pink

There is an alley of pear trees in bloom and when they lose their petals in the wind it looks like snow.

Spandex clad beerguts on roadbikes are back in force, people appear to have woken up from whatever kind of koma they spend the winters in. The teenage girls who hang out in the skatepark to ignore the boys seem happy that it is once again possible to wear that particular combination of low rise jeans and short tops, which allows the nonchalant showing off of ones thong without neccesarily getting pneumonia.

Fat green meadows and the sweet smelling pink obscenities planted to complement the urban tristesse that surfaces sometimes even here, in our sound of music version of a city, make a strange contrast after days spent in stark whiteness.



While corn is nice there is certainly something to be said for the warm sloppy spring storms on the glaciers.



Powder 8s with Kaisa







30.4. Dawnpatrol, Wechnerscharte

Another early, early morning departure from our favourite powerplant.





Skinned up in the shade and decided on a whim to ski down on the sunny side.



Keksie carving thru the blu

The Velvet Underground

Some things require that one get up very early or, depending on where one stands in these matters, very late. Timed to the task at hand, the alarm clock may yield odd looks from those that the bars and clubs have spat out, the ones that are drifting from oblivion towards bed. Every so often we may get a nighttime journey through moonlight and mountains. Sad flightless creatures, living in the shadowy depths of narrow valleys, we are trapped in a two dimensional world of black sky and blacker mountains. Only the clouds, torn shards of glistening silver vapour suspended between one darkness and another give any illusion of depth.

The endless beat that is the radio at four in the morning is replaced by the sound of blood pumping through veins and screaming muscles as the moon sets and the sun rises.





In other words, corn season – bring it on already.











The lovelys





(Vordere Karlesspitze)

Butter

Die Blumen schießen, die Bäume schlagen aus, die Vögel schreien schon in der Früh um fünf. Erste Firntour des Jahres.









Harvest Season



Sand durch die Sanduhr







aka Hochwanner Ostflanke.

Schrankogl

Short skin up Daunscharte from the wonderful LIFTS and then a good 1000 meters of rolling glacier.





Then we skinned again.



For a long while



Through the scenery





of springtime in the Alps.



Random picture of our bad ass crew. L to R: Bad ass telechick fiddling with bad ass telebindings. Manu, Bad ass girlfriend of my Bad ass ski buddy Simon, not pictured. Sylvia, Bad ass mom of Bad ass ski buddy Simon. Jogi, Bad ass mofo and teamriding industry ho. We are all very extreme.



We are not there yet.




Simon’s birthday is coming up. Manu and Sylvia discuss party preparations. It will be a Bad ass party so I tilted the camera.



Everything was fine and dandy for the first 1000 or so meters of skinning, then I got a headache from the sun and a cough fom my cold. At this point we started bootpacking up a ridgeline with 28 false summits. Manu and Sylvia left most of their gear, the others and I carried a lot of heavy shit.

Side note: Not only can I breath only marginally through my nose, my ears haven’t popped for three days. As long as I am more than 2000 meters above sea level, I feel fine. As soon as I leave the mountain an invisible pillow appears around my head and dampens all noise. I can hear myself breath a lot louder than I can hear my roommates talk about the lack of biodegradable trash bags we are currently suffering or my classmates sharing their frustration about our collective inability to calculate the eigenmodes of a hurricane and why is professor W. so fixated on the god damn hurricanes anyway. Please cry me a river.



The cross is to tell you when you are at the top.



Simon looking ike I feel. (Austria is flat and boring.)



We signed the summit register and could finally go home. Jogi, Simon and I skied from the summit. Manu and Sylvia were pissed they had left their skis and had to climb back down the ridge.






After the first northfacing pitch that matched ourselves in radicalness, we had a lot more rolling glaciers and slush and finally a trail full of sled ruts (wooden sleds, not braap sleds). 3000m of skiing and we only climbed about half. HAHAHA.

Looking back:



Someone pointed out to me that I have a sunburn. Oh, you don't say?

Die Hagebutte

Ein Männlein steht im Walde ganz still und stumm,
Es hat von lauter Purpur ein Mäntlein um.
Sagt, wer mag das Männlein sein,
Das da steht im Wald allein
Mit dem purpurroten Mäntelein.









The storms that improved if not saved our touring season. Flieg, Engelchen, flieg!