Merry Christmas and happy holidays! As I mentioned in my email newsletter which I just sent out, I will miss my friends and family back home this holiday season, but I am in good company with Claudia over here and we will be spending this next week together in Mayrhofen, Austria. I hope Santa brings lots of snow!
The photo above is from the Black Forest (more like “White Forest”) the other day. The jolly snowman magically appeared via Photoshop!
The White Forest : Prints Available
Yesterday afternoon we drove up to Schauinsland, a mountain in the Black Forest above Freiburg, for a “look into the country” so to speak. We took a small hike through the winter-wonderland forest to the summit, where there’s a tall lookout tower offering a view over the Black Forest and the plains around Freiburg far below.
Schauinsland Sunset : Prints Available
We stayed up there for a few hours, photographing the beautiful snow-plastered forest and waiting in the howling winds for what turned out to be an awesome sunset!
Grindelwald and Wetterhorn : Prints Available
Last weekend we visited the towns of Grindelwald and Mürren in Switzerland. These towns are situated in the Jungfrau region near Interlaken, at the foot of some of the largest and most rugged mountains in Switzerland.
Above is a photo of Grindelwald, with Wetterhorn towering above in the moonlight. Not to be confused with the American Wetterhorn in Colorado… this is the original!
Mürren Panorama : Prints Available
The town of Mürren is even more spectacular. It’s a car-free town perched on the edge of a sheer cliff high above a valley (requiring a cable-car ride to get to), with the Jungfrau peaks towering another 8,000 vertical feet overhead! Perhaps the most spectacular mountain town I’ve ever seen!
Mönch Sunset : Prints Available
Eiger after Sunset : Prints Available
Obergurgl Morning Shadows : Prints Available
On Monday I left Itay and headed to Obergurgl, Austria. This little ski town is set at the end of a long, deep valley with soaring snow-smothered mountains rising on two sides. Tuesday was a mostly bluebird day and although there was not much fresh powder left, the groomers were wide and smooth, and I spent the whole day riding around the Hochgurgl/Obergurgl ski area checking it out. This place is impressive. It is the most beautiful ski area I’ve ever seen – in the sense that the mountains here are so perfectly suited for a ski resort. The mountains have a certain straight and broad aspect to them without any bottleneck valleys or useless flat ridges, and everything is covered in snow. Basically the entire slope from one end to the other is skiable, and the pistes could have been made anywhere on the mountain. And it’s nice and steep. This place would be mind-blowing on a big powder day… I hope to return sometime this winter!
I took a lot of photos and large-version-panoramas that day… see them below! Continue reading “Obergurgl”
This morning I woke up early and drove from San Martino to Arabba, enjoying the awesome Dolomiti views the whole way. Upon arriving in Arabba, I quickly reserved a room here, then immediately went to the ski hill! I had no idea what to expect, and was delighted to hear that the entire Dolomiti Superski area was open, and that I would be able to do the Sella Ronda, a famous and unique ski route that links four ski areas and circumnavigates the entire Sella Group of mountains via 42km of pistes and something like 12 chairlifts and gondolas (I lost track). This is a novel concept to me, and although the terrain is mostly cruising groomers, I enjoyed covering so much ground on my snowboard, and gawking at the incredible Dolomite spires and walls all around. And of course I found a few powder stashes along the way!
Here are some highlights from the route:
Avalanche fences.
Marmolada, 3343m, one of the biggest peaks in the Dolomites.
Chairlift under a couple of the rugged Sassolungo peaks.
Passo Rolle Sunrise : Prints Available
An awesome sunrise behind Cimon della Pala and the Pale di San Martino this morning from Passo Rolle on my way out of town. Gotta love it!
Pale di San Martino Winter Panorama : Prints Available
Misty Cimon della Pala : Prints Available
Pale di San Martino Enrosadira Panorama : Prints Available
Cimon della Pala Winter Dusk : Prints Available
Snowy Cimon della Pala #1 : Prints Available
This afternoon I repeated my efforts to photograph Cimon della Pala. I felt like luck was with me today, for various trivial reasons not worth mentioning but nevertheless noteworthy to me. Again I parked at Passo Rolle and skied up the ski slopes in the midst of the clouds. Sure enough, halfway up the slopes I could see some clearings and soon the Cimon della Pala broke out of the clouds in all its glory!
Snowy Cimon della Pala #2 : Prints Available
I didn’t get the wild orange light and swirling clouds of Monday, but what the hell, I’m stoked. Is this an epic scene or what??!! It looks like some peaceful snowy meadows just got shafted by a pissed off chunk of earth!
Pala in the Clouds : Prints Available
The low clouds rolled in at sunset, but I waited for while anyways. They broke again later at dusk, revealing the Pala in the mist.
It would be cool if I could show a series of all the photos I took this evening. These are only a few that I picked from the batch. Throughout this week I’ve noticed how the clouds open and close around these peaks, and I know that this area would be a paradise for time-lapse photographers!
I’m finally feeling satisfied with my time in San Martino, and to be honest I am also at this point satisfied with dedicating so much effort to photography… time for some snowboarding! Tomorrow morning I’m headed to Arabba for the opening day of the ski hill there… hopefully there should be plenty of powder waiting for me!
Sunrise view from Daniela’s deck, looking towards cloud-covered Mezzano. Not too shabby to see right out of bed!
I am in the town of San Martino di Castrozza this week. I was here during my first visit to the Dolomites six years ago, and this was one of my favorite spots. The Dolomites boast many amazing jagged peaks, but the peaks of the Pale di San Martino range are impressive even by Dolomiti standards. And perhaps the most impressive of these peaks is Cimon della Pala, a rugged 3184m peak that towers over Passo Rolle and the town of San Martino far below. I’ve never seen a peak that has so many faces as the Cimon… depending on your altitude and angle of view the shape of the peak morphs into entirely difference profiles and characters. Here’s a photo of the same peak in the summertime, from a different angle, for example.
I feel obliged to mention that this beautiful peak crushed my spirits on my first day here on Monday… though really it was my own fault. Continue reading “Cimon della Pala: oh the Heartbreak”
