Mayrhofen, Day 1.

Our first full day of Mayrhofen, 2013! Yesterday, M and I got up earlyish and finished off our packing, picked up some last minute bits from the shop and began our journey down to Edinburgh. The drive was easy and we made it to the airport in record time, so we managed a beer and some lunch before the flight. Edinburgh to Innsbruck only takes 2 hours, but it was still dark by the time we arrived. The transfer to the chalet was a bit disorganised but our grumpy bus driver was hilarious; one woman was running after him to tell him he'd picked up the wrong bags - he sighed dramatically, threw the bags on the floor and muttered "do it self." Mike and I were laughing for ages over that one. When we arrived at Chalet Tirol, we were greeted by a lovely lady called Natalie, and her two helpers (Seb and George). They had a lovely hot dinner waiting for us, with lots of wine, which we demolished in minutes. The room was great - fairly basic but very comfy and clean.

After a good night's sleep, we woke this morning to spectacular views of the mountain from our window, with the Penkenbahn cable car running hundreds of feet above the top of the forest which covered the steep slope. The sky was blue, with wispy clouds, and the snow looked amazing. We ate a quick breakfast and headed straight up - the Penkenbahn was a terrifying ascent for me - it quickly travels a 1,230 vertical metres and has a pretty unnerving wobble halfway up over one of the pylons. One to get used to!

When we arrived at the ski area, we were absolutely blown away by the views. We stayed on the same run (Red 6, for anyone who's been) for ages, just because the snow was perfectly groomed, the scenery was amazing and the chair back up was super-comfy (none of the rusty, old, moth-eaten chairs of Scotland - the Kombibahn had 6 leather seats per chair, and a visor that pulled down over the whole lift to protect you from wind and snow).

When we strayed out a bit further over the resort, we found more perfect snow and lovely views. We had a look at the Vans Park but M wasn't very impressed and I'm useless at freestyle, so we stayed on the pistes. We had lunch at a restaurant called Panorahma (2,095 m) which was gorgeous and really inexpensive.

After a couple more hours skiing, we had a couple of drinks at the Pilzbar before catching the Penkenbahn back down to our chalet, which was only a 5 minute walk from the entrance. A brilliant first day!

The boys at the chalet had baked blueberry cake for a pre-dinner snack, which we demolished with a cup of coffee before taking a nap on our super-soft bed to recover from a full day's skiing. Our ski passes were electronic and apparently we skied a full 20km of downhill and caught 15 lifts uphill today - we'll aim for more later in the week.

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