Just back from a week of skiing with Harald, Diana,Rich and 17 fellow campers in Hintertux.
This year Hintertux presented a very different face - a foot or more of fresh (but somewhat heavy) powder almost every day, and heavy mist/fog, visibility down to maybe 5-10m.
What amazed me most was that despite the fact that even those of the campers who were not very athletic, with very little previous experience in this type of difficult conditions, they coped quite well! No major problems linking turns, despite the skis sinking a foot or more into snow. On the other hand, most of the other people on the slopes (they were not that many, most non-campers took one run and went directly for after-ski for the rest of the day) struggled severely getting down, some even took their skis off and hiked back hundreds of meters uphill to take the lift back down! Even the various national race teams present left on some days after the first run.
Most of the campers skied 6h or more each day despite these heavy conditions. To me, that middle aged or older skiers are able to cope 6h + in poor visibility and heavy snow, on seriously pitched slopes, is telling a lot about the power of PMTS: those that even tried to steer or wedge their skis in these conditions inevidiently ended up exhausted in a deep snow pile!
The istruction was excellent as always, and the social side of the event was great, with people from a handful different countries attending.
I'll be there next year for sure again!
Cheers,
Tommy