2021 - 2022 Far West Skier's Guide - 51

having fallen asleep at the breakfast table.
Time and the wizard, however, wait for
no man. With the morning sun already
brightly illuminating the upper slopes, our
leader arrived at the predetermined time of
8:30. Jonas was hung over, while Phil was still
drunk. Alex showed no mercy for the irresponsibility
of youth, and took us immediately
to an untouched variation of our descent over
the Gaislachsee of the previous morning.
Jonas showed surprising resilience, and
rose to the occasion, but Phil was on autopilot,
and even that was malfunctioning. He
looked like a skiing version of a drunkard
weaving unsteadily home in the wee hours.
He stumbled and bumbled his way through
the initial couloir with a series of hip-check
turns, in which he landed on his uphill ski
and sat down after every other attempt.
The rest of us enjoyed another long run
in the powder, albeit not the full 1600 vertical
meters of the day before. The strong sun of
the previous day made it impossible to ski all
the way to Bodenegg, so we traversed back to
civilization, finishing the run at the Gaislachalm.
Alex
now wanted to show us some of
the skiing up on the glaciers. The Rettenbach
and Tiefenbach Glaciers are just two of the
86 glaciers in the Ötztal Alps. Now, with a
bounty of snow everywhere, we hardly
needed these two glaciers, but in some of the
recent lean years - a result of climate change
- it is these glaciers that have turned Sölden
into one of the most snow secure and popular
resorts in Austria.
Some of the pistes on the glaciers are relatively
easy cruisers, typical of glacier skiing,
but the front face of the Rettenbach Glacier
is rather steep, and there are some good mogul
runs as well. In addition, there was still untouched
powder along the periphery of the
pistes, and our sorcerer led us on a few frolics
in freshies to the side of the Rettenbachjoch
chair.
With a grin, he pointed out where, on
some future visit, he could lead us over some
wild terrain, from here into the neighboring
Pitztal. Then we skied below the glacier lifts,
between a few rocks, and before us once again
lay massive stretches of totally untouched
north faces that feed into the Rettenbachtal.
By now, even Phil was back in the land of the
living, and this was a magical finish to
another day with the Wizard of Ötz.
We sat in the cozy Stüberl of the Cafe
Elizabeth in the hamlet of Innerwald with our
obligatory after-ski beer, when Alex suggested
a ski tour for the next day. Phil's hand was
still shaking unsteadily, trying to direct his
glass to his mouth, and he decided on the spot
for an extremely early and sober night.
The following morning, we made our
way to the entry to the Pollestal, a valley the
size of some small countries. The dimensions
of the valley were mind-boggling. The solitude
was magnificent. The snow on the first
pitches was less than perfect, however, for the
wind had played with it the night before, leaving
us to struggle with a long string of jump
turns in wind crust, down the 35-40 degree
slopes. The more protected lower regions
again offered the same type of light powder
we had skied all week, a much-appreciated reward,
before we trudged out the valley for
another 90 minutes. We eventually ended up
on a forestry road, and at long last, we
emerged at the Sattelalm, a hut usually used
for sledding parties. From there, three kilometers
along the sledding road and another
kilometer or so along the cross-country track
brought us to the village of Huben, a short bus
ride from Sölden. The indefatigable Alex
looked as if he could do the whole excursion
over again right away, but the rest of us were
inevitably going to miss yet another evening
of nightlife due to utter fatigue and exhaustion.
The
next day saw us back on Alex's beloved
Gaislachkogl. We spent virtually the
whole day yo-yoing up and down between the
peak and the Rettenbachtal, still skiing virgin
north faces until the lifts closed. I was
amazed. It was now the fourth full day since
the last snowfall. In Chamonix, one would
have had to race 50 ski bums to these slopes
on the first morning for the honor of first
tracks. In Verbier, it would have been a cardinal
sin against the ski bum bible to leave such
slopes virginal for longer than one hour.
In
St. Anton, these pitches would have been
mogul fields by day two. In Sölden, however,
the masses of virgin snow on all sides of the
Gaislachkogl seemed to be the exclusive domain
of Alexander the Great and whoever his
lucky followers happened to be.
We had now spent five full days in Alex's
fiefdom, we had made more powder turns
than many people make in a whole season,
and we had nary crossed a set of tracks. Yet,
on our final day, our magician had one last
card up his sleeve.
We still had hardly touched the most
popular part of the lift system, the huge Giggijoch
area, and Alex told us to meet there on
our last day.
The upper mountain here is
made up of wide highways of corduroy divided
into blue and red pistes, where the majority
of Sölden's guests cruise around to their
heart's content.
With the consecutive days of warm
weather, the south and east faces of the Giggijoch
had time to transform into corn snow
by now. We traversed high off the top of the
Hainbachjoch, and slithered a smooth, silky
trail into the spring corn. If one traversed far
enough, these slopes also were unblemished
by ski tracks.
Soon, we moved over to the east faces
where we had laid first tracks almost a week
earlier on our first afternoon. Here, too, the
corn snow glistened provocatively in the sun.
Our old powder tracks were still etched in the
mountainside, but they could be avoided.
Where we had almost a week earlier linked
tight powder turns, we now swooped down
the mountain in wide sweeping arcs, spraying
corn kernels off our skis like a hailstorm of
ball bearings.
We had, by now, come full circle. We
had been led by our pathfinder from one end
of the Ötztal Arena to the other, from the Ventertal
to Hochsölden, and then some. We had
skied the trees, the chutes, and the wide-open
spaces, and we had experienced waist deep
powder and sparkling corn.
My tale has now virtually come to an
end. I am quite sure I have lost some disbelievers
along the way. Other readers have,
perhaps, read this far, but categorize these
pages as pure fantasy.
But, before passing
final judgment on the viability, reliability, and
credence of this story, do yourself a favor. Call
the Wizard of Ötz, at +43-664-3696027 and
book a week of skiing with him for next season.
Go
to Ötz, and meet the sorcerer in the
flesh, in his magic domain where reality and
fantasy sometimes meet in a surrealistic fusion
of fact and fiction. Let him lead you to
where the snow is so deep and fluffy, you
seem to be skiing on clouds. Allow him to
show you an endless dance floor of pristine
corn kernels that allow your skis to take on
the characteristics of Fred Astaire's shoes.
Let him guide you to that distant spot on the
horizon where virgin white meets infinite
blue, a boundless valley lies stretched out before
you, and the only thing that stands between
you and paradise is your ability to
believe.
*Alexander Giacomelli can also be reached
at giaco@spd.at. ss
Far West Skier's Guide 2O21 - 2O22
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2021 - 2022 Far West Skier's Guide

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