February 06, 2009 – From the sunshine of St Anton am Arlberg, to the near snowed-in village of St. Johann im Defreggental the Swatch O’Neill Big Mountain Pro has successfully sourced some of the most promising mountain conditions presently available in the Alps.
The six skiers and six snowboarders boarded the bus in St Anton under the warm sunshine and quickly melting snow. Two hours later, emerging from the Felbertauern tunnel onto the southern side of the Austrian Alps in East Tyrol, the snow was falling.
“Usually we get more snow on the northern side of the Alps,” said local rider, Mitch Toelderer. “But there are winters where there’s better weather in the south – and this is definitely one of them.”
On this, his third Big Mountain Pro, Mitch Toelderer has now not only hiked and snowboarded down his local face above Innsbruck, but has also journeyed to East Tyrol, just around the corner from where he grew up in Carinthia.
“Carinthia is where I first learnt to snowboard,” he said. “I got my first powder run here on a school trip when I was 12 years old – I was one of only two guys bringing a snowboard. The rest were on skis.”
“This part of Austria is really laid back and quiet,” he said. “There is less tourism than in other parts of Austria. I’m stoked to have a lot of these guys seeing a part of Austria they’ve never seen. They usually get stuck in the famous more well known areas,” he said. “However, here on this border with Salzburg, East Tyrol and Carinthia there are high alpine mountains.”
Riders
SNOWBOARD
Jeremy Jones
Fredrik Evensen
Mitch Toelderer
Xavier de le Rue
Eric Themel
Thomas Eberharter
SKI
Arnaud Rougier
Cody Townsend
Jeremie Heitz
Loris Falquet
Richard Permin
Thomas Diet
