{"id":8580,"date":"2013-12-13T17:47:49","date_gmt":"2013-12-14T00:47:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hydle.com\/blog\/?p=8580"},"modified":"2013-12-13T17:47:49","modified_gmt":"2013-12-14T00:47:49","slug":"epic-race-mountains-15-16-st-christoph-st-anton-arlberg-austria","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hydle.com\/blog\/2013\/12\/epic-race-mountains-15-16-st-christoph-st-anton-arlberg-austria\/","title":{"rendered":"Epic Race Mountains 15 &#038; 16 &#8211; St Christoph &#038; St Anton, Arlberg, Austria"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"embed-youtube\" style=\"text-align:center; display: block;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"youtube-player\" width=\"584\" height=\"329\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/VHodF2mW-nQ?version=3&#038;rel=1&#038;showsearch=0&#038;showinfo=1&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;fs=1&#038;hl=en-US&#038;autohide=2&#038;wmode=transparent\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" style=\"border:0;\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox\"><\/iframe><\/span><br \/>\nThis morning we all kind of struggled to get up and moving \u2013 except for Rhinehart who is always first and ready to go, so he made us breakfast \u2013 eggs, cheese and prosciutto \u2013 while we all got ready.<\/p>\n<p>We thought the buses ran every 10 minutes, so we didn\u2019t pay much attention to what time we were leaving, so at around 10:10 am, we realized the buses only come once an hour, so Francis had to drive us the short distance into town. <\/p>\n<p>We got our stamps done at the tourist office in St Anton, and then parked the car and crossed over a \u201cclosed\u201d bridge (not sure why it was closed though) to get into the village. We jumped on the brand new Ganzig Bahn gondola which is ridiculous \u2013 it\u2019s huge, high tech, brand new, and has these humongous wheels that rotate the gondola up like an elevator before it takes off up the mountain.<\/p>\n<p>Today was a perfect bluebird day, no clouds anywhere so the views were amazing. From the top we dropped into the village of St Christoph and ran into a couple other fellow epic racers again (we are roughly on the same schedule as it seems maybe 20 other racers so we run into them periodically at the photo\/video spots at each resort). <\/p>\n<p>The information office at St Christoph was super old and historic \u201chospice\u201d hotel there that offers amazing ambience and fine dining, and is a 5 star hotel. The history of St Christoph dates back 600 years ago when a shepherd founded a shelter for wary travelers making their way through the Alps. History is so much greater in Europe!<\/p>\n<p>From St Christoph, we made our way up the St Chrisophobahn lift, which takes you to the center point of the St Christoph and St Anton lifts, and you can see down from up there into either valley (a village on each side). It\u2019s so hard to describe how grand this mountain range is, especially when you\u2019re at the top overlooking everything from a 360 view.<\/p>\n<p>We had some really fun runs after that, and kind of kept getting lost so we actually rode probably most of the lifts at the resort, which turned out to be pretty fun. It\u2019s crazy how long the runs are here, and how steep even a normal groomer tends to be at these mountains. <\/p>\n<p>The gnarliest lift I\u2019ve ever seen was shooting up from the St Christoph area to a mountain peak that seemed like it wouldn\u2019t really be skiable because of how intense the terrain was, but apparently they don\u2019t give a crap here in Austria and will put a lift on anything. There was also a tram, which I believe is was one of the first trams ever built taking you almost to the top of the super gnarly mountain peak also. Neither were open but if they would have been, I know the guys would have wanted to ride it, and I\u2019m not completely sure if I would have done it. The lift was a two or three person lift, shooting straight up to the top, and the terrain down from there looked pretty insane, probably would have been the steepest run I\u2019d ever had access to, so as much fun as it would have been, I\u2019m also a little relieved it wasn\u2019t open!<\/p>\n<p>Speaking of lifts, at the bottom of one of the runs on the St Christoph side, we were riding a 6 pack lift up \u2013 most of the high speed lifts here have lap bars, and then an additional plastic bubble cover that you can pull down in bad weather. Because of the bubble, I couldn\u2019t put my arm around the back side of the chair like I normally do when I ride lifts on the scarier side, and um, all of the lifts here in Austria are pretty scary and way far off the ground. I kept asking the guys if I could put the bar down, and they kept insisting no way and that I needed to suck it up and that this was good practice for me since France is supposed to be scary also. But, we got to a point where I had a mild freak out and told the guys I didn\u2019t give a shit what they thought, and I was putting the bar down. They all gave me crap and said I had to buy the first round at the bar because I wussed out, but I didn\u2019t care, at least I wasn\u2019t scared anymore! And, THANK god I did, because shortly after that, the lift stopped, and swung back and forth at a high point over the ground, ugh! And then, just to freak me out a little bit more, after the lift stopped, a guy came on the loud speaker in German and said something which we didn\u2019t understand, and all I was hoping was that he wasn\u2019t saying that the lift was broken and that we would all have to be rescued because we were pretty high up there!<\/p>\n<p>After that, I started to realize that EVERYONE puts the bar down on lifts in Austria. It makes sense, they are a lot higher up than the lifts I\u2019m used to in the states. So, I gave the guys crap back and said \u201chey guys look up, see that, every single lift that is going by has people with the bar down, bar down, bar down\u201d so hopefully they will get the point and let me put the bar down the rest of this trip, or else I\u2019m probably gonna be riding them alone on purpose!<\/p>\n<p>We then headed over to the St Anton history of skiing museum (one of our epic race photo stops). What a cute little place! It had a beautiful historical style dining room downstairs, and upstairs was the ski museum. I\u2019m so glad we went inside, it was cool to see some of the history of how skiing developed in St Anton, seems like this is where a lot of the history of skiing began! <\/p>\n<p>And then, it was time to hit up the Mooserwirt \u2013 a world famous apr\u00e8s ski bar that overlooks the Alps, is on the slopes (but within walking distance from the base if you want to hike up for a little bit). It was a trip to see this place \u2013 outside they had a stage, girls dancing, a DJ, live music, and it was so packed you couldn\u2019t really walk unless you were trying to push your way through to get somewhere. <\/p>\n<p>Inside was a little less crowded, but still very \u201cclub\u201d like. We got a couple rounds of drinks (we had met up with Adam, fellow epic racer there also), and took it all in. I got hit on by a local Austrian guy who kept wanting to \u201cmake dance\u201d with me and said \u201cyou good, I\u2019m good, lets make dance\u201d which was pretty funny. And of course, Hydle was \u201cfamous\u201d throughout the club \u2013 people either were thinking he was Mc Fitti again, or high fiving him because he had the best beard they\u2019d ever seen, or apparently he also got called out by a group of people thinking he looked like the guy from the hangover, not to mention every epic racer that was there knew who he was also! <\/p>\n<p>After a couple drinks, we strapped on our skis, and skied down the hill to the base in the dark. Of course in Europe you can ski after the slopes have shut down, with no lights, after having a million drinks (if you choose to have a million drinks at the Mooserwirt). What a crazy place! Apparently it doesn\u2019t even really get started until 10 pm or so, I can\u2019t even imagine\u2026insane!<\/p>\n<p>Back at the room we worked on uploading our content, and had leftover spaghetti. The guys went out again late night tonight where I thik they are meeting up with Adam for a bit at Bar 37, and I stayed in to go to sleep! Tomorrow is Stuben, and then driving to Verbier, Switzerland! <\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/youtu.be\/wYMq5SKNp8g\">Rhinehart&#8217;s Edit &#8211; St Anton <\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/youtu.be\/S2x-m65YIco\">Hydles Video &#8211; St Christoph<\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\" http:\/\/youtu.be\/V9atjH9o330\">Hydles Video &#8211; St Anton (Mooserwirt)<\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/youtu.be\/nfvfH4ZZTA4\">Cooley&#8217;s Video &#8211; St Christoph<\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/youtu.be\/BCCoqX3qqn8\">Cooley&#8217;s Video &#8211; St Anton<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This morning we all kind of struggled to get up and moving \u2013 except for Rhinehart who is always first and ready to go, so he made us breakfast \u2013 eggs, cheese and prosciutto \u2013 while we all got ready. &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hydle.com\/blog\/2013\/12\/epic-race-mountains-15-16-st-christoph-st-anton-arlberg-austria\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2967,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[618,26,1901,267,105,3,2596,22,21,37,149,148,6],"tags":[2788,2790,2737,2783,334,2791,2765,2768,2782,109,2996,2784,2789,2766],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2oCe7-2eo","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hydle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8580"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hydle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hydle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hydle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2967"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hydle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8580"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.hydle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8580\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8582,"href":"https:\/\/www.hydle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8580\/revisions\/8582"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hydle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8580"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hydle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8580"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hydle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8580"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}