Freds on the Tux

Since I had to pop over from California to Prague for a couple of weeks because of visas, I arranged with my freeriding buddy Fred Jirka that we'd nip over to the Hintertux glacier and mess about off-piste. It was a replacement for the originally planned Japan, where 12m of powder falls a year and which is a freerider's paradise.

But it turned out that Tux has a lot to offer too. Jirka found us a seasoned guide in advance, a guy born in the mountains, and he was absolutely brilliant.

We wound him up a bit with the banana trick. He lent us luxury gear, like special freeride skis, poles and above all avalanche backpacks with an airbag. He told us that people wreck them, for instance by putting a banana in the backpack, which then goes brown in there and gums everything up. 

When Břeťa joined us on Friday, we immediately instructed him that the main piece of kit the guide requires is water and a banana! And so first thing in the morning in the cable car Břeťa proudly shows the guide how he's got that banana in the 500EUR backpack :-D.

The skiing was luxurious, especially off-piste. If you take the cable car up to the highest piste on Tux, cross over the summit and ski down into the neighbouring valley, the descent takes about 2 hours through terrain in an absolutely gorgeous wilderness. But getting back is over two hours by taxi!

Another extra interesting experience was a visit to the glacier cave. You can ride into it straight from the piste, ice at the bottom, ceiling of ice, beautiful!