 Poster: A snowHead
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The Eisfall at St Anton may be short, but is pretty steep. No idea of the angle. Some of the Schindlar chutes are both steep and narrow. Do these count as runs?
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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| ulmerhutte wrote: |
| The Eisfall at St Anton may be short, but is pretty steep. No idea of the angle. Some of the Schindlar chutes are both steep and narrow. Do these count as runs? |
who cares 
So much great terrain at St Anton - it's a place I will keep returning to
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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| Quote: |
Seems like a totally pointless "mines bigger than yours" thread - why is it that people seem to justify their skiing experience in surviving steep runs?
Who gives a tinker's cuss where the steepest slope is or which resort has more kilometres/lifts/reds/blacks etc. Most people can't ski them all in style in all conditions nor can they enjoy all the runs in the normal TO week. Get real please. We ski to enjoy ourselves, don't we in a magnificent environment, awe-inspired by the beauty of the winter landscapes, or do most of you prefer the rush hour back down to Les Menuires - Reberty?
But then it all goes back to the "how high can you p** up the wall" mentality that some little boys discover and then endlessly re-invent throughout their lives.
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Samerberg Sue, The reason for my question was that I love skiing in Austria more than the other alpine nations and I wanted to discover peoples opinions as to where there is challenging skiing in the country which I may have missed or not know about in the first palce. Some skiers like to challenge themselves and that's one of the contributing factors to THEIR enjoyment of THEIR holiday, which IMHO is absoultely fine. Others like to take in the view and be awe inspired by the beauty of the winter landscapes, which is also absolutely fine. It would be my guess than many skiers actually like a combination of both.... Why not ski the hardest runs in the resort for part of your holiday if thats what floates your boat? What's the point in the LIFT CO spending all that time and effort marking and patrolling these runs and all that money building lifts to transport people up to the top of them if skiers just turn round and say "oh I'm not going to ski this cos I can't do it in perfect carved turns and Samerberg Sue will think I'm an idiot cos I can't ski it on sheet ice whilst maintaining the illusion that I'm a local instructor... nope.. I'll go and have a hot chocolate at the bottom of blue twelve then take some more photos of a snow covered mountain instead, to go with all the other photos of snow covered mountains I've got from previous trips"
Forgive me if I've missed the point but I understood that the idea of a snowsports forum is that it gives people the opportunity to share experiences and opinions and to gather information as to new resorts / runs / equipment they may like to try to enhance their enjoyment of their one or two weeks a year on the snow. If a particular thread is not to somebodys tatse then there's no obligation to (a) read it; or (b) 'contribute' to it and there's certainly no reason to dismiss it in such a bigoted manner because it holds no interest for you? Try doing what many others are able to do, and just move along to a thread to which you have a useful contribution to make ( or at least something other readers may find amusing  even if its not relevant).
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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moffatross, I agree that (perhaps predictably!) the thread went "off subject" but I do feel that I asked a perfectly genuine and reasonable question and got several perfectly relevant and helpful answers, plus one or two quite amusing ones..
It's sometimes not easy to search the forums for threads which are absolutely relevant to your question, and when it's a widely covered topic this becomes ever harder. It's fine saying that some topics have been 'done to death' but if forum users don't want to contribute to them for the nth time then simply don't bother..... if they're bored of a particular topic then why not just move one to one which holds their interest rather than be negative about it because it's been covered before several times... .... As an aside, it seems that no matter how many times these topics come up they always seem to generate plenty of responses and interest from people who do want to contribute in a constructive manner...
I guess I'm saying that if people have got nothing constructive (or amusing!) to say then why bother saying anything at all .....If someone doesn't like the thread "toughest slopes in Austria" then go and find something of interest like "where do u get the best hot chocolate" or "what's the best view in the alps".... Like everyone else the user in question is quite entitled to an opinion but perhaps if she'd started a thread called "Are all men testosterone fuelled little boys who never grew up" or something like that, then anyone with an interest in such a thread could have their rant?
The thread may well be "pointless" to Samerberg Sue but it's not to many other users and I fail to see why she felt the need to rant about it with a series of sweeping generalisations... Would it not be better to go and find a thread which doesn't deem so pointless and is leave those who do have an interest in tough pistes in Austria to discuss them?
