After watching Nicolas Müller’s opener of Absinthe’s new movie Neverland, I couldn’t wait for the season to start to finally put an end to the long months of yearning to get back on a snowboard.

Although I have to say that the poor conditions on the Hintertuxer glacier didn’t have the slightest resemblance to the powder masses depicted in the movie, and the retreat of the glacier shocked me to my very core, it was an amazing feeling to get back to shred.

For the first time in the history of the opening there wasn’t enough snow to ride down to the test centre area at the Fernerhaus, but had to take the gondola to get down from the slopes – unless of course you were crazy enough to ride on little ice patches between rocks and crevