Xmas at Åre, Sweden - 2005

Ok, almost as a family tradition I went to Åre with my mon & dad for the Xmas holidays. This time I lugged along a few new skis to be tried for the first time. My quiver for this trip was: Big Daddies and Stöckli Stormrider DP's with 7TM's and Madshus Vidda's with Rotte 3-pins. As for boots, I had CXR's for off-piste and groomed action and CXA's with a modified duckbill (shortened) for those flimsy metal edged XC-skis (Vidda's).


All in all, what can I say. Well the trip was nice, and in the beginning the weather was playing nice (only a few degrees C below zero), but later on the week it got pretty chilly (something in minus mid twenties and quite gusty). Not a lot of fresh snow, and the base was utter crap. But still had a few nice runs on pow and cut up pow in the trees with my Daddies.


Also did spent almost a day with locked heels test driving my present/gift for my dad, 190cm Iggy MFC's with Solly S900 demos. Had a blast doing soft snow moguls, blasting mach 3 on groomers and generally goofing around.



Iggies and a nice dusk /late afternoon nordic lighting....



Me after blasting a day on alpine's (well OK, I did start the day with Big Daddies, but there was almost no soft snow to be had). Actually thoses Iggies are my Dad's, with since he hadn't had a change to ski this year, he desided to play safe and go out with his old skis (so I desided, what the hell and had a blast on Alpines).



Some Scandihoolian spruce and birch. Oh, and incase anyone is thinking I'm almost at the treeline, hence quite open glade.



Broken basket and some local has left his marks, possibly a big fox, a wolf or something else (the basket is almost 10cm in diameter).



The west summit of Åre looming in the clouds, as one can see the lighting was pretty nice.



Just a scenic stoke, as the lighting was so nice.



After messing a while on groomers, I went for a nice XC-skiing excursion...



Nice glades near the track, sadly didn't have time to investigate more... Mebbe next year.



Just a nice halo-effect, and a few XC-skiers heading towards me.



More of that halo-stuff and skiers, plus Mullfjellet looms in the background (it's the "mountain" above Tegefjell and Duved piste's).



Another scenic photo of Mullfjellet.



And the main summit of Åre, looming just above the clouds.



Snashörarna, Treklumpet and some other peak, famous and easy to acces skitouring hills, boasting around of 600 or more meters of vert of reasonable skiing.



And this is what scandihoolian birch-forest can look like... Quite a pain in the ass, to ski here...



One helmet, two helmets... vast majority of Swede's seems to boast a helmet these days... Must be a new IN thing and a fashion statement... Coming to a (or should I say all) European ski destination, shortly.



More helmet's, only saw a few other telemarkers during the 6 days a spent skiing at Åre.



A nice sign, stupidly enough you'll only see it when you get up there (after climbing the avalance terrain), luckily I already knew this (from my previous excursions) and the conditions seemed good enough.



A few more scenic photos, this time taken at dawn.



And the sun rising behind Rennfjellet.

First day on snow, this fall - Vihti 2005

Ok, finally we had some snow where here. And I even managed to squeeze a few hours on skiing in midst of school-work. So I headed for the biggest molehill around Helsinki, called Vihti Ski.


As this was the first day on snow this season, I decided to go out with misery-sticks, ie. my fjelltouring skis. And as I had guessed the skiing was "interesting" and really pointed out how much more efficient and easier modern gear is on hard slopes. I think I managed to do a run or two without falling or resorting to gorilla turns. but I had fun, and that was the most important thing...


Oh, and they also had a test-day, so I also lugged my AT-boots along and did two runs with Salomon Streetracer 10's. I was a blast, as I haven't really locked my heels in say 14 years (well, to be honest I have skied with my AT-rig a few days but it really doesn't count).



The local molehill, only one run open. With enormous 84 m of vert. Of and did I mention that the slope was really hard (not ice, but pretty damn near).



And this was my rig for the day, Madshus Vidda (48 mm in the middle) with Rotte 3-pins. Most of the time I used those old Guida's, but did two runs with CXR's and they were too stiff (go figure ;-)).



And this would be me, after 2 h of skiing, beat up, but happy.