Weinebene tour
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Three days before we were set to leave for our winter Finland visit I received my climbing skins. I got them at the same time as new skis a week or two earlier but since at the time I didn’t have the bindings yet they were left sitting in the garage. When I finally got them all together I wisely decided I should do a short test run up and down Pohorje to see how it all worked together before doing any serious touring. I took all the stuff out of the car and was ready to start when I realized the skins don’t fit. I fought against the obvious until the lesson that it’s best to do this in the comfort of your own home sinked in.
Turned out the front attachment nut was made with the slightly thinner profile of the new ski model in mind. I bought the last years (at a substantial discount) so it was off by a millimeter. Could have been a centimeter for all I cared. It just wouldn’t work. I called up the factory shop where I got them, sent the package and they returned it in 3 days with a custom fix. Nice customer service. And this time I immediately tested the whole thing at home.
Now there were only 2 days before we left for a vacation and with perfect snow and weather conditions I wanted to make the most of it. Since it would be the first time on the new setup I needed something relatively short and easy so I went north to Weinebene and from there to Moschkogel in the direction of Koralpe. Half a meter of powder from the day before was great (where it wasn’t blown away) but the terrain sucked. Not a fan of touring on the flat and all I earned during the two hour sightseeing tour was a decent blister that wouldn’t go away for the entire time we were in Finland.
So when I got back to the car I took one look at Handalm across the road and went for it. I just left most of the stuff in the car…water, food, camera, shovel. Everything. It’s so short I didn’t even consider it beforehand. But after the depressing stroll I really needed a boost of a steep powder run, no matter how short. I fought the deep powder upwards for 30 minutes and skied down in about 30 seconds. But that was all I needed to save the day.
I just wished I’d done 10 laps of that in the first place…
