing as quickly.

River through Kirchberg

These next few photos were taken on our last day, when we got up early, and headed up Hornbahn. We were the first ones up there, so there was a huge emptyexpanse, all to ourselves. Look at the shots of Ronelle coming down the slopes, we were pretty much the only ones there.

Empty slopes Hornbahn Ronelle Ronelle

I quite like this shot. We were about halfway down, the slope went right down to the bottom of the valley. The number 3 ends right in the town. You go right past people’s houses

Ronelle down 3

Right, enough of the snowboarding, time for some Apres-Ski. These next few shots were taken at the Gasthaus at the top of the Gaisberg Toboggan Run. We headed up on the last chairlift run, then had 2.5 hours to kill before the lights came on…so what else could we do?

Apres Ski Apres Ski Apres SkiApres Ski

Of course, that mix of Jagermeisters and tobogganing was always going to result in some casualties…

Casualties

I grabbed this shot on the last day – take a look at those icicles hanging down from the eaves – I’m sure there must be people killed every year by those things falling on them. Some of them looked really mean

Nasty Stalactites