It's always exciting to get back on skis, but it's especially exciting when that happens in September! At the beginning of the month, my team and I headed to Austria for our second annual camp in Ramsau. Our main objective was to get in as much on-snow time as possible. Unfortunately, when we first arrived, there wasn't any skiing to be had on the Dachstein glacier. However, after a few days of low temps and considerable precipitation, we were good to go. Our race season begins fairly early and it's quite beneficial to have the opportunity to work on transitioning technique changes from rollerskis to real skis before diving into our first race.
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| Some scenic rollerskiing while waiting for snow (photo: Nick Brown) |
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| Looking up at the Dachstein Mountains from the tram base. The top of the tram is on the tallest peak at the far right. |
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| Riding up to the glacier! |
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| Liz and Caitlin enjoying the ride on top of the tram |
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| Views in all directions! |
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| Looking down onto the Dachstein glacier and the 3k of switchbacking ski trails. Each switchback ended with a sharp 180 degree turn which was good practice for cornering espcially on the icy days. We had to ski on a different section of the glacier this year as the part we were on last year was full of crevasses. |
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| Skiing in September!!! (photo: Caitlin) |
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| Team picture on the glacier (photo: Caitlin) |
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| On a few mornings it was quite foggy in the valley, but on the glacier we were skiing above the clouds! |
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| Short adventure ski to the Seethaler hut above the glacier |
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| Our guesthouse which doubled as a small farm |
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| Having pigs in the backyard made us feel right at home! |
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| The youngest members of the herd |
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| Burger night on the patio (photo: Caitlin) |
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| First clear evening in Ramsau |
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| View from our backyard. I actually painted this last year... I brought my watercolors to this camp, but unfortunately didn't get around to painting. |
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| Midway through the camp we had a day off and visited the exceedingly quaint town of Hallstatt |
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| The village was nestled in the mountains on a beautiful lake |
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| Lunch in Hallstatt |
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| There were colorful flower boxes on almost every dwelling! |
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| Some roadside flowers in Ramsau Kulm |
We had good skiing for about a week, but a rise in temperature caused most of the snow to melt off the glacier leaving only ice and dirt. Fortunately, the dryland training options in and around Ramsau are fantastic so we kept quite busy with long run/hikes in the mountains and quality rollerski workouts on the track and local roads.
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| Liz and Casey hiking up to the Silberkar hut |
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| Looking back towards the Silberkar lake |
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| Mike enjoying the view |
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| The summit of Mount Sinabell |
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| The Guttenberghaus |
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| Monkshood (Aconitum) |
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| Chiltern Gentian (Gentianella germanica) |
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| Looking down on the valley towards Ramsau |
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| Back below the tree line |
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| The forests here are really beautiful with lots of thick moss and lichen, and very tall pines |
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| Finishing up the hike along a farm track in the valley |
One of our more memorable rollerski workouts was a 3,000ft climb (1,600ft of which we double poled) from the bottom of a nearby valley to the base of the Dachstein tram.
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| Liz and me at the top (photo: Pepa) |
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| Skate speeds on the rollerski track in Ramsau (photo: Nick Brown). The track featured some sharp s-turns that were quite scary at first glance (especially since the nearby trees were plastered in padding), but were actually quite fun as the turns were so well banked. |
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| Casey, Liz, and Mike after the climb up to the ridge during our final OD of the camp |
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| The valley behind the ridge was dotted with Moss Campion (Silene acaulis), which is a low-lying herbaceous perennial found in alpine and arctic tundra throughout the northern hemisphere. |
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| One of the few Moss Campion plants that still had flowers. These plants are early colonists and take over disturbed areas in the environment such as glacial moraines (Billings and Mooney, 1968). Due to its long life span and cushion growth form, there's been an interest in using this plant for dating substrates and past disturbances (Benedict, 1989; McCarthy, 1992). My seeming obsession with this plant stems from the fact that I researched it while studying in the Norwegian Arctic. Our study investigated the demographics and patterns of colonization in two populations and linked the findings with environmental characteristics and past climatic events. |
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| Thick valley fog |
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| Descending back into the cloud layer |
That's all for now. We're back in Craftsbury for a few more weeks before heading off to Park City. I'll leave you with a video (curtsey of Pepa) of our most pleasant day on the glacier. Thanks for reading!
Billings, W.D.; Mooney, H.D. 1968. The Ecology of arctic and alpine plants. Biol. Rev. 43: 481-529.
McCarthy, D.P. 1992. Dating with cushion plants: Establishment of a Silene acaulis growth curve in the Canadian Rockies. Arctic and Alpine research 24: 50-55.
