Skiing streif

Where did the snow go? It really didn't matter

Author: By Alan Behr, Globe Correspondent

Date: SUNDAY, December 7, 1997

Page: N9

Section: Travel

``To be honest, we have not had much,'' said Michaela Kolb, the sweet and dependable desk clerk at the Hotel Schweizerhof. ``When there is snow like this, we suggest other things to our guests, like maybe a sleigh ride.'' But the only sleigh we had seen was rolling on wheels.

The Schweizerhof proved a good choice, one I had made only three hours before boarding Lufthansa for Munich and the business meeting that had opened our journey. My selection of Kitzbuehel itself would have been shrewd had we not arrived in what was being called the resort's worst snow season in 10 years.

We had it coming to us: The previous February, in St. Moritz, Switzerland, the dollar was weak and snow plentiful. Now that our money had recovered, we were the rich Americans of my parents' generation, in town to ski on thin ice.

I had chosen Kitzbuehel because my parents had indeed visited there when I was young and because, with its many intermediate runs, clean and unpretentious hotels, and smattering of expensive shops, it would be a milder counterpoint to the transcending chic of St. Moritz.

I had another problem: Since Julie was a novice, she would need careful instruction for skiing in bad conditions, but I'd endured a year of hearing how adorable and good looking her Swiss ski teacher, Marco, had been. I took the matter in hand the next morning, in the wooden chalet of the Ski School Total.

``OK, I got you an instructor,'' I told Julie as I came from the chalet.

``And?''

``Six-foot tall, blond, blue-eyed.''

``Good looking?''

``You bet.''

I knew that little smile. ``His name?''

``Kimberly.''

Muscular, lanky Kimberly Anne ``Tex'' Wilkin, her hair golden in the Alpine sun, swaggered out to escort us to the lift.

The scourge of Kitzbuehel had been the main lift, known as the Hahnenkammbahn. Built in the '50s, it had consisted of twin cable cars that carried a mere 390 people an hour. In high season, we were told, the wait could extend over one hour.

Between the previous spring and fall, with helicopter transport and some ingenious tunneling under a mountaintop restaurant, a new lift based on 98 gondolas had been installed. Capacity had ballooned to about 2,000 per hour, and we would never experience a wait longer than four minutes. One of the retired cable cars was now mounted like a moose head on the wall of the lower station.

The ride takes about eight minutes, and we got to know a little about Tex. She was 27, called Austin home but had lit out for London four years before, eventually to arrive in ``Kitz'' after several stops on the Continent. She spoke German and French and was living with an Italian ski racer. There were cultural adjustments for an American woman with an independent nature: If her boyfriend should leave the place a mess, their elderly landlady would remonstrate Tex for not picking up after him.

Tex directed us to the better slopes, meaning the ones where most of the snowmaking had been done. ``Snow cannons'' shaped like jet engines in nacelles sprayed great, wafting clouds through which the sun cast glinting rainbows, the wet snow blowing upon us like cold, tactile dew.

In skiing, as in driving and cooking, there are things which one woman can say to another which are not well received from a man, especially a husband. So it was good to have Tex along. She was encouraging and supportive, sensitive to Julie's abilities, to limits, and to the need for personal satisfaction.

As for me, Tex encouraged more up and down motion on the turns. She said it would feel awkward but look great, thereby affirming, however unintentionally, that the only correct way to get down a mountain on skis is to bob and shake your backside.

At about 3 o'clock, Tex said to me privately, ``Julie won't admit it, but she's tired.'' Though my wife claimed to be as spry as a kitten, I could see from her drawn face that Tex was right.

We took off our skis and Tex led us along a side path. ``Don't look down yet,'' she said. When we were in position, she said ``OK,'' and we glared at a nearly vertical drop. ``It's the Streif race course. You can't tell on TV how dangerous it really is.''

We were just below the starting gate from which, the prior week, competitors in the Hahnenkamm World Cup race had skated down this purposely iced slope at more than 90 miles per hour. It lent credence to Julie's theory that the most frequently heard line in Kitz is ``I was a racer until the accident.''

``After the race,'' said Tex, ``tourists try the course, and the rescue helicopters shuttle out here to take them to hospitals.''

``We'll omit that part of the tour,'' I said.

``But if conditions are good, you can ski the Streif family course. It's the long stretch that snakes around the race course and ends in town. It includes a little piece of the race course, so you can say you've done a part of it.''

As we walked to collect our skis, Julie, who still snowplows most turns, said, ``I want to ski the Streif.'' Figures.

