The Gilletts Abroad: Spring, Sneezes, and Next Steps

Sonnenspitze summit.

Well spring has sprung here, but we're hanging on to winter in this post with lots of snowy pictures. The Gilletts have had a really great winter in Tirol, despite the fact that it was the worst snow year in recent memory. I've had an awesome time teaching skiing, Christi and I have had some fun days out together, and I've been able to expand my skiing skills on and off the piste. A few good late season dumps enabled my colleagues and I to do some post work off piste skiing at Glungezer (my work mountain), and I was able to get for two ski tours. In total, I spent somewhere around 70-75 days on skis in some capacity this season, which isn't too shabby for a "worst snow year"!

Mid sneeze selfie/ mid selfie sneeze action.

With the snow at lower elevations all but melted away, the season for teaching skiing has come to an end. Working as a ski instructor this winter turned out to be nearly the perfect job for my first winter in Austria, and I'm a little sad to see the season go. I really enjoyed the work, and did a lot of learning too. I learned so much German, and in a low stress environment, mostly speaking with little kids who are a lot less judgmental when it comes to lack of fluency. As mentioned in a previous post, I also had the opportunity to learn little bits of other languages, and had many enthusiastic little teachers for Dutch, Danish, Arabic, Lithuanian, Swedish, and French. Many who read back in October that a was going to work as a ski instructor surely wondered when I became a skier all of a sudden, and I may have wondered the same myself, but over the past few months I've learned to love sliding on two planks and hugely improved my technique. I learned that snowboarding is only much more fun than skiing when you're a terrible skier!

Thumbs up bud! Riding the beginner lift in my official ski suit.

A few of the Glungezer crew.

Sample from a lunch time Arabic lesson.

In the last gasp of winter, we had a short window of opportunity to do some off piste skiing. I say off piste purposely instead of backcountry, because as a Canadian, I feel our standards for what qualifies as backcountry are a little different than here. My joke this winter with customers curious about skiing in Canada was: if you get lost skiing in Austria, you have beer at a different hut than you expected; if you get lost skiing in Canada you sleep under a tree and get eaten by a bear. However, as a novice backcountry or off-piste skier, my standards for what qualifies as fun (or scary) terrain are pretty low, so skiing off the back of the resort or connecting snowed in hiking trails and cozy mountain huts on a ski tour got me plenty stoked. Glungezer, where I worked, is apparently a kind of little freeride gem, with some cool and varied terrain but totally not on the radar in Innsbruck after a big snow. First tracks down great lines were not uncommon for us. My boss and one of my co-workers are very experienced freeride skiers, so tagging along with them a few times definitely pushed my limits. The day on which the first picture below was taken I achieved a higher crash/hour ratio than what I estimated my crash/entire season up until now ratio stood at! These days got me hooked despite the tomahawks, and I'm looking forward to more next winter!

Off piste skiing down the backside of Glungezer.

Birgitzkofpel summit, with Nockspitze behind.

Mid ski tour snack stop.

Sonnenspitze summit pt. 2.

From the Stubai Glacier to Ötztal and Italy.

Now that spring has come, Christi and I are looking forward to lots of hiking and climbing around Innsbruck. The amount of mountain around us is pretty wild, we could limit ourselves too a 50km radius from the city, quit our jobs, and go out everyday, and just scratch the surface of what is available to us. We've got several list of goals to accomplish this summer, and we're replacing the ski area maps on our wall which a panoramic postcard to tick summits off. Unfortunately, we will have to squeeze work in there somewhere to finance all the Oreos and cured meats in our packed lunches.

This spring means transition for both of us at work, Christi and I having both had interviews in the past week. I obviously can't teach skiing through the summer and Christi is looking into some options more in her field of social work. Stay tuned for our next update by when we'll hopefully be sorted out!