Bambi on skilaufs

Arabella Mileham tries her hand (as well as her arms and legs) at a spot of cross-country skiing in Leutasch in the Austrian Tirol - January 12, 2010

Tucked in a corner of Olympiaregion Seefeld, 25km northwest of Innsbruck, the Leutasch valley and neighbouring Seefeld is a mecca for cross-country skiing. I headed out for a few days with some seasoned ski journalists, eschewing my normal downhill in favour of this ancient, Nordic sport.

Innsbruck was unusually snowy when we landed and the white stuff was still falling as we arrived at the Sporthotel Xander, in Kirchplatz after the shortest possible transfer– a smooth and painless 45 minutes after touching down. It had been very peculiar flying over a snowy Britain on an almost empty Easyjet flight (an unheard of combination) en route to the Tirol so this made it a hat-trick of unusual proportions.


Although we were primarily here for the cross-county, a visit to the Alps wouldn’t be complete without a little downhill, so Tuesday morning saw us up, bright and early, making out way down the road to Rosshütte, to check out the local slopes at Seefeld. It's only a ten minute ride by car down the valley, so pretty painless. After all the snow the night before, it was beautiful groomed corduroy all the way, with some great powder to the sides of the pistes.

I probably should have put my nice, fat all-mountain Salomon Tornado Extremes through a darn sight more gruelling test, but as the first run since April last year (and after a few schnapps the night before) I was very restrained on the powder-front.
It was a pretty blinking cold -9 degrees up top but gloriously sunny – my teeth were definitely the coldest part of me because I was grinning so much to be back on the slopes.

We worked our way around the slopes of Rosshütte with our knowledgeable and charming guide (the head of the Tourist Office for the region, no less) and ripped down virtually empty pistes towards queue-less chairs, only stopping for a brief and very welcome der Kakao mit ruhm at the new Rosshütte restaurant. As well as the new café and terrace, the lifts have been upgraded over the last three years to speedy six-chairs, although the Seefeld Jochbahn is still a dinky, red phonebox style, 12-person gondola. Although it’s a bit of a tight squeeze, it was worth it for the views over the spectacular Karwendel Nature Park to the northeast and Wetterstein mountains, as well as the only black run of the area.

Looking towards the Karwendel national park

Over the other side of the valley at Hamelekopf, we could see some interesting lines off-piste down a jaggedy couloir, but apparently the off-piste can be unpredictable and it is not readily encouraged. However, the top of the route yielded some beautiful, ungroomed powder, on the way to lunch at the Reitherjoch Alm. We rounded off the feast with a massive shared skillet of ‘Kaiserschmarrn’ – a whopping Tirolean caramelised fluffy pancake, liberally soused with icing sugar and served with apple puree. A main course in its own right, it’s completely delicious but probably highly dangerous to the waistline -a few spoonfuls each were more than enough to send us pelting through the trees, to the alarm of the locals walking up, and down the final run towards town.
A quick scoot across town and a boot swap later, we were kitted out and ready for our first foray into langlaufing. There are two styles of cross-country, classic and skating, and we were going for the former, apparently the most efficient way to move across a flat area of snow - although maybe not the way I was doing it! The Cross Country Academy in Seefeld is situated by the Seekirchl and Olympicabad, by the entrance of one of the many cross country trail and run by former Olympic medallist, Martin Tauber. The upside of this is great tuition but the downside is that they make it looks so damn easy while you’re slipping Bambi-like across the frozen plains.

Bambi on skilaufs – how the hell do you stay upright?

Although the boots are a lot comfier than their Alpine counterparts, I felt horribly precarious perched on top of my ridiculously thin skis. Settling into tramlines cut in the snow of the trail made it a lot easier to keep boot, knee, and nose in line while walking in arabesque. However, by the time I’d worked up enough steam to light up Oxford Street, I started to get into some sort of rhythm, swinging one arm forward, the opposite leg back and slightly bouncing on the middle of my ski to prevent myself slipping backwards. (they are softly rippled on the underside which is supposed to help) This was fine, after a fashion, on the level but far less effective when faced with a slope. However, after an hour and 40 minutes, we’d done a mind-boggling 7km around the course, stopping only to look at the Olympic ski jump and check out the new biathlon range.

Star pupil or sympathy hug, you decide

Although it was a huge fun, I fear in will be agony tomorrow no matter how many hours I spend in hotel's steam room.

Arabella travelled to Austria with Headwater on the “Cross Country Skiing in Leutasch and Seefeld” holiday. Prices of start at £1,009 per person for seven nights 4* accommodation at the Hotel Xander including breakfast and dinner, ski equipment hire (skis, boots and poles) and a guided ski programme with a Headwater resident representative. With flights and transfers, prices start from £1,187 per person Gatwick to Innsbruck with Thomson Airways, or can be arranged from most UK airports.

First published by welove2ski.com