St Veit, Austria - January 2009

Trip report by Alan Rogers

Friday 9th

John Symons and Alan Rogers had an early meeting at Gatwick to catch the BA flight to Salzburg, whilst Tim Wilson caught the early Ryanair flight from Stansted. Tim lives on the doorstep of Coventry Airport and had hoped to be catching the Thompson's flight from there. Unfortunately, since booking, Thompsons have pulled out from Coventry leaving him with little choice but to endure a long drive to Stansted. Still, there were no major delays to either flight, and happily all three met up at Salzburg. On the BA flight, the chief steward made everyone chuckle as during the safety demonstration, he managed to pull out the oxygen supply tube from the face mask. Hope that he would not ever have cause to repeat that in a real emergency.

With time on their hands, a short detour to Freilassing for a spot of window shopping before a leisurely drive to St Veit, arriving mid afternoon. Plenty of time for a short nap before sorting out luggage and ski hire etc. In the time honoured tradition, a pre dinner beer or two was enjoyed in the Metz before the drive down to Helmut's Steakhouse. It was only when John, Alan & Tim were in the Steakhouse did they realise that Helmut had opened the restaurant purely for them. Even better there were the tastings of his malt whiskey and best schnapps. After the meal, it was back to the Rustica to join the farewell party for the current Siegi Tours guests. Hon Sec. requested that Alan & Tim remain in the discobar until all the Americans had departed, which normally is about 10.30pm. This took rather longer than usual, and it was nearly 1.00am before Alan & Tim retired to the Sunhausl.

Saturday 10th

Sadly for John, not a day for relaxing too much as he was on airport duty and had to drive to Salzburg Airport and back three times to collect the remaining members of the Black Horse team. Peter, Steve Brindle, Luthfa Shamshir, Iain Smith, Charles Harrison, Tim Carter, Gareth Cowmeadow, Gary& Gill Stoddart, Stuart, & Karen . Debbie & Tom Neal, having booked independently had arrived from the airport by train, would also join the happy gathering. For Alan & Tim W, this was going to be a day of free skiing. Not really a hardship as the sun was shining and snow conditions good if a little hard packed in places. After completing a tour of Alpendorf in the morning, the plan was to meet up with Richard Minson and Ian Bruce in the Strass Alm at lunchtime. Richard and Ian had driven over from the UK and had rocked up at Alpendorf before even going up to St Veit.

Apart from the Sheffield clan, who were arriving on a later flight, everybody met up for dinner at the Laterndlwirt. Again, the warmth of hospitality from Alois & Barbara is second to none. Good food to boot as well. With no scheduled evening entertainment on the first night, Alan takes the opportunity to have an early night whilst the remainder descend upon the market square and in particular, the U94 pub. Surely not a late session on the first night!

Sunday 11th

A slightly nervous start for Luthfa, as she is the only total beginner in the group and will be heading for ski school, whilst the rest of the group , bar John and Iain, ski together in one large group. Lunch is taken at the Gondolastubl to prevent Luthfa being left on her own, and also to check on her progress. In the meantime, Hon Sec has driven Iain over to Kitzbuhel to purchase a new pair of all singing, all dancing, expensive ski boots. Luthfa must really have enjoyed her first day on skis, as she was still smiling despite waiting nearly 40 minutes for the main group to return to the gondola, despite she and Steve missing the last ski bus to St Veit, and despite having to pay for a taxi to return to the village.

After dinner and the famous (or infamous) Siegi welcome speech. With so few guests in the village, and very few strangers, Siegi's speech must have been the shortest on record. Short it may have been, but was still littered with a number of his regular clich‚s. Silvana has replaced Miki in charge of the disco-bar at the Rustica, yet there is little change in the closing time. The usual suspects retire to bed at about 2.00am.

Monday 12th

The first injury of the week and very surprisingly it is neither on piste or alcohol related. Ian B fallen downstairs at the Schandledbauers going to breakfast. A rather sore and swollen finger is the net result. Up at Alpendorf, the sun is shining, lovely blue skies and senior instructor (and BHSC member) Gottfreid appears to be in a very upbeat mood. When the Black Horses hear Gottfreid singing, they realise that they are in for a mad/crazy week. By the second run of the day they are looking for jumps, and on the third run it is through the trees and off piste. Gary and Tim C enjoy getting closer to nature and end up hugging trees creating much mirth amongst the rest of the class. With such good snow conditions there are few on piste crashes until the final run of the day. Skiing down to the bottom gondola station, Charles crashes after catching an edge on a pathway and Alan has heavy tumble trying to avoid a crowd of crazy kids.

After dinner, it is up to the Rustica for karaoke night. Despite the lack of trophies on offer(no opposition in the village),the Black Horses were not shy in displaying their talents with the microphone. Yet another early morning finish.

Tuesday 13th

Another sunny day on the slopes and everyone is settled in their respective ski classes. There are no serious wipeouts to report, but the talking point of the day is whether Hon Sec actually got bitten by a snow snake.

