April 26, 2011, Kaltenberg (Arlberg)

After an awesome ten days of sun and corn in the Ortler Alps, we needed a day of rest and relaxation. Then we turned to Wolfgang for his advice and company on the best tour we might do from Innsbruck.  We spent the night in St Anton with another Patagonophile, reviewing nostalgia and planning the next adventure.  In the morning we took the first lift at 0845 to get to snow at 2200m, then began an interesting traverse toward Cold Mountain.  Freeze overnight provided nice easy skinning up 200m, then down 250m, and up 450m more.  The next 150m down was south facing rotten corn, but the final 450m up was a couple centimeters of fresh on a hard surface, good skinning.  The final 20m was a sporty climb in an open book with a big rope to assist us to the summit sunshine.

Then we had to reverse the whole thing in mainly cloudy weather with very low visibility, snow conditions were good, but we really could not let the skis run.  On the final ascent, to Maroikoepf, and then back to the groomed ski area, we had some graupel and then rain on the lowest bit back to the car at 1400m.  A stop at MPreis for coffee and snacks fueled us for the 45 minute drive back to Innsbruck.  So far, no awesome food to report; we might need a special trip to Gries in Sellrain for my favorite apfel struedel mit vanilla sauce.