Plenty of fresh air and sunshine

Having come back home on Sunday afternoon Markus stayed there only shortly as after a one day road show to Frankfurt on Monday he got into his car on Wednesday afternoon to drive in even more wintry conditions than the week before to Bregenz and on Thursday morning on to Lech, where his team hosted the EMEA Investor and Ski Seminar. 15 investors followed the invitation to the 10th edition of this event at which investors have the opportunity to meet with company representatives and analysts in both formal meetings as well as informal discussions on the slopes of the Arlberg region.

The weather conditions could not have been better, as from Monday until Wednesday the region got some fresh snow - though less than the east and south of Austria. The clouds disappeared and gave way for blue ski and sunshine on Thursday and temperatures dropped to -19 degrees during the nights which provided the perfect environment for hard slopes and preserved also the snow off-piste.

As close to perfect as possible

The sportive highlights this year have been the heli-skiing on Friday. A group of 14 skiers + Harry and Michael, two guides from the Alpincenter ,was brought up to find an untouched set of slopes in front of them allowing them to put the first marks into the powder snow - the ultimate satisfaction for every skier! The number of crashes was rather limited and no-one suffered any injuries, but we have had a few good laughs about crashes, lost skis and humble falls – both the pictures as well as videos provide evidence for that. The flipside of the off-piste heli-skiing is the 30 minute walk out of the valley with skies on which demands all energy reserves and is followed by a quite fast race on a narrow path through the woods.

Wind and noise at the beginning - untouched slopes in the end

Due to the rather small group relative to the past years and less demand we broke a tradition and cancelled the toboggan race (which Markus finished first in 5 out of 6 editions but was always disqualified by his boss for dubious reasons) and we instead organized a timed parallel ski race with knock-out stages. After two easy victories Markus was drawn against the favourite, his former colleague Florian who timed the fastest run in his first run (35:94), in the quarterfinal. The race was very tight and Florian was ahead after a mistake in the middle part, but he showed nerves himself and a flawless lower part of the course gained Markus the victory in this head-to-head with his fastest time of the day (36:22). This victory paved the way for winning the competition. Doubts about a possible disqualification emerged after winning the last run against Markus’s boss Fritz, but after all the victory was undisputed. We guess, we will do the toboggan race next year again.

While the nights were rather quiet with dinner and fondue on Thursday and Friday night in Hotel Kristberg, owned and run by former Ski World Champion and Olympic Gold medallist Egon Zimmermann we had a big bash on Saturday night in Restaurant Alter Goldener Berg where the local trio “Handgestrickt” – consisting of Erwin, Ernesto and Ricardo - provided the musical background and we sang along soulfully from the very beginning. The poor couples who have booked a romantic dinner in the room next door have definitely not got the peace they were hoping for but rather lots of noise, laughter, singing and dancing. Some of them even joined us in the end and no-one was upset. The singing even continued in the last cable car that we just managed to get to come down to the village again and our voices were pretty sore.

After easy and slow skiing on Sunday morning with low temperatures of -13 degrees and heavy wind as well as clouds in the sky the departure was made more easy as we have been spoiled with perfect weather the days before. The drive home was unproblematic as traffic towards Vienna was virtually non-existing thanks to the school holidays that have started on Saturday.

Kerstin & Markus