Day four – St Anton, Austria

I ache… Finally some sun in St Anton. However, it is still very very cold….

Nice to see the sun. We managed to get out at a reasonable time have a fairly good day. The weather is still unbelievably cold, but with the sunshine at least I got to take some photos.

The snowy peaks around St Anton

To be out skiing in the sun was great. Conditions were good and the piste-bashers had done a good job. When we stopped for lunch we really got a feel for how much show had fallen in the last few days.

The lunchtime stop – St Anton

After lunch we continued to ski. The last run of the day took us (and it seemed everyone else on the mountain down a large valley – the happy valley), it was pretty crazy and there were skies everywhere. One poor soul had to be flown off the mountain.

Rescue in ‘the happy valley’

On the last run of the day we popped in to Mooserwirt for a beer. Mooserwirt is a crazy bar. It is the wildest Apres ski bar I have ever been in, and I have been told it sells more beer per square meter of floor space than any other ski bar in Europe – I can believe that. The bar consists of an indoor area split on 3 levels – on the top floor is a DJ and a sort of dance/seating area, the middle floor is the main bar area and ‘dance’ area and people on the top floor tend to look down on the ‘happens’ on the floor below – when you enter the bar it is this floor you arrive on. The final floor is a basement which houses a small shop and the toilets.

Outside the bar is a large seating/dancing area. This area is served by an outdoor bar and waiters coming around with trays of drinks stacked impossibly high. It is customary at Mooserwirt to finish the evening (which ends around 8 pm) standing on the seats in the outdoor area singing your head-off to some ‘Euro-pop’ and waving your beer in the air, whilst worrying about the ski home (didn’t I mention that Mooserwirt is about 800 m up the slope from the main town?) and how much broken glass is being ground in to the bottom of your ski boots.

The outside bar at the Mooserwirt, St Anton

Mooserwirt – ‘the’ bar in St Anton – how can they carry all of that?

It was so cold at Mooserwirt that the froth on my beer froze!

The ski down from Mooserwirt to the town is always interesting. The first problem to solve is finding your skis in the dark and amongst the 100s of pairs that have been left around the bar, the second problem is actually seeing the slope and working out what are bumps, what are bushes and what are people lying in the snow, and the final problem is skiing – it is dark, you can’t see where you are going, and you are drunk….

St Anton – map it