Mayrhofen, Day 2.

On top of the world today at 2473 metres! We did our warm-up Red 6 a couple of times this morning, followed by the 150Tux, the second largest gondola in Austria with a capacity of (unsurprisingly) 150 people. It felt massive! Today it was even sunnier than it had been, and at the top of the Wanglspitz (M and I laughed about that one for a while, too) it was actually really hot. We decided to head back to Panorahma for lunch, which was just as good as yesterday. We had a 'Harakiri' pizza, named after Austria's steepest pisted run - a 78% incline, which didn't sound too bad to me until M pointed out that it's only 12 degrees off vertical. Eek! Maybe we'll tackle that one later in the week.

After our pizzas, we sat in the deckchairs with a couple of pints for an hour or so - perhaps that's why we only managed a meagre 25km of skiing today! We did, however, manage a run on Red 16 which turned out to be a tricky little run and I was mighty proud of myself for getting down it in quite a respectable time (I'm still not keeping up with M, but he has a few years experience on me)!

After a few more runs down Reds 6, 1 and 11 (busy, but definitely some of our favourite runs) we called it quits and headed back to the chalet for a meeting with the Crystal Reps to hear what activities we could join in on for the week. The barcrawl tomorrow sounded like a good option, but nothing else really appealed. We're a bit antisocial I think!

At dinner, we got chatting to a couple of lovely Irish girls from the chalet; they'd never skied before but unfortunately on their first day, in a lesson, one of them had fallen and shattered her ankle. I can't think how it happened - when you're in ski boots, the only part of you that should be totally immobilised is your ankle - skiers usually get knee injuries if anything. I'm not sure if her boots were maybe incorrectly fitted. Such a shame, she was in a lot of pain and had just come back from the hospital where they had to operate and put a plate in. Her friend was understandably terrified and although she has a lesson booked tomorrow, is unsure if she'll be able to do it.

There are loads of really nice folk in our chalet, and the hosts are just ace. They make lovely food, too. After we'd eaten we met up with one of the Crystal Reps in a nearby bar to start the bar crawl - after a couple of pints we played a few games; we had to hit a nail into a huge wooden log with a mallet whose centre was missing: much harder than it sounds. We took it in turns and whoever missed the nail completely had to down a shot of Jager - luckily my aim was quite good!

At the next bar we played killer pool - we each had 2 lives and if you missed a pot, you lost a life. We'd all put in 1 euro to play, and the coins were stacked in the middle of the table. If you hit the stack, you had to add another euro. We went round the group playing one shot each, and I managed to come 3rd out of 23! I was pretty delighted with myself.

We headed off to a few more places, but by bar number 4, M and I were flagging a little. We decided to head home and fall into bed, tired and achey. Some of the guys that were out would have definitely struggled to get out of bed the next day!

To see the runs/places I'm talking about, there's a map here.