Eit’s cold. So cold that the creek that flows right next to the trail has formed ridges of ice at the edges. They are thicker than our skis.
And it’s silent. So quiet that we hear the water music of winter. The Gsieser Bach does not murmur. It flows so smoothly that it only murmurs softly. Also, it crackles. This delicate sound comes from wafer-thin ice floes breaking away from the shore. They drift slowly down the stream, the sun is reflected in them.
A tall man is standing next to the trail. “Maestro di Sci” is written on his jacket, which sounds much more elegant than the German word “ski instructor”, which is also printed on it. Martin Steger not only shows us the intricacies of the diagonal step. He also explains to us the valley where he has been living on a farm for 35 years. Like every morning, he was in the barn at half past five to take care of his cows.
The Gsieser Tal in South Tyrol is a good 20 kilometers long. East of Brunico, at the medieval castle of Welsperg, you go from the wide Pustertal to this side valley. It opens wide and rises gently, which is ideal for cross-country skiers. 45 kilometers of cross-country trails are groomed every night. “The stream is the old border, it divides the valley,” explains Martin Steger. “The eastern bank belonged to the monastery of San Candido, the western one to the prince-bishop of Brixen.” The Benedictines of San Candido had the worse side – it lies in the shade. In the valley of Pichl. Martin points to a couple of farms and says, “They don’t get any sun all winter.”
On the tourist map, the entire Val Casies, as it is called in Italian, lies in the shadow of the neighboring valley. This is known for its biathlon arena in Antholz. A delicate veil of mist hovers over the Gsieser Bach, every branch of the trees and bushes on the bank is white. Snow crystals, which have grown as large as ice flowers in the cold, glisten on the wooden bridge railing. In the south, the Pragser Dolomites tower into the horizon. The Seekofel sets a distinctive mark in this chain, its wall falls vertically into the depths.
“Fluent German and warm water”
Old farmhouses clump together to form hamlets. Stacks of wood of various sizes protrude from the snow. There is hardly any traffic on the main road. On the right, a small tow lift leads up the slope. In the whole valley there are only two such village lifts, as Martin calls them. It’s lucky that there weren’t more. In the 1970s, the people of Gsies also dreamed of the big ski circuit. There were plans to build cable cars and slopes at three locations in the valley.
“I was very much in favor of it,” says Erich Steinmair, “back then we believed: people would only come to us if we had a lot of lifts.” He is 70 years old and runs the only five-star hotel in the valley. His parents opened the “Quelle” in the early 1950s. The father relied on drivers as guests, only they would come to this remote area. So he went to the ADAC in Munich and advertised his hotel there with the slogan “Fluent German and warm water”.