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hike2ride hochkar, 13.03.2011

on sunday, we decided that we would try to find decent snow somewhere near our home.
since we knew that the conditions were pretty bad in the semmering region, we thought that our only option would be to drive to the west and try our luck at the hochkar.

when we arrived, we were sceptical if that was a good idea – down in the valley everything was green (well, brown) already. i was already pretty bummed, but we still wanted to see for ourselves if there was enough snow for a small tour or not.
so we went up to the top of the leckerplan chairlift and checked out the schmalzmauer from there… it looked pretty okay, so we repacked our stuff and started to hike.

hochkar
hiking…

we hiked along the ridge, where we were able to enjoy wonderful views of the mountains surrounding the hochkar. as if this had not been enough, when we arrived at the peak and started our descend, we noticed that there was still enough snow and that it was not hard or icy at all, it was rather soft :)

hochkar
guido.

hochkar
roman.

hochkar
guido and roman.

hochkar
proof that i was there too ;)

it was a great feeling to hike up a mountain and ride down again – nothing beats this. it always feels like having accomplished something big.
i’m really thankful that we have such great landscapes in austria, within the range of a short drive by car.

this might have been the last freeriding adventure this season :(
a great goodbye to a great winter!

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freeride experience zell am see, 03.03.2011 – 06.03.2011

on thursday, the 3rd of march 2011, we drove to zell am see in salzburg to attend a freeride experience weekend there.
we arrived in the afternoon, checked into our room in thumersbach (right across the zeller lake) and then visited zell am see. we went to see the la resistance shop and randomly ran into sepp, who we know from wakeboarding, there. he spent his winter season in zell am see and works at the la resistance shop. we chatted for a while and then left to get something to eat.
afterwards, at 8pm, we met up with the other group members in the lohninghof, right next to our hotel room.
we were quite suprised at how big the group was. the guides bengt and gerry went from table to table to talk to everyone and see if anyone was missing. they also told us about the plans for the next days and when we would start on friday.

so, friday, 8:30 am it was. we met up in front of the lohninghof, jumped into the vw busses that were our taxis and went to a sports shop in zell am see. the skiers received their rental equipment there, aswell as avalanche beacons, shovels and probes.
at about 10 am we arrived in saalbach hinterglemm. the sun was shining and everyone was looking forward to the first day of freeriding. we got split into 3 groups with 7 to 8 people. our guide was gerry.
we started with some runs next to the slopes to warm up.
afterwards, we hiked up to the peak next to the chairlift. this took us about 30 minutes, then we had a short break at the peak. we proceeded to ride down from the peak.
next up was another short hike. this time, we didn’t hike up to a peak, we just crossed over for a bit and then did an awesome run down to lengau.
the snow was a bit wet and heavy, but still it was way better than expected!
when we arrived down in the valley, we had to push out to the next village for about 5 kilometers. we were all pretty exhausted after that, so we decided to take it slow and have a drink and something to eat.
after that, we went back to zell am see (thumersbach). in the evening, we met up in the lohninghof for dinner. i had wonderful spinach dumplings… nomnomnom!

freeride experience 2011
first lines. well, OUR first lines ;) everything was rather tracked already!


saturday, 8:30 am. we met up in front of the lohninghof and went to the kitzsteinhorn.
i was expecting to find a bit more fresh powder there, i have to admit. i was a bit sad to see that all the freeride routes (they have 5 which are avalanche safe) already had been ridden a lot.
but no need to worry! gerry knew where we had to go to find fresh pow. we hiked a bit and then – booooom – there it was! a wonderful ride down from the kitzsteinhorn to niedernsill, lots of untracked, cold snow… it couldn’t have been any better!

freeride experience 2011

freeride experience 2011
beautiful!

on sunday, we went to saalbach-hinterglemm again.
we went up with the zwöflerkogel gondola again. then we also took the seekar t-bar to the top, just like on friday.
this time though, we didn’t just hike a short bit, we hiked about an hour to reach another peak. the skiers put on their skins, roman and me simply walked (without snowshoes, there was no real need for them).
we were lucky and found a bit of powder on our run down to lengau again.

freeride experience 2011
hiking.

all in all, it was a great experience. we didn’t expect to find any powder at all, due to the enormous lack of snow this winter, but thanks to our guide the 3 days went totally different than we had feared ;)

more pictures can be found here
a video is still in the works!

-> http://www.la-resistance.at/
-> http://www.freeride-experience.at/

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longboard citytour 3/2011 vienna

on the 19th of march i received a speed demons complete longboard for my birthday. thanks to roman! i decided to take part in the longboard citytour right on the next day, to try out my new board and learn how to ride.

the guys from bomben.at produced a video which also includes me! :)

check it out, let’s see if you can spot me!

