Sometimes it’s all about being at the right place at the right time. When we got the details for the Scott Week 2016 about two weeks ago, however, we were wondering what to expect. Two weeks ago, powder—or snow at all—was pretty scarce in the Alps.

Text & Photos: Klaus Polzer

The Scott Week is a yearly event where retailers and lucky magazine people like us get a hands-on preview on next year’s hot products in the wake of ISPO, the big sporting goods trade show in Munich end of January. As Scott is a brand with focus on backcountry skiing, good snow conditions are almost a prerequisite for seriously testing their products. So, with the only reasonable snow fall happening in the Western Alps still far away from this year’s hosting resort of the Scott Week, famous powder haven Zürs in the Arlberg region, we weren’t too excited.

The outlook improved substantially when we started to pack our bags. By the time we were sitting in the car, our concerns revolved rather about whether we were still be able to reach our destination due to all the new snow rather than what kind of snow we would be skiing. At the Arlberg pass, road signs recommended snow chains—thanks to our 4WD we got away without them—and at our hotel in Zürs we had to dig out a parking spot from half a meter of fresh pow.

The next two days were sheer bliss. Of course, we had to consider a serious avalanche risk and therefore were limited to only a fraction of the enormous freeride terrain that the Lech-Zürs area usually offers, but we didn’t care. We had the chance to test ride some awesome new freeride skis and boots–for the details please wait for our ispo reports next week—but honestly we didn’t care much, either. The only thing that mattered was to ski some waist deep pow for the first time this season. What a sensation! A feeling we were missing far too long.

Our experience was enhanced by the presence of the Scott Pro Team—namely Dane Tudor, Jeremy Heitz and Arianna Tricomi, who we had the pleasure to ski with and who we interviewed for you, our readers; expect some interesting insights in interview articles to follow—and our powder excursions were safe-guarded by Scott mountain guides like Luca Rolli and Raphael Eiter. Thanks a hell lot, guys, for the great days! As always, the hospitality and the expertise of the whole Scott crew was outstanding but what we are thankful for the most, is to have been brought to the right place at the right time. We will always come back!