OBERTAUERN 2016: ALPINE ANTICIPATION

If you have a passion in life, then you know the feeling. If your passion happens to be a seasonal sport such as skiing, then you really know the feeling. That cutting emotion that follows not the act of doing, but the act of not doing. The yearning, craving, longing, and the endless attempts to ignore the whole thing in hopes that time will pass and snowfall will simply creep up and surprise you.

The methods of coping are countless and well documented; the urban ice rink lurkers, the weather report junkies, the ski movie groupies, the ‘screw it, I’ll just ski on grass’ gang, and of course, the always self-deceiving 'I don't care, it will come when it comes' folk.

I may or may not guilty of all of the above. See, I’m the type of person who will always say ‘yes’ if someone asks me to go skiing. So, when a friend asked if I might be interested in doing The Ski Week, I impulsively said ‘hell yes’. Especially having experienced the magic that is The Yacht Week, I knew that this wasn’t an opportunity to pass up. As with all questions of this nature, it’s best not to let your brain complicate the situation with unruly things like responsibility, logic, reason and financial constraint. Don't think too much, just do.

Obertauern 2016 is just one quick sleep away. Snow is finally in sight and the thought experiencing it with 200 other like-minded riders brings about the type of anticipation that leaves you awake well into the night. It’s the good kind anxiety where your intuition just tells you that something really really great is about to happen.