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ötscher tour, 27.02.2011

finally we were able to hike up and RIDE (not hike, like the last time) down! :) we were pretty happy about that!
we arrived in lackenhof at about 12:30 am (rather late), packed our gear and then took the chairlift up the großer ötscher.
from the top station of the chairlift, we started to hike upwards to the peak. this took us about 1,5 hours (480 meters difference in altitude). we came to the conclusion, that it would be a good idea to invest in splitboards, because carrying about 10 kilograms of gear on your back when hiking upwards for 1,5 hours is not exactly the nicest thing to do ;)

the weather was fine. in the beginning, it was sunny, later on it got cloudy and a bit foggy – thankfully not too much, it didn’t affect the sight.
when we arrived at the peak, we took a short break to drink something, change our clothes, repack the backpacks and take a snapshot as proof that we made it to the peak.
funnily, roman met a couple that he knew up there… the world’s very small obviously!

ötscher
prooooof!

 

after about 15 minutes, we were ready to start the descent. we traversed to the left (west) for a while, the snow up there was rather hard and icy, since the peak is pretty exposed to the wind. a bit further down, we got into the fürstenplan couloir and found soft, but wet snow there. the conditions were pretty good, we were expecting them to be much worse. we really enjoyed ourselves in the slushy snow.

towards the end of the run, we had to pass through the woods. we couldn’t avoid carrying the boards and walking, since there were so many stones visible.
after about 30 minutes, we reached the black slope and rode down to the parking lot. that was it – our first proper snowshoeing / freeriding tour! we were very stoked on that… also, we were happy that we were not really exhausted after this trip. obviously, leading a more active life really changes things, builds up stamina and strength!

for more pictures, click here! there’s a slideshow with all pics!

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freeriding the “stoa”… krippenstein!

on january 3rd and 4th, roman, his co-worker guido and a friend of guido, markus, went freeriding on the famous krippenstein in upper austria. we booked a guide at outdoor leadership and met up with him (klaus) in the morning of the 3rd of january at the krippenstein gondola.

we were quite lucky with the weather, as it was pretty sunny and not too cold or windy, but still there had been a big lack of snow, like nearly everywhere in the austrian part of the alps. it’s not exactly a good winter so far.
nevertheless, we were able to do some awesome runs down to the valley. they were rather challenging, especially the bridge that we had to cross at the end of some runs. we also hiked a lot, so we were able to see a lot of the possible routes.
on the second day, klaus practised searching for avalanche victims with us. while this was not new to roman, guido and me, it still was very good to practise it again and refresh the knowledge. practise makes perfect! :)

in the evenings, we all were exhausted! after the second day of riding, everyone was pretty happy and we were smiling a lot. thankfully, we had booked very nice rooms with great hosts, so we were able to relax perfectly. we stayed at the haus rye in obertraun.

krippenstein.
klaus explaining the heilbronner kreuz (a school class from heilbronn in germany got lost on the mountain in the year 1954, they all died and the cross was built as a reminder of that tragedy).

click here to see a slideshow with pictures from the two days.

-> http://www.krippenstein.com/
-> http://www.outdoor-leadership.com/

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hike2ride… or rather hike2hike.

today, roman and me went on our first proper snowshoe trip all on our own.

for preparation, we bought avalanche rescue sets and snowshoes, aswell as lots of books on avalanche awareness and skitouring. also, we took part in an SAAC avalanche awareness camp in westendorf, tyrol, and tried to learn as much about avalanche dangers and route planning as possible.
we checked the avalanche report in the morning and studied the route that we wanted to follow. we were lucky, the avalanche danger was only rated a 1 out of 5, so touring was possible.
after a proper breakfast, we packed all of our gear in my car and made our way to mariensee, about an hour from vienna.

when we got there, the weather was fine and we were looking forward to our little trip. sadly, there was not much snow…
we went up with the chairlift and then put our snowshoes on.

snowshoeing is fun!
(un)packing the snowshoe gear

we snowshoed to the west over the “steinerne stiege” for about an hour, then we reached a plateau and decided to rest a bit there. ah, that sandwich was delicious ;)

snowshoeing is fun!
snowshoeing is fun!
snowshoeing is fun!

we had to notice that it was not possible at all to ride down to the valley, due to the lack of snow, so we had to turn around and go back to our starting point. that was a bit of a bummer, but nevertheless, the trip was great fun. i’m sure we’ll go on a lot of snowshoe trips in the future, but hopefully we will be able to hike2ride instead of only hike2hike ;)

snowshoeing is fun!
roman being a gentleman and carrying my snowshoes for me ;)

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yeah zine issue #2

i recently received a copy of yeah zine’s issue number 2. the envelope also included stickers and a button.
thanks to angie marino!

i really enjoyed reading it. it was an honor for me to be featured in it, even with 2 stories!
one story is about mizzi, the other story is about our 3 weeks camping trip through europe.

here are snapshots of the pages:

yeah zine issue #2yeah zine issue #2

-> make sure to check out the yeah zine website! http://yeahzine.blogspot.com/

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fatbmx girls week – featuring me.

biarritzbmx

fatbmx.com is one of the leading bmx websites out there. i was very honored when bart de jong asked me if i would like to fill out the fat favourites list for the girls week. the girls week is taking place from december 1st until december 7th and all news entries on the site are about girls. the site design has been changed to a pink theme ;)

-> check out the fatbmx.com website for my fat favs