7 May 2003

Slumberland?
Anyone reading the Natives news might have got the impression that nothing happened in the Arlberg this end of the season. The truth is we were so preoccupied that telling the outside world about it all seemed a bit superfluous.

In the last month and a half of the season we managed theme parties, big air and freeride comps, beach vollyball, the fasching festival, three-legged pub-crawl carnage, the Weisse Rauch, and more, not mentioning having to survive the end of season closing parties.

We lost a few resort characters before the very end to the summer season start, and we had a big patch of no snow for a little while. Thankfully though the weather kept the snow in good condition on upper slopes, even if Goldilocks would have been impressed by the porridge on the base of the home runs.

Competition Corner
March saw the annual worker's big air competition on Rendl. Despite being posponed for what seemed like forever, when it finally came around it turned out to be a great day, with a massive worker turnout . Following that, Rendl again hosted it's annual volleyball competition with the associated fun and games on the beach. Also on Rendl in March, the Austrian cocktail making championships. Yep, not quite snowsports, but all good.

Lech played host to its own annual competitions too. The Arlberg Open Space Freeride competition, and the Nice and Landed Slopestlye went off without a glitch, both enjoying perfect conditions for their respective disciplines. Some fine riding was displayed in both.

Theme tunes
The partying in Anton continues as ever. The big one was Fasching Dienstag, the annual shrove Tuesday/end of Karneval party, and an excuse for the whole of St Anton to go a little mad. Fasching is the one time of year where it seems you're the odd one out if you haven't dressed up. It certainly led to some carnage as usual this year. The most worrying thing is the number of blokes who rather enjoy too much the traditional cross dressing . Other springtime theme parties included Scotty's 6 nations and 999 parties.

Renaissance
After that, the resort began to calm down a tad. The KK closed in Mid march after the snow disappeared from underneath it, but then it all went weird. An amazing cold snap and a foot of snow, giving us some of the best powder of the year, and nobody in resort to track it out. Fantastic. Smiles on everyone's faces and a great way to wind down the season.

In the final week we saw the annual three-legged pub crawl, a race against the clock, featuring 10 drinks of dubious content (including the Funky Chicken's "Dirty Bird", something that only appears once a year - I estimate its Stroh 80 rum content at somewhere near 100 percent.), and finally a chance for the English and Scandinavian contingents to meet. Ski Val's Olly took the title again…The bloke's a monster.

Closure
The final week's clearing up of the end of season leftovers led to the general destruction of most people in resort. In the final weekend, Scotty's closing party, Kandahar's last gasp, and Cuba's closing Wig party closed out the season for most.

One thing is certain - there will be an awful lot back for more. If anyone's after a niche in St Anton to start a business, budget liver transplants might be the way forward…

Servus! Here's to next year!

Report from Alastair Vaan - Natives Resort Reporter in St Anton

Mail this page to a friend
What do you think? Tell us in the Chat Room