Tao of Schnoll: Mountains #14 & #15 of #EpicRace -- Lech and Zürs

After a solid 12 hours of sleep, we headed off for our first day of skiing not one, but TWO resorts! Lech and Zürs are two tiny little towns in the same Arlberg area as St. Anton. Luckily for these checkpoints, we had to travel all over the mountain versus just completing items at the base, so we really got to see quite a bit of the mountains.

We decided to start our day in Lech, which was the furthest away. After checking in at the information center to get our sheet stamped, we parked the car, and headed to the chairlift. It was a stunning blue sky day with some of the most incredible views! We made our way across the entire mountain and up to one of the highest peaks for a check-in location. It's hard to describe how big these mountains really are!

After reaching the summit, we skied all the way to the base to move on to the other side of the valley. One of the checkpoints involved taking the tram all the way to the other summit. It was insane -- only 1 support for the entire line as it went up the side of the mountain!

View of Lech from the tram.

At the very top of the tram, they have a restaurant with an awesome outdoor deck. We decided it was the perfect time for lunch and of course a beer. Nothing quite like sitting at the very top of a mountain overlooking all of the Alps while enjoying some delicious food and a cold beer.

Still can't get enough of that view!

Once we were done with lunch, we headed off to ski to the next town of Zürs! Skiing from one town to another was definitely a new experience! The trial was basically empty so it was just the two of us cruising along the wide open mountain. We had quite a funny experience with a T-Bar lift we came across. I had never used one before so I had Dave go first. He wasn't quite sure either, so he put it between his legs like you would with a poma lift. When I tried to do the same, it was a bit more difficult since I'm quite a bit shorter! Once we got off at the top, we saw other people coming up on the lift, and realized that you just put one half of the T behind you, not between your legs!

This is the area we skied into -- wide open fields of snow!

We then ended up at the very top of one side of Zürs, and proceeded to ski all the way to the bottom. It was off to the information center for another stamp, and then back up the other side, just to ski back down. We were having such a great time that we decided when we got to the bottom, to go back up to the very top again for one more run. We definitely got a FULL day of skiing in!

View of Zürs from the top of the slope.

After skiing we headed back to St. Anton, had a quick nap, showered, and headed out to a delicious dinner at a tapas/wine bar called Bodega in town. We had a great meal and then it was time to meet up with some more EpicRacers at another bar. We ended up meeting 6 other racers for a few drinks. It's fun getting to meet everyone as they all have very interesting backgrounds and stories. It will definitely be interesting on the last day when it becomes a real competition.