Snow for your Birthday

Anna McBrayer
Jan 10, 2017
2 min read

Last year was a big year for Justin. The big 4-0! So we took the most epic ski trip with friends to Telluride. It was perfect. As schools were cancelled and closed, we were getting on the road in a major snowstorm because by God we were gonna make it to that adult only weekend of fun we all looked so forward to.

Minus the fantastic company, this year was not much different. Austria got it’s first real dump of snow. Like 1.5 meters of it, over the course of 5 days. We managed to snag a cancellation for a little ski in/ski out barebones basement apartment in St. Anton. When you live by the seat of your pants, sometimes things work out to epic proportions.

St. Anton is Austria’s biggest ski area, and one of the largest in the world. This time, we leisured in a nice warm train just an hour from Innsbruck to partake in the fun. We didn’t slide off the road, or the tracks and it was so relaxing to watch the beautiful, idyllic little Austrian mountain towns slip by as we climbed through the mountains. I looked at Justin on the way home and said, “This is exactly what I imagined Austria to be like in the winter.”

We got a mix of both overcast, low visibility and sunny blue bird days. St. Anton has 87 lifts. Read that again! Eighty-seven! And over 300 km of powder runs and 200 km of groomed runs. I think we managed to hit only 15 of the lifts in 3 days. You could spend a month and not cover it all. The powder was deep, the lifts were fast and the views were seriously like nothing I’d ever seen in my life. It’s known for it’s “off piste” skiing, which means non groomed, non marked runs. We braved a few on our own, but with avalanche conditions, we didn’t venture too far. If we were to do it again, we’d pay to have a guide to really show us the magic of this place.

Happy Birthday, Daddy. We got you snow this year. Again.