ski stop, austria

Since we were so close, we couldn't resist making a stop in Austria on our way home from Trento. It was dark when we arrived at the guest house on the Brenner pass, and just over the border. We gobbled up an amazing dinner at the restaurant, with big beers, and hunting lodge decor, before moving upstairs to a cozy room with fluffy blankets in the 600 year old guest house. In the morning, we ate breakfast and took took the owner's suggestion to do our skiing just a five minute drive down the road.

We parked and started our skinning up under bright warm sunshine.

Some areas were already quite bare from the Spring-like weather, but we found enough snow to keep moving. Although the sun was warm, there was a strong cool wind as we made our way above the trees. We reached our goal, Trunajoch (2152m) and ducked beside a snow drift to keep out of the wind before descending. There was little base and it was hardened by cold overnight temperatures and wind. The snow condition wasn't great, but the views more than made up for it. 

We stopped at a supermarket for car snacks and for a sunny picnic with a lovely view. Then it was nonstop driving home through beautiful Austrian alps and the familiar highway across Switzerland. 

trento

We spent this week in Trento Italy. Derek attended a conference, and I enjoyed some sunshine and exploring. It was difficult not to make a stop in Chamonix on the sunny drive through, our ski gear was ready in the back of the car, but we traveled on, and ended up needing the extra time to reach our destination. We were happy for a good meal on arrival, and waking to a beautiful sunrise the next morning. The town celebrated carnival on Tuesday with costumes for the kids and giant pots of polenta. We were staying in the hillside, so that evening we walked down to Trento for drinks with the conference group.  

On Wednesday, I found myself a trail and ran up to Monte Calisio (1097m) to enjoy a great overlook of the Trento valley.

When I returned from my run, I had a nice swim in the hotel pool and looked back up at the summit from the patio before joining the tour of Buonconsiglio Castle.

Today was only a half day of conference talks, so I found us a designated ski randonee trail situated on our route up to Austria, and we started our way north. We followed the winding road up to Merano, and started skinning from the ski resort. We followed the marked Kuhleiten route up to the 

Kuhleitenhütte (2361m) where we stopped for a drink. As we enjoyed the view and the quiet from the hut, we noticed that the lifts below had stopped running and the slopes would be empty for the return ski.

As we finished our sunset descent, many tourers were beginning the same route, which is open for night randonee certain evenings. It would have been fun to join the pack going up with headlamps, but we needed to reach our next stop just over the Austrian border, and this fit perfectly into our afternoon.