Oberwiesenthal Year 2

It had not occurred to me that my life would have involved getting to know an obscure little corner of Saxony so well. But, nestled up against the Czech border lies a small mountain range with a couple tiny ski resorts stretching uphill from the winding streets of former farming and mining towns. It is the closest skiing to Berlin, about a three hour drive, and we've come back here for the second year in a row. It's called "Oberwiesenthal" which means "Upper Valley Meadow."

This year, they had a ton of snow. Our trip by day:


Saturday

• Three hour drive south of Berlin to the Erzgebirge (Ore Mountains) region along the Czech border. Stayed at the Fichtelberghütte, a basic lodge on a saddle between the two man peaks of the Oberwiesenthal ski area. Fichtel = Spruce.
• Recent storms have piled up lots of snow, about a 1/4 of the parking lot is lost to the plowed up snow from earlier. It is a platform about 7 feet high, growing inexorably from the far end of the parking lot with every new storm.
• In town we visit the kid's ski school and organise tickets and gear.
• Sharing a large room as a family ensures everyone goes to bed when the kids do, which means we are all getting some wonderful sleep.

Sunday

• Our lodge has the typical breakfast experience: various bread roll options, ham/cheese/spreads plus yogurt & muesli, scrambled eggs and coffee. Ski trophies and specialty beer steins line the shelves in the breakfast room. 
• Everyone shouts "Guten Morgen" to each other upon initial entry to the room, as Germans are trained to do. After that, you ignore everyone and eat your food. When leaving, it is customary to say farewell or "good day" to everyone you did not acknowledge for the past 30 minutes.
• Snowing heavily. Drive down the mountain and line up the kids in ski school, which as we remember from last year is a total mad house. Until the magical hour of 10 am arrives, and the venerable Katja Süß steps up and starts delivering instructions on the PA system and everyone scuttles off to their spots. Within 5 minutes the whole place is cleared.
• It is snowing too heavily to ski so Cass and I sit in a cafe for 3.5 hours reading and eating coffee and cake, watching cars spinning out on the unplowed streets outside the window. We hope our kids are ok out in this!
• Dinner in town then drive up the mountain in darkness in a major blizzard. Get stuck on narrow road near summit, meet lots of Germans in the cars now stuck behind us as they help push us out. Snow is blasting all directions. Any time spent outside the car without ski goggles on is impossible as you are blinded. Other cars get stuck. Eventually snow plow arrives. The road is more like a large bobsled run between two massive walls of snow, little more than a one laner.
• Back at the parking lot at the lodge I get stuck again. The Skoda Fabia is a cute car but completely useless in winter situations.

Monday

• Dawns clear and unbelievably beautiful. The blizzard has made the pine trees in even more Dr Seuss-y creations than they were already. Sunlight sparkles off everything, jet contrails criss cross in the deep blue.
• Kids back in ski school for day two, when they learn to ride a T-bar.
• Cass and I rent Nordic gear and stretch out our legs on a long trek up to Siebensäure, a small lake and hunting lodge a couple hours outside of Oberwiesenthal. The cross country skiing situation here is unreal: full gear package is 7 euro/day and there is no trails ticket to buy. The trail system is vast, impeccably groomed, and aside of a couple major junctions close in, is largely deserted. How it could all function free of charge is a complete mystery.
• Lunch at a little Gästatte lodge at the midway point. Big ceramic stove and fire, heavy wooden tables and taxidermy crowding the walls. Wonderful taxidermy: Hares smoking pipes and sporting rucksacks and smart jackets, a fox standing on hind legs with front paws stretched out holding a tray with three mini bottles of local schnaps.

Tuesday

• Another beautiful morning. I love staying on the top of the mountain in this little lodge since you get a totally different view and feel that you get staying down in town.
• Kids at ski school again from 10-4pm. We take off for the Czech side to ski the cross country system (linked with Oberwiesenthal) over there. Silent forests, sweeping views over valleys, endless tracks. We stopped to check out a hunters blind on the side of the trail.
• Meet up with Arun and Christina and their three kids (friends from school in Berlin) and get a beer then some local Saxon cuisine at the AlpEcke at the base of the hill. I order Grieß Klös, a potato dish with deer meat goulasch, staple of this area.
• We turn in our cross country gear for alpine.
• A conversation later on in the room concerns 1980's-era telephones. Jasper says that phones back in those days were very basic, the had only one app, which was to call another phone.

Wednesday

• This is the kid's last day of lessons. We ski from the Fichtelberghütte down the hill as a family. Tremendous milestone, skiing together as a unit.
• Drop kids at ski school, then Cass and I take the shuttle bus over the Czech border to Klinovec, the neighboring mountain that is on the same ski pass. Try out a few runs over here, which are longer and more interesting than Oberwiesenthal.
• The skis I was given are 170cm. So strange as they feel very short, but then no one knows how to ski anything much longer anymore since the sidecut "revolution" made skiing accessible to millions by effectively dropping the board length significantly. They are quite easy to turn, have to admit that though.
• Shuttle bus back over to Germany, pick up kids, drive up mountain and eat at Fichtelberg station where the tram comes in. Kids throwing ice balls up at the roof eaves to knock off icicles and Cody gets hit in the head, bleeds profusely, although we don't realize it until later on reading books before bedtime. The kid is so tough.

Thursday

• We ski from the lodge on another beautiful morning. Kids show us some of the areas they have been frequenting on their lessons on the mountain. I am surprised with how quick they are, especially Cody. Jasper is more measured, but Cody just points the tips downhill and shoots off, barely in control.
• They've only had a lifetime total of a week of ski lessons and already they can basically keep up with me, which was surprising. 
• Thursday night is the "Fackelabfahrt" (torch parade) from the top of the T-Bar lift. We watched this spectacle last year but the boys were too young to do it. This year they are all-in. After a briefing from their German instructors all the kids (around 120, starting from age 5) are handed a big wooden stick with a wick on top and they head up the lift. Half hour later everyone comes back down, following the guides making big sweeping turns across the mountain. J & C were hugely proud of the outing. It is clearly the kind of thing you'd never contemplate in America!

Friday

• We'd turned in all the skis and gear and had our last day be a "chill in town" kind of thing. Drove down the hill and went to the well-known Cafe König for breakfast and cake. The wonderful thing about Germany is the encouragement to have cake whenever you feel like it.
• We later rent sleds and go on the toboggan hill after making some snowmen. Local clouds rip over the peaks on their way from Czech, occasionally blotting out the sun. Clear otherwise, offering nice views of the church steeple sticking up over the rooftops of the little town.
• Early dinner in the little Czech town of Bozi Dar, where everything is half as expensive as in Germany. Possibly related, the snowplows aren't too active over here, so the village streets have a strong "bobsled run" feel to them. It is a nice enough town though, so maybe next time we come we stay here instead.
• Pack up car, leave Fichtelberghütte, and cruise back up to Berlin, arriving around 10 pm.