Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow

I know that my Canadian friends on the West Coast have seen just about enough of the white stuff, but here in Innsbruck the city is very excited about winter sports. Although I wasn’t sure how my first winter in 10 years was going to be, I’m happy to report I have been enjoying myself in this winter wonderland. Since I’m behind on tracking our fun and adventures with Ryan and Renata from Victoria, I’ve decided to combine all of the snow-based activities into one fun-filled post. Unfortunately, these all took place when Rebecca was touring Italy with her mom and Katherine, so no pictures of her.

Our first trip was to Küthai to go tobogganing. It was a beautiful day with clear skies, although it was a bit cold. We all bundled up, including Annie, and trekked the mountain to the lodge. I think one of my favourite parts of this day was realizing how much better shape I am in than 3 years ago when I last made this same hike. Yeah for me! Coming down was hilarious…I am getting much braver after a few runs this year. Soon I’ll be as scarily fast as Markus and Annie!

The next winter-related adventure was a visit to the ski jumping run. I bailed that day (I can’t even remember what I was doing at this point), but had to include some pictures of the beautiful view of the city.

I have to say one of my favourite days of this holiday was finally getting onto downhill skis for the first time this season. We had been seeing guests at the hotel and folks around town clearly heading off for a day on the hills, so we were all quite excited to join in.

We went up to Axamer Lizum, which is about a 45 minute bus ride from door to door. The bus system is very sophisticated here, picking up guests at all of the downtown hotels and dropping them off at various ski areas around the province. Markus was working so it was just Ryan, Ren and I. (Annie spent the day in daycare, as I’m not a good enough skier to try to teach her. She’ll have to wait for Markus.)

We started out on the learner hill a couple of times, as it has been a while for all of us. We then tried the blue run (the easiest), which is quite a bit harder than the easy runs on Mt. Washington or Whistler. Our first time down it took us about 45 minutes, and about 30 minutes the second run. Renata looked up the times for the women’s downhill (which took place on the runs we were on) and they finished the course in less than 2 minutes. My greatest concern with this is that Annie or Rebecca will want to take up ski racing if we stay here a few years. Shudder. But anyway, we all survived (I have a massive ugly bruise on one hip from a wipe out, but nothing serious), and lived to enjoy  a hearty lunch at the top of the mountain. Beautiful.

O.K…just 2 more activities to go! We took Ryan and Renata to beautiful Seefeld (about a half hour outside of Innsbruck) to go cross country skiing, as it is supposed to have some of the best runs in the area. They had a good day getting their exercise while Markus, Annie and I enjoyed a fun day at the pool (with just one not fun moment on the water slide that was too crazy for Annie, but we all survived and recovered.)

And finally, Ren, Ryan, Markus and Annie went to the Olympic oval to try their hand at skating. Despite brutally unsharp skates, they still enjoyed the exercise. I think we are all going to need a few days to recover from all the adventures…whew!

I guess I didn’t download the photos from Renata’s camera from Seefeld, but here some cute shots from the oval.