The Piste Maps are in!

Last friday, our ski guides at Tall Stories sent us the general piste map links to the areas we will be skiing during the Challenge. The routes our guides will take us through will cover over 130km of piste and descend 24 Alpine peaks before we reach the finish line.

Here they are:

Day 1 of the Challenge
http://www.saalbach.com/Winter.2.0.html?&L=1

We start off the day by zooming down the peaks of the Saalbach area ...

http://se.snow-forecast.com/pistemaps/Zell-am-See_pistemap.jpg

... and finish up on the slopes over Zell-am-See where we will return to the village by nightfall.

Day 2 of the Challenge
http://www.elevationholidays.com/html/piste_map.html

On day two, we unleash our fury on the Hochkonig ski area. I have heard that this place is relatively unknown to non-locals, is packed with powder and has generally virgin pistes in late January!

Unfortunately, we won't have time to stop at any of the nice places on the map marked with descriptions like "coffee in the sun" or "great for lunch" ... we'll be zooming by to get to Gasteinertal in time to finish that area too by night fall.

http://www.myslopes.com/austria/snow-report-gasteinertal.php#top

Then we blast through the Gasteinteral regions (the name reminds me vaguely of something to do with the intestines for some reason ...). This area comprises of the slopes surrounding the villages of Bad Gastein, Bad Hofgastein and involves a winding network of red and black slopes connected by a few edgy cat runs that will require boarders to have gained momentum in advance. A real challenge on the quads and ankles for snowboarders as well as a tricep workout at times for our pole-using skiiers!

Keep in mind that since the Challenge is guided all the way there is no precise marked up route. Also, since weather and slope conditions may dictate which runs will be available at the time of the Challenge it is impossible to designate an exact route at this point.

In the end, every group will take a slightly different route depending on their skill levels and fitness. So far it looks like the 30-odd participants we have signed up will fit into 3 levels of skiier/boarder, so we are likely to have 3 groups.