Nocturne. After dinner, we tried the town's night life, following a list supplied by Tex. Our first stop was the Londoner, a big, noisy place with an Anglo-American theme and a young guy with a Yankee accent who greeted us at the door; he was obviously there to card newcomers, as everyone in the room looked like the grown children we hoped one day to have.

We had been told that the small, wood-paneled bar known as Fuenfel was for the ``older crowd,'' and it was. We drank wine while people with wisps of gray gossiped in that self-consciously blase manner both sexes employ when trying to appear chic. Two fur-lined women in their 40s peeked inside, adjusted their blonded coiffeurs and entered. ``What are we doing here?'' asked Julie, and we exited for the casino.

Like others of its kind, the casino had an ad in which a well-dressed man escorted two well-dressed women (see, he doubled his fortune), each smiling with indelible pleasure. In the dark upstairs rooms, chips were raked by men in tuxedos (see, we're respectable, Mr. Bond). Every patron wore a face of anxiety, remorse or, predominantly, compulsion. When, around a corner, Julie came upon a man with a gray ponytail pumping two slot machines simultaneously, she'd seen enough.

We wound up at Kortschak, a delightfully convivial cafe/pastry shop where quiet conversation prevailed and the evening finally lightened for us. We went there every night thereafter.

So it was at Kortschak, a couple evenings later, that we questioned Tex about the Streif family course. Julie and I had been skiing on our own, going as high as the Steinbergkogel (about 6,460 feet). There, we could see the ridge of white peaks to the north, which, it was rumored, effectively blocked the arrival of snow-bearing weather. Despite the prevalent ice and occasional brown earth, and except for a bruise that looked like a black half-cantaloupe planted on Julie's left thigh, we had done fine.

``The Streif?'' Tex pointed a finger at me. ``For you, any time. For you . . ..'' Now the finger aimed at Julie. ``Only in first thing in the morning, before the snow they make at night has been skied off.''

The following dawn came slowly to Kitzbuehel, the mountains hiding the sun until, when we had finished breakfast, light as clear as a mountain stream glinted from the church steeple and then the rooftops. Julie and I were among the first on the Hahnenkammbahn.

We made a practice run on a short slope we had skied many times before, taking careful measure of the frothy layer of shiny manmade snow. ``This is it,'' I said. ``You feel good?''

``Let's do it.''

I led Julie toward a drop down which skiers of power and grace disappeared from our view. We followed a great, serpentine trail, tacking through it like sailboats, a mischievous snow cannon spraying us as we navigated a hairpin bend.

The path narrowed; there was a curve to the left, and we saw the low houses of Kitz clustered in the valley far below; it was like staring from a rooftop at chestnuts in a sun-washed bowl.

The path twisted hard to the right and led to an open drop where, ominously, skiers had stopped to consider the situation. They would stand together in knots until, individually, each would elect to make his move, sometimes cautiously, sometimes aggressively, but eventually, all did: There was no other way home.

We approached and had a peek down. I'd neglected to bring my protractor, but I was not happy with the angle of the drop. We were to go dancing three days later at the Opera Ball in Vienna; I had a vision of hobbling in like an ice-wounded Ahab, of waltz lessons and evening clothes purchased for naught.

Julie began her descent slowly, snowplowing, then, bravely, moving her skies in parallel. She wasn't graceful, she wasn't elegant, but she was upright.

I followed. Shiny powder flew contemptuously from my ski tips. I rose for the turn, my skis diving on slick ice.

I wasn't ``carving'' as you are supposed to. Like my wife, was simply trying to stay vertical. I turned again, and then again, snow flying, ice scraping, muscles brutally straining, and Julie's chartreuse parka a beacon in front of me.

In a show of forgiveness, the mountain flattened itself into a gentle curl, guiding us to town. We came to a halt at a snow-covered footbridge that led to a slope where children lined up to get their first taste of this peculiar and invigorating sport.

``Cool!'' said Julie.

It was a short walk back to the base of the Hahnenkammbahn. We shared a gondola with a stocky, silent young man with the logo of the Austrian ski team on his parka. As we ascended, I heard from behind the high-pitched whir of rotor blades.

On the Streif, at about the spot we had just vacated, stood a red rescue helicopter, revving its engine.

``It's inevitable,'' said Julie. ``Sooner or later, you're going to crash.''

The racer smiled.

Our gondola climbed a swath out through an evergreen forest. The top of the Streif lay ahead. ``One more time?'' Julie asked sweetly.

``Next trip,'' I said.