Twenty of us made the January trip to
St Veit and the Sportwelt Amade ski area. With reports of poor snow
conditions in much or Europe I kept watching the German TV station SAT 3
in the morning as they showed the cameras at the ski resorts. Italy and Switzerland
had problems but there, in the part of Austria we were going to, you could
see snow on the trees and it was nice and cold, keeping the snow in good
condition. Email confirmation of good conditions came from our friends in St
Veit.
I had arranged to fly out on Friday accompanied
by Nick & Lynn Goodenough. We had booked in to a hotel at Heathrow for
the Thursday evening as we had a 9:20 am flight the next day.
On Thursday morning I got a call from Simone at
BBC Watchdog about an email I had sent. I had complained about Ryan Air
having a 15 kilo baggage allowance on their flight to Salzburg and the fact
that any skier with his own skis and boots would always be over that and get
charged £4 per kilos on the excess over 15 kilos. She wanted to interview me.
The long and the short of it is that they sent a taxi at 06:00 am on the
Friday morning to collect me and bring me to the airport. The camera man got
all set up and we were about to start when the security guards wanted to
throw us out. We obviously looked highly suspicious and dangerous
characters. After a few wobblies from Simone and mutterings about the power
of the BBC we were still going to be ejected when Simone managed to call the
right people and get the OK. The filming took some 90 minutes and was
constantly interrupted by any noise that was made in the
airport. The rest is history for those of you that were shocked to see my
happy shining face on TV. Nick and Lynn got raked in too as we were filmed as
we all checked in.
By comparison dinner that evening at the Steak
House, in St Veit, was nearly, but only nearly, staid. We invited Michael and
Kirsten who run the bar and disco in the Rustica and during the evening
managed to persuade them to open on Saturday evening for us. Usually they
are closed as it is the day everyone is leaving and arriving. And the weather
and snow? Well it was colder than usual, 6 or 7 degrees C below freezing.
The result was that conditions were described as one of the best starts to a season
they could remember.
Next day I had my usual day of meeting people at
Salzburg. What was unusual was the fact that we had 3 flights going in to
Munich whereas we normally only have one. I had to hope that the
flight would all be on time and that the people would all meet OK at the car
hire area. I was waiting anxiously at Salzburg airport to hear from the
Munich group that they were all there and on their way. The forecast was for
snow and I was praying it would hold off until we had everybody in the
resort, but just as I was waiting at Salzburg Airport for the last flight to
arrive the snow started.
By Saturday evening we were all in the resort and
by 8:30 we were in the disco for the opening party of the week. It’s a night
Peter Dennett will never forget although it caused him to lose a day on the
slopes. Richard Minson and I thought it was late when we left the disco and
in the morning I said I thought the clock by my bed said 3:45 in the
morning!! Richard said he thought it was not that late but later that day
Kirsten confirmed that we had left the disco at around 3:30 in the morning!
That set a trend for Richard and I in that we
never went to bed on the same day we got up. Monday 02:30am, Tuesday 01:30 am
etc.etc. It was touch and go on the Friday evening but we eventually managed
to last out until half past midnight.
On Sunday we got everybody up on the mountain to
show then around. The snow was very good. It was also sunny. Almost the
perfect combination of sun and snow. A few runs and then the Gasthof called
for lunch. Sunday evening and we were back