Sven has announced that it is the curling competition after dinner, but when the team turn up at the curling rink, everything is in darkness. Diving into the Rustica bar, Sven is actually in the middle of the schoolchildren's cow milking contest. Steve displays a talent that he did not realise he had and easily wins the adult competition. There are more trophies available for the hammer and nail competition, and these are claimed by Karen and John.

Wednesday 14th

The expected snow has arrived and most of the resort is blanketed in fog and low cloud. The Black Horses persuade Gottfreid to do the three valley ski safari rather than stand around doing exercises in grotty weather. Without John and Gareth, who have decided to have a rest, the remainder of the team head off towards Flachau. By way of a measure, no other class in Ski Scholl progresses any further than the bottom of the Autobahn.

The snow continues to fall during dinner and the village has a nice new white carpet. Unsurprisingly, a snow ball fight breaks out on the walk up to the curling rink. Poor Luthfa appears to be the main target. Despite being the centre of this unwanted attention , she has the composure to win the Ladies Cup, whilst Stuart blasts away the opposition to win the Mens cup with a perfect 30. A welcome spectator to this event is Silvana, who has provided urns full of hot tea and gluhwein for all the Black Horses. With energy still to burn, it is over to the disco-bar at the Rustica for the limbo dancing. Another triumph and another trophy for Luthfa, and most surprisingly, for Charles. Just try to imagine Charles explaining to Mrs H how he won a limbo dancing contest! . And so the party once again continued until the early hours.

Thursday 15th

After yesterday's heavy snowfall, it was not hard to predict that most of the day's lesson with Gottfreid would be spent in and around trees off piste. Whilst great fun, it is also very hard work and requires perfect technique. A perfect technique that many Black Horses do not possess, resulting in many wipeouts and a lot of laughter from the rest of the class. It does not help with Richard and Gary both having camcorders ready to record all the wipeouts.

Unbeknown to John , some of those who were not skiing with Gottfried class, had actually joined classes that were running from Sunday to Thursday as opposed to the usual Monday to Friday. This meant that they would have their ski school race today, but unfortunately would not be able to attend the presentation as it was to be held in Alpendorf at 7.30pm. Whilst there were no medals to collect, nobody crashed and all safely finished the course. They did not miss out on their certificates as these were to be distributed on Friday.

With so few guests in the village, there was comfortably enough room in the Laterndlwirt to stage the folklore evening. Just the Black Horses and a coach party of school children from an English school in Germany. A chance to sit back, relax, and enjoy the local entertainment. That is unless one is asked to join in with the thigh slapping and yodelling. Whilst it is quite brave to get up and make a fool of yourself, it is very entertaining for the remainder of the party.

Friday 16th

More sunshine greets the skiers on the big race day. Gottfried has checked out the conditions on the timed giant slalom course and confirms that it is safe to race. Whilst Iain is a very hot favourite in his new boots, it is an open contest as to who will accompany him on the podium. After a little bit of persuasion from Ian B and despite still feeling the effects of Monday's crash, Alan decides to race. Gary decides to go for style rather than speed and actually completes a full somersault in between two gates before finishing the course. There were no other crashes and in the usual manner, Gottfried keeps the times under wraps until the evening presentation at the Dorfplatz. An afternoon of skiing in and out of trees rounded of another superb week with the Red/White/Red Ski School. There is another nasty rumour that the snow snake has had another bite out of Hon Sec!!

The Ski School presentation is usually held in the Oberforsthof Alm, except where there are so few classes, as was the case this week. On these occasions, the venue is the Dorfplatz, situated just across the road from the gondola carpark. There are only two adult groups and about 5/6 groups of schoolchildren. The adult groups are the classes of Gottfried and Sven, in which Stuart and Karen have skied. Sadly no medals there for the BHSC, so the winner from Gottfried's class will take home the trophy for the week's faster racer. This honour went to Hon Treas Iain Smith for the second January in a row. There was a clear 3.6 second margin between Iain's gold and Alan's silver, with El Presidente Richard a further half second away in bronze.

It was a hectic rush to get everybody and all the skis back to St Veit in time to start packing before heading off the Helmut's steakhouse to begin the final celebration of the week. For the benefit of those who have never been to the Steakhouse, Helmut has a very simple menu consisting of a mixed salad, garlic bread, roast potatoes and roast beef. Very simple, very ,very good and definitely unmissable. The grand finale to the evening is a rather raucous sing along with games in the Rustica's disco-bar accompanied by a few Americans on the first evening of their weekend trip. Needless to say, the Brits are the last to leave the bar in the early hours of the morning.

Saturday 17th

It is back to work for Hon Sec and the task of getting everybody back to Salzburg Airport in time for their return flights. Everybody, that is except for Richard and Ian B who would not start their drive back to the UK until after another days skiing. Together with Gottfried, who is proudly wearing his BHSC jacket, they head of to Zauchensee to watch the ladies world cup race. Alan and Tim W are both on the late Ryanair flight to Stansted with Hon sec and are also able to enjoy another day on the piste at Alpendorf and Wagrain.

And so another great week of skiing comes to an end.