We woke up to a complete white dumping outside! Yay. I love snow. No matter how tired I felt I was determined to go snowboarding today as it was our last chance so we set the alarm early, had breaky, bought our mountain tickets and... missed the train... damn. So we had to wait nearly an hour for the next one, we didn't realise they went so infrequently, our timing so far must have been impeccable. Oh well, a good chance to have another walk around Hammersbach now it was completely covered in snow.
Rather than take the train the entire way we got out at Eibsee and took the cable car to the summit. We had seen the cable car the day before from the peak and it looked damn scary (see pic below)! It goes straight up the mountain at some incredible incline and swings dangerously close to the mountain rocks, but hey we were game for anything. The ride was scary but the views were incredible, we even spotted the Eibsee lake which we hadn't managed to see from the summit. The cable car is rather bumpy and rocky, gets buffeted by the wind and you do get very close to the cliff so it's not for the faint-hearted but definitely a great experience. The cable car goes all the way to the summit platform so we had to take the mini cable car back down to the ski slope and hire our snowboards.
This was Nicks first time on a snowboard and he was a crazy natural. He got up and just went. No falling over or un-steadiness. It was just freaky. The first trail we picked was the beginner one up the T-Bar. T-Bars are not easy for snowboarders, they're a bit tricky and damn tiresome too! The easy trail was fun, a wide open slope that reminded me of the Auckland Silverdale snow dome where I had learnt to snowboard. We did that a few times then headed for the Intermediate trails.
These were harder work with much steeper slopes that really put my calves to the test. There was one really fun bit that was like a concave so you go really fast down so you can get up the other side. We found ourselves off trail at one point and we landed right into the deep powder. Deep powder is a bit of a problem on a snowboard, you hit the powder and you bail.. hard! At least the landing is fun. I managed to face plant it a couple of times! And when you do bail you end up in knee deep powder which can take forever to climb out of. At one point I looked over and Nick had bailed and all I could see was his upper body. The powder was so deep he was covered up to his waist! Crazy fun. I also found a great little run with mini jumps that was fun too.
After the intermediate runs we were knackered so we had a rest and went back to the beginners run to round off the day. The slope was good but the T-Bar was a killer so we didn't last long.
We said our last goodbyes to the mountain as the sun went down. It had been a much colder day and we were frozen. The train ride home warmed us a little but we were really hanging out for a spa so back at the hotel we grabbed our vouchers for the "wellness oasis" slipped on our togs and headed down for a spa. Um.. yeah... not a spa. Turns out it was a German sauna full of old naked people. Very weird. You walk past a bar to get to it (seems Germans like to have a drink after they get naked and sweaty) and then theres this big room where everyone chills out in towels, then off that are sauna and steam rooms which they hang out in naked. Too strange. We left and headed for the swimming pool instead followed by a hot shower It was the best we could do.
We woke up to a complete white dumping outside! Yay. I love snow. No matter how tired I felt I was determined to go snowboarding today as it was our last chance so we set the alarm early, had breaky, bought our mountain tickets and... missed the train... damn. So we had to wait nearly an hour for the next one, we didn't realise they went so infrequently, our timing so far must have been impeccable. Oh well, a good chance to have another walk around Hammersbach now it was completely covered in snow.
Rather than take the train the entire way we got out at Eibsee and took the cable car to the summit. We had seen the cable car the day before from the peak and it looked damn scary (see pic below)! It goes straight up the mountain at some incredible incline and swings dangerously close to the mountain rocks, but hey we were game for anything. The ride was scary but the views were incredible, we even spotted the Eibsee lake which we hadn't managed to see from the summit. The cable car is rather bumpy and rocky, gets buffeted by the wind and you do get very close to the cliff so it's not for the faint-hearted but definitely a great experience. The cable car goes all the way to the summit platform so we had to take the mini cable car back down to the ski slope and hire our snowboards. 
This was Nicks first time on a snowboard and he was a crazy natural. He got up and just went. No falling over or un-steadiness. It was just freaky. The first trail we picked was the beginner one up the T-Bar. T-Bars are not easy for snowboarders, they're a bit tricky and damn tiresome too! The easy trail was fun, a wide open slope that reminded me of the Auckland Silverdale snow dome where I had learnt to snowboard. We did that a few times then headed for the Intermediate trails.
These were harder work with much steeper slopes that really put my calves to the test. There was one really fun bit that was like a concave so you go really fast down so you can get up the other side. We found ourselves off trail at one point and we landed right into the deep powder. Deep powder is a bit of a problem on a snowboard, you hit the powder and you bail.. hard! At least the landing is fun. I managed to face plant it a couple of times! And when you do bail you end up in knee deep powder which can take forever to climb out of. At one point I looked over and Nick had bailed and all I could see was his upper body. The powder was so deep he was covered up to his waist! Crazy fun. I also found a great little run with mini jumps that was fun too.
After the intermediate runs we were knackered so we had a rest and went back to the beginners run to round off the day. The slope was good but the T-Bar was a killer so we didn't last long.
We said our last goodbyes to the mountain as the sun went down. It had been a much colder day and we were frozen. The train ride home warmed us a little but we were really hanging out for a spa so back at the hotel we grabbed our vouchers for the "wellness oasis" slipped on our togs and headed down for a spa. Um.. yeah... not a spa. Turns out it was a German sauna full of old naked people. Very weird. You walk past a bar to get to it (seems Germans like to have a drink after they get naked and sweaty) and then theres this big room where everyone chills out in towels, then off that are sauna and steam rooms which they hang out in naked. Too strange. We left and headed for the swimming pool instead followed by a hot shower It was the best we could do.
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