Skiing in Austria (Part 2)

My NotreDame-Innsbruck friends and I skied all around Innsbruck (and adjacent countries, Germany, Italy, and Switzerland). In Innsbruck we skied occasionally on the mountain called "Patscherkofl," just south and east of Innsbruck by the beautiful village of Igls. You took a Seilbahn, a cable car, up Patscherkofel, and got off about 300 hundred meters below the bald, treeless peak of this characteristic mountain of the Innsbruck area. I believe it was possible to ski from the very top, but the snow could be sparse and icy, and the winds could be ferocious without any tree cover at all. We would ski down a trail through the forest called the "Herrenabfahrt," the men's downhill run from the 1964 Winter Olympics. If you wanted scary, this was scary, especially if, like a downhill racer, you went full out through the forest. A false move, an icy patch, and you could be dead. I traversed, crisscrossed, the trail, slowing my speed and increasing my safety.

Another place we skied was on the Nordkette, the northern chain of mountains just north of Innsbruck and the Inn River valley. This involved taking a funicular train from the valley floor up to Hungerburg, and then a cable car up to the area called "Seegrube," about 2000 meters of elevation above see level. There was a decent ski area at Seegrube and a nice terrace to sit in the sun on warm days (which were fairly rare). If you were very brave and crazy, you could take the final step, via cable car, to the very top of the Nordkette, the peak called "Hafelekar," and try to ski the narrow and incredibly steep shoot, 1000 feet vertical drop, from Hafelekar to Seegrube. Then, you could ski the zigzaggy trail, perhaps a mile long, the rest of the way down to Hungerburg. From there, the funicular back to the Inn Valley and Innsbruck (except, if you were cheap and broke, like I was, you could walk the train track back to the city. Brian Wilson and I did that one time and my thighs ached for 2 weeks).

Who did I ski with most often? It's hard to say, but I imagine my ski companions included Tim Forward, Brian Wilson, crazy Patty Laflin, Bob Wingerson, and really most of the other Notre Dame-Innsbruckers. Only a couple didn't ski.

Uebrigens, by the way, Tim Forward is an architect, Brian Wilson a pediatrician, crazy and brave Patty Laflin became an FBI agent, and I've lost track of Bob Wingerson, but I believe he still lives in the Detroit area.

[More coming in "Skiing in Austria, Part 3"]