Australia – the land of the kangaroos, elephants and insects. Where everyone tries to kill you and everything is up side down. Maybe some day i will travel to this fairy tale land, however this time i only visited our neighboring country Austria which sounds similar in name but probably is not in any other way. From the 1st March to the 8th March the days of our 5 man group were filled with joyful skiing and snowboarding and the evenings with drinking and screaming while playing overcooked.
The very first time i went to a skiing trip was in 2018 in the Czech Republic at the Keilberg. Within two and a half days i fell countless times, hurt my arm, legs, head, back and butt and also had severe muscle ache. But in the end i managed to actually ride the board somewhat smoothly. Now back to the present at the Wilder Kaiser in Austria. Having those memories of pain burned into my head, the first day was still a bit shaky following the proverb better save than sorry. However at the end of the day, the muscle memory somehow kicked in and i got a little bit more accustomed to the stripped piece of wood on my foot again. Day by day i gained confidence and my top speed rose from 30 km/h to 50 km/h at the end of the trip. Unlike my friends i did not ski the whole 6 days consecutively but only went for it from Monday to Wednesday and then again on Friday. On that last day due to muscle ache and not being able to stabilize my board in time, i fell badly on my chest at around 35 km/h. Still i am very satisfied and look forward to the next opportunity to snowboard again.
The ski area at Wilder Kaiser is a mountain group consisting of four mountains where you can ski at.
Hartkaiser
I liked the Hartkaiser the most because the tracks were mostly very wide so that you are unlikely to interfere with other people’s skiing. The restaurant on top of the mountain has a delicious variety of classic menus such as fries, Curry Wurst, Apfelstrudel or Kaiserschmarn, which were all reasonably priced and sized. The only negative point to mention would be the descending track to the parking lot (track No. 80). Some spots were super steep and not very beginner friendly at all although it was marked as blue. One of the ski teachers also admitted, that the blue tracks of the Hartkaiser are not too rewarding for beginners overall.
Astberg
Since the mountains are all connected through ski lift, it was fairly easy to go from the Hartkaiser to the nearly located Astberg. We only went there for a short ride but from what i could see i would not recommend this mountain for beginners. It had several narrow tracks and the descending track was red or at least it felt like one.
Scheffau
Right off the starting zone there seems to be only one track used by everybody to get to the other tracks ( track No. 69) unlike the Hartkaiser which had several options to descend. Additionally the track starts off a bit narrow which is why you might experience a “clogging” but nothing too severe. In general the tracks seemed to be slightly more narrow than the ones at Hartkaiser, however the level of difficulty is easier overall. With my limited experience i could manage to ride all blue and most red tracks without major problems. The descending track is around 6 KM long and had some dangerously narrow passages but provided a fantastic view over the mountainside.