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As Apres ski in Austria is bestest, even if you didn't ski the gnarliest line in the history of skiing your audience at the bar is likely to be more tanked up and believe you did. (even if you didn't actually ski it because it was too icy and decided to have a Germknödel with lashings of vanilla sauce instead while sat on a deckchair in the sun.)
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DB, 
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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SnowGod, my my aren't we touchy.
You completely misread the situation Snowgod, and in a sense have proved my inadvertent point. I was being irreverent, not scathing, but then irony is supposedly a dying art along with the English language. Mine was not a "rant" as you call it, I was poking fun at those testosterone driven individuals who seek to say one place is better than all the others because of some perceived advantage or maybe a bad experience elsewhere.
The thread was developing into a mines bigger than yours which was not the original purpose. I hate all this comparison and my resort/country is better/bigger etc. The comparisons that seem to go one endlessly between which is better France or Austria, Europe or North America etc. And they are truly pointless as you are not comparing like with like.
The exchange of info is what this is all about. I have not skied France for several years so I offer no opinions there. I worked as an instructor for 10 years there before moving to Austria, but that was quite a while back.
I take my skiing seriously but I also want to have fun. Currently I ski a small area with maybe 14 lifts and no runs longer than a couple of kilometres or so. Why, because it is cheap and it's fun and I'm coming back from major surgery on my knees. I also have the luxury of being able to go at the drop of a hat to where ever I want in Europe. which is exactly what I'm going to do from Thursday of this week for 14 days.
St Anton is my Mecca when I'm fit as mentioned here already. Chamonix is also interesting and has lots of runs I would prefer not to do any longer but had great fun doing while at the ESF training school there. Schladming has some super steep runs and drop offs, if you know where to find them, as do other corners of the Ski Amadé region. I was investigating some interesting looking steeps in the area around the Großglöckner (Heiligenblut/Mallnitz/Kals/Matrei areas) this summer, but as yet I do not know them personally. Look at these areas if you want steep and interesting runs only in Austria. The Carinthia area had superb early snow this year with regular heavy dumps throughout late November through to January, when the rest of Austria was luckily cold but not getting quite so much. I believe that the deepest snow (4m or so) is still in this province. Another advantage is that few TOs have gone in yet to spoil the set-up by driving the margins for the locals down while raking off a huge profit for themselves.
A very hugely exciting and interesting steep run is the Canalone in Madesimo - I did a few times in the early 80s along with several other long steep runs from the top of the resort. That whole area along the Italian/Austrian/Swiss borders has lots of fascinating small resorts with loads of steep runs. And the villages and towns are all pretty well the same as your quintessential Austrian resort, and mostly speaking German of some kind or another, as well as Italian.
Maybe I have given you some food for thought.
Sorry for causing you offence but humour is normally not taken as being impolite. Whereas your response could well be.
Sue
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I like pissing contests. More fun than the day to day trudge of the rat race. Any small victory is a chink of light in the ever growing and suffocating darkness of western culture. I love Mondays!
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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You know it makes sense.
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| skiking4 wrote: |
There was a level 3/4 avalanche risk but you can $@&! that.
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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Poster: A snowHead
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SnowGod, well actually you did: "steepest black piste? toughest ski route?". My point is that by this you are restricting yourself. To many of us, pistes (even black, or "ski routes") are primarily there to get you to the good stuff. If you open things up to unmarked off-piste the question is meaningless, as I'm sure there will be plenty of slopes moonlighting as cliffs in Austria (or France, or Switzerland, or France, or Scotland, or....) that you could try skiing - just the once .
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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Markus, we had beacons and transceivers (also shovels on the second day-- left them in the hotel on the first), cell phones with patrol on the quick call thing, etc. in a group of 3. So we weren't helpless if an avalanche happened and plus, we were skiing where other people had skied or were skiing. Such as the bowls near lifts or liftlines.
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
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skiking4, its not my place to judge, but the comment "There was a level 3/4 avalanche risk but you can $@&! that" is downright ridiculous.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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I found the black runs at Saalbach Hinterglemm just the same as the black runs I have skiied in Scotland, France, Spain, Switzerland - some are a little steep and some are quite steep. Nothing has sacred me though
NB I've been down Harrier, Glas Maol black, West Wall, Flight, Nid Wall but not the very steep marked black runs in Scotland yet- ie Flypaper and Chancer (never even been to look at flypaper but Chancer scares me.....  )
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skiking4, your previous posts indicated you weren't even aware there was an avalanche risk:
| skiking4 wrote: |
| Markus wrote: |
skiking4, Thanks for the report, I look forward to the pics
Only thing im a little confused about as an off-piste noob: Is skiing 40+ degree couloirs really advisable at avy risk 3/4? |
No, I was actually carelessly unaware of the avvy risk. |
| skiking4 wrote: |
| So, from Monday to Friday I was at nearby Kitzbuhel. If the avy risk was 4 at Zell am See, how come there were no warnings at Kitz? I was skiing off piste a lot and I wasn't even warned/told by any one that there was a... high... avvy risk? |
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| skiking4 wrote: |
Markus, we had beacons and transceivers (also shovels on the second day-- left them in the hotel on the first), cell phones with patrol on the quick call thing, etc. in a group of 3. So we weren't helpless if an avalanche happened
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You certainly were the first day. All the beacnos and transceivers in the world won't do you a lot of good without shovels. Even on "quick call", if you have to wait for the partol, they will probably be carrying out corpse recovery.
And if you think that way, then you are in serious danger on any day.
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and plus, we were skiing where other people had skied or were skiing. Such as the bowls near lifts or liftlines. |
That is still no guarantee of safety. More people die in avalanches when the risk is 3 than at any other time.
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cathy, yes I did not know the avvy risk but I always carry around beacon etc.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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skiking4,
Perhaps you should stop claiming you are the author of posts/articles about steep runs, or making out you could write a book about steep off piste runs. It's clear you don't have much of a clue or are responsible about offpiste safety. Probably best you spend some of your time on an offpiste safety course.
An equipment check should be done every offpiste day (inc a transceiver test), the equipment you have is mainly to help others find you so you should check each others equipment is present and correct. There's no excuse for not having shovels. If the avy risk is not clear it's your responsibilty to find out what it is via the Tourist information centre, internet etc. Avalanches don't just hit people who know the avy risk is high. The safety equipment is there should things go wrong, they do not prevent avalanches or locate you and dig you out of the snow. I always go with full safety equipment inc transceiver, probe, shovel, helmet, GPS and ABS rucksack but where we go in the back country is always checked to see what the current avy risk is and how risky the tour is in relation to avalanche risks. Just following other people's tracks is one of the most dangerous things you can do and it's often how people get lost in the backcountry only to be found frozen in the morning (esp when wind covers the tracks). The track may also of been put down at a time when the slope was much safer e.g. following the track later in the day when it's warmer on a south facing slope can prove fatal.
The toughest run is probably the one that avalanches on top of you and it doesn't have to be extremely steep either.
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DB, good post.
| DB wrote: |
| Avalanches don't just hit people who know the avy risk is high. |
I'm thinking of changing my signature!
skiking4, while none of us are born knowledgeable, let alone experts, and it's great that you aim to have avy equipment offpiste, some of your assumptions could land you in trouble if unchecked.
(That said, I perfectly remember, 10 years ago, following guided groups offpiste with no idea of the risks. We live and learn - well, we hope to live and learn).
Last edited by Ski the Net with snowHeads  on Tue 17-03-09 9:59; edited 1 time in total
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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double post, sorry
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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Gam 2 went from being a horrific, icy, bumpy, zero visibility, pile of cak... to a sun kissed powderfest in the space of 24 hours.. last weekend.. i reckon the 'difficulty of any piste is nothing compared to the conditions..
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You know it makes sense.
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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Hey at least my answer was better than the first guys:
"Outer Limits at Kton is the steepest thing ever"
So c'mon... I had to at least put SOMETHING there.
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Poster: A snowHead
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I used to do some research on the steepest pistes in Austria
Streif, Kitzbuhel, 85% - only for racers
Harakiri, Zillertal, 78%
Franz Klammer, Bad Kleinkirchheim, 76%
Hohe Salve, Wilder Kaiser, 74%
I guess the steepest run in the Austrian/German Alps is in Germany. The Nordhang in Oberammergau is 84%.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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| kerekip wrote: |
I used to do some research on the steepest pistes in Austria
Streif, Kitzbuhel, 85% - only for racers
Harakiri, Zillertal, 78%
Franz Klammer, Bad Kleinkirchheim, 76%
Hohe Salve, Wilder Kaiser, 74%
I guess the steepest run in the Austrian/German Alps is in Germany. The Nordhang in Oberammergau is 84%. |
is ths average steepness? peak steepness?
If peak, how long is steepest pitch?
All so pointless
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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| kerekip wrote: |
I used to do some research on the steepest pistes in Austria
Streif, Kitzbuhel, 85% - only for racers
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I believe it's marketed at 85 degrees, which they mean is 85%, which translates to 41 degrees.... and with marketing they always say its steeper than it actually is, such as Ripcord @ Mount Snow (marketed at 37 degrees, more 34-35 degrees MAX!). Because it was definitely NOT 41 degrees. 75% grade is I think the steepest possible on that trail, and only for just two turns on the Mausefalle, which is like Ripcord and is probably 30 degrees average.
Please, don't trust the resort's marketing numbers. They're not true. My site is inaccurate (but a good generalization so some damn good discussion if you ask me). The only way to tell is to measure it for yourself, to be there in person I believe.
Harakiki is 78%? what? for two turns?
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
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| skiking4 wrote: |
Harakiki is 78%? what? for two turns? |
A bit more than that. Probably closer to 200m than 100, but all in a nice straight line, with plenty of width, and an uphill run out to slow you if you fall.
I haven't skied it, but have been up the chairlift alongside.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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alex_heney, Harikari has a 100m-ish steep pitch which was somewhat solid the times I skied it last year. Not exactly scary steep tho, but fun. Would've been easier if not groomed tho
skiking4 is correct as well about need to measure angle yourself, as especially off piste, it varies a lot with snowpack. Being a sad ski geek, I carry an inclinometer, which gives a fairly good indication of steepness. Last week I measured the Kamikaze ski route at Fiss in a few places (no competition for pow so i took my time!) and steepest i got was 40 degrees, most readings in main part of run 35-40. No idea what average would be - depemds where you start and stop measuring from. Top run, tho!
So have you measured Ripcord at Mount Snow, skiking4? IMHO, steepness can be a deceptive thing ...
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You'll need to Register first of course.
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gortonator, I had a buddy measure it. But that was 2 years ago so I forgot the number but I remember knowing that it isn't 37 degrees.
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Ok... how about looking on it with a slightly different angle...
I live in Austria so know my local areas pretty well (Ski Amade) but haven't really found any black runs that are long and challenging. Most blacks around here are just short trips down the fall line.
So.... I would like to know of a long challenging (potentially the steepest) black run in Austria.... not off-piste or itinerary (got lots of those around to challenge me!).... find me a pisted black run of death!
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flangesax, some decent black groomers with sustained pitch in Serfaus-Fiss. Pezid Vertical in Serfaus was a fine run, and lightly skied. Direttissima in Fiss was a decent sustained-steepness run too. Few other shorter ones who's names i forget. Nothing evil, but worthy black groomers, for sure.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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flangesax, Harakiki.
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Oh, I too thought you meant marked runs.
Well, loads at St Anton such as these couloirs, accessed off the top of the Schindlergraat chair-lift:
The best one you double back beside the lift-station you can see (climb over a small railing) and continue traversing under the lift till you see the last chute with big rock wall all the way down it on its left (hiding it in the photo). at the bottom you can go on onto the open field or cut right into a bit of couloir to join the bottom of the slope you can see below the lift station (also worth doing!). You can spot it briefly from the chair-lift as you come in sight of the lift station, to see if you fancy it.
Alternatively you can go past it to the pylon and ski the easier open fields by the chair lift.
Sorry, I know you said other than St Anton but I don't know other Austrian steeps.
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FAQ
