Engelberg, a little alpine town tucked away in the Swiss Alps has become a new haven for all freeride skiers seeking steep faces, burly terrain, bottomless pow and a cheese fondue that will no doubt give you the cheesiest of cheese dreams. So, what better place to get the women’s freeride team together in the hope of snagging some face shots and steep skiing right? With the location set and the team assembled, coming in the shape of Hadley Hammer, Steffi Mössler, Treylin Steel and Engelberg local Martina Müller who had her tour guide hat on for the trip – looking forward to the prospect of showing the team her home mountain.
The first evening together was spent formulating a plan for the week ahead and scoping out potential spots that would deliver the best skiing, however the forecast didn’t make for pretty reading. As was the common theme for the European winter with warmer than usual temperatures and a low tide of snowfall clearly evident in Engelberg, as the mountain sported a more post-season feel to it. Still this didn’t dampen the spirits as the crew were still looking forward to a group shred and decided to use the first day to get familiar with the mountain by chasing Martina around who spent the whole day going full gas with very little turning and popping off anything but everything.
After a day of blasting around the resort, the crew were eager to get their freeride fix the following day by digging out the skins from their bags and heading up towards Titlis in the hope of scoring some goods. Martina knows the mountain like the back of her hand, but even she was stumped as to where to find the good spots during this warmer spell hitting the Swiss Alps. But after some searching the team managed to pitch up and find what looked like a good spot to ski some lines. After ripping down some hard pack, mogully terrain the crew had felt cheated by what looked like inviting terrain from afar only to be left with holding on for an edge.
Day 3 the crew were determined to find some decent skiing so once again opted for some touring in the hope of finding anything but chopped up and bulletproof conditions. Martina was in full guiding mode leading the group and sharing tales of how her family used to take her touring in these spots on the more Northern side of the mountain. Finally, after some hours skinning the team found some snow that was only a generous dusting at most, but nevertheless there were no complaints from the crew who were excited to be finally skiing some “soft…er” snow.
As was the formality of every evening in the lodge, all eyes were fixed on the forecast and with warmer temperatures set for the rest of the week in Engelberg the crew were less than pumped. However, one curious cat amongst the group looked beyond Engelberg and noticed that Switzerland’s friendly neighbour Austria was in fact having a storm roll in..tempting. After very little deliberation and the prospect of skiing some pow the crew made the easy decision of loading up the van and heading East towards Fieberbrunn.
Steffi, an Innsbruck local was kind enough to welcome the crew into her home to crash for the evening before heading to Fieberbrunn the following morning. A fun fact about Steffi, not only is she a rad skier but she is also a very talented baker! After slogging along in the van for nearly 5x hours, Steffi went into turbo Austrian Grandma mode by whipping up one of Austria’s native feel good dishes “Kaiserschmarrn” – essentially deconstructed pancake, proving to be a big hit with both Americans Treylin and Hadley.
For the first time of the trip, the crew were finally seeing some fresh snow and were itching to get out on the mountain. Old man winter had delivered a generous 20+cm of the good stuff, which was Austria’s first decent snowfall in recent weeks. There was a real buzz of excitement amongst the team at the prospect of finally skiing some pow, there was also an air of caution with the crew fully aware of the avalanche danger with the current state of the snowpack. Based on this Steffi reached out to one of the LINE team riders Martin Kogler, who works as a ski patroller at Fieberbrunn. It was now Martin’s turn to put on his guiding hat by leading the crew to all the good spots that were low risk and safe. Needless to say Fieberbrunn was firing and the hype lived up to expectation, as the crew were scoring face shots with nearly every turn and the vibe was next level with everyone yipping and yiwing on every lap. After lapping and lapping the same runs all morning until they were fully tracked, Martin took the crew near to the Wildseeloder face, the stage of the Freeride World Tour. The spot where Martin lead the crew was a true locals spot, where there were 3x impeccable tree lines perfectly aligned next to each other, offering each skier their own line to pick from. With each skier dropping in separately with a full gas approach of high speed skiing, this was the perfect way to end the trip and the crew were amped. What better way to celebrate than heading to the nearest mountain hutt to crush some schnitzels and sink some bombadinos!
After what proved to be a challenging start to the trip with snow conditions not working in the team’s favour in Engelberg, scoring some pow in Austria definitely made up for it. However, the real highlight of the trip was having the women’s freeride team together in this capacity. Whether it was blasting some piste or chasing one another on a bluebird day, ripping down some bulletproof moguls, having a good old chit chat whilst touring, sharing some drinks after a long day on mountain, sampling Austria’s weird and wonderful food or scoring some pow turns – the vibe was always all-time high and this trip really captured the spirit of friends having fun skiing whatever the conditions.