Martin Hesse

When the days get longer and warmer, but we still don't want to put our skis in the cellar, it's usually about finding a ski resort that offers runs in as many exposures as possible. And one of the areas that offers ideal terrain for this is Lech-Zürs on the Arlberg. Reason enough for us to head to the Arlberg in mid-April for a firn session, which at times even turned into a powder session.

Telluride and Silverton are just ten miles apart as the crow flies. By car, however, you have to drive around the entire mountain range on the San Juan Skyway.
Blue lights flashed behind us as we drove down the pass road towards the Ridgeway.

In artificially bad English, we explained to the sheriff that we were just following the other cars. But even that didn't help. He kindly insisted that we had been traveling around 5 miles per hour too fast. However, as a first-time offender in the state of Colorado, you are only due a warning, not a fine.

A huge steak with baked potato, salad, an appetizer and ice cream brownies for dessert, all for 12 dollars. This is exactly what dinner at a real Wild West ranch should look like. We found the ranch by chance on the side of the road in the small town of Montrose on the way from Crested Butte to Telluride. Well fortified, we finally tackled the last few miles to the old mining town in the middle of the mighty San Juan Mountains.

The drive in heavy snowfall from Aspen to Crested Butte is long and difficult. The route planner had indicated a good three hours in normal weather, but with 30 centimetres of fresh snow on completely uncleared mountain roads, it takes seven hours. Without four-wheel drive, this would probably have been a mission impossible. So once again it was midnight before we drove our jeep into the hotel garage.

Having already visited five ski resorts along the Powder Highway in British Columbia in the winter of 2009, this time we decided to tackle a road trip through the Wild West of Colorado. Fully equipped, we boarded the plane in Munich and landed a good 17 hours later in Grand Junction, in the west of the highest state in the USA.

Kitzbühel has always been a top spot for deep snow skiers. However, if you talk to many Kitz powder junkies about the exact place where they prefer to draw their lines in the snow, the answer is often: "Yes, at Pass Thurn of course!" Reason enough to pay this spot a visit.

25 centimetres of fresh snow have been reported for the third weekend of Advent. What hardly allows for a descent in the rocky high mountains can be a lot of fun on grassy mountains: the best conditions for making the first powder turns of the season in the snow of the Kitzbühel Alps.

Catskiing at Island Lake Lodge was on the agenda for the last day of our BC road trip. Also known as a cheap version of heli-skiing, cat skiing involves being transported to the most beautiful peaks in the remote backcountry by a snowcat with a passenger cabin.

At four hours, the stage from Whitewater to Fernie was the longest on our tour. Of course, on a trip like this, it's easy to fall back on one of the countless fast food restaurants in the land of endless expanses. A&W became our burger joint of choice. And what can we say: really tasty! You should definitely try it on a trip to Canada.

Around three o'clock in the afternoon, we set off from Revelstoke in a southerly direction. Our next destination: the small town of Nelson BC with its Whitewater ski resort. We are lucky that we left Revelstoke so early. The road along the Columbia River in the sunshine is simply a hit. Exactly how you imagine Canada to be. The slopes of the Rockies rise up to the right and left of the river and the glaciers twinkle in the distance.

After our first stop at Kicking-Horse, we continued over the Rogers Pass to Revelstoke two days ago. The first surprise: halfway through the 120 kilometers, we crossed a time zone border, which extended our day by an hour.

A snowstorm greeted us when we arrived in Calgary on Saturday evening. Without any local knowledge, we were glad that a Banff Airport cab pulled out of the airport exit directly in front of us, so we simply followed it in good faith. And as we all know, trust is rewarded, we left the city limits with less than 10 meters of visibility and took Highway 1 west. Shortly before the Rocky Mountains, the snowstorm fortunately cleared, so that we reached the Kicking Horse River Lodge in the small town of Golden shortly before midnight, our accommodation for the next two days.