Skiing, Schnitzel, Schnee, and Sunshine- Ramsau Training Camp

Okay, so I promised that I would write a blog from Austria, but I’m sitting on the plane flying back from Montreal to Munich. That still counts right? We’ll just say that I was too busy soaking up the sheer Austria-ness of one of my favorite places in the world. I've been to Ramsau a few times before in summer and winter for training camps, but somehow it's just as pretty every time I go back. Picture huge jagged peaks rising out of green pastures, and wooded hills dotted with matching chalets. Awesome.

We arrived in Ramsau over 2.5 weeks ago to sketchy conditions on the Dachstein Glacier, where we planned to do our on-snow training. The webcam showed a 3k ribbon of black glacier ice; it was nothing ski-able and the rumor was they needed over 20 cm of new snow in order to groom. Instead of sitting around and twiddling our thumbs, we moved into our rental house in town and hit the hiking trails, rollerskiing, and gym hard. But a little patience paid off, and 3 days later and a few storms up high, we got the news, the trails were open!

The view from our rental house looking towards Schladming,
where they host alpine World Cups in the winter

The team warming up together for an uphill double pole from
Pichl to Ramsau (photo cred Nick Brown)

This workout breaks you down before it builds you up. Double
poling straight up alpine switchbacks, quickly gaining 1200 ft in
elevation. Everyone got stronger and tougher this day

Exploring Silberkarklamm gorge with Kait

Boardwalks and bridges galore

It wasn’t the perfect extra blue conditions or 8k long track from last year (yeah, we got spoiled), but to a skier, it doesn’t really matter. Once you get to feel the sensation of real snow underneath your skis, it’s hard to wipe the smile off your face. However, we knew that there was a really good chance that our weather window wouldn’t last, so every chance we had to ski, we had to take. It made for an exhausting, altitude-filled, and very technique-focused week.

One of the tram cars has a space on top where they let passengers
ride. This was one of the nicest days on up on the glacier!

Bit windy up there...

The other tram coming down while we ascended

Every morning we woke up early in order to load up the vans at our rental house (around 1000m starting elev.) and make the 20 min drive to the base of the tram station (up ~1000m of winding switchbacks). Then for the short tram ride to the glacier (up another ~1000m, if you’re counting, we’re up to almost 9,000 ft. by now!) A few slippery stairs and a slide down the alpine slope, and we were on the track and good to go. Although the track was at most 4k long, everyone agreed that it didn’t get boring quickly. One thing that helped was the groomer’s “creative” cornering technique. Let’s just say he learned to turn the PB on a dime and every downhill was a slide, snowplow, and quick step away from disaster. We got to practice our cornering technique, there was plenty of gradual uphill and downhill to keep the distance easy, and the short loops meant that Pepa was always close by to work technique.

Inspiring training venue

Psyched up to SKI!

Pretty perfect

When we weren't skiing we spent a lot of
time reviewing technique video to make sure
our time on snow was valuable and focused

The 3k loop down below, on the opposite side from where
we skied last year

We shared the trails with World Cup skiers from Russia, Japan,
and Finland. Here I'm working on some one-pole and cruising
alongside a very fast Russian (photo cred Caitlin Patterson)

Exploring the access road above the ski trails. Down below
you can see crevasses throughout the snow field where the
track was last year. Definitely not safe to groom/ski now!

The hut and the surrounding mountains

This girl is always down for an adventure!

Deep crevasses, don't want to get too close to the
edge there!

The top of the tram station on our nicest day of skiing

After 6 glorious days on snow, the temps kept climbing and unfortunately the trails couldn’t take any more melting. They were forced to close again, and this time it would take 30 cm of new to open. Without any real snow in the forecast, at this point we could have been really bummed. After all, we came all the way to Austria to ski and only got 6 days. However, the truth is that any training camp still offers a valuable opportunity to train in a focused environment without the usual distractions of everyday life. Plus Ramsau is ideally situated for dryland training in the valley below- miles upon miles of trails for hiking and running, steep roads for rollerskiing, and a rollerski track which skis like a true ski course.

Off day in Hallstatt with Hallie... normal?

Apparently Halstatt is the most photographed place
in Austria and it's easy to see why!

The church in the main part of Ramsau

Our first long run/hike, climbing up Silberkarklamm
to this gem of a lake

A fun crew made this OD fly by. Also, thanks to Craft for outfitting
us and making us look good!

Ides gets pretty hyped up about mountains

Just follow the arrows..

No such thing as too many panos, right?

Frolicking through the meadow on top of Mt. Sinabell, a peak
which overlooks Ramsau

Planning the next steps.

Mike taking in the view

A bit of accidental rock climbing kept Casey,
Mike and I alert at around 3 hours in

Once we got behind the ridgeline the landscape turned very
moon-like. Very little vegetation up there

2 OD runs, a few strength sessions, and many rollerskis later, I hit my biggest training week of the year and finished the camp feeling satisfied with forward progress, fitter than before, and pretty darn tired! I’m really happy that we got to make the best of the situation and still benefited greatly from the on-snow time that we got. The truth is, any time I get to spend a few weeks playing in the mountains, life is good.

First time rollerskiing up the tram access road, and
credit to Pepa for the awesome picture

Kait and I happy to have made it to the top

Getting through the last days of the camp required
chocolate and coffee, luckily this coffee shop had both!

For our second OD run, the valleys below were completely
socked in, but once we climbed to the ridge we were completely
out of the clouds

Looking back on the pass we came through

Casey, which way do we go?

A bit of via ferrata, this time doing some intentional
rock climbing

The fog kept rising and falling rapidly
from the cliff sides, almost like it was breathing.

Great adventure crew, great last day of camp!

Now that we’re back, it’s time to take a few days off to really soak up all the hard work we did, and then gradually ease back into training. Fall in Vermont is one of my favorite times, and I can’t wait to watch the leaves turn, eat apples straight off the tree, and get back into real life. Auf weidersehen for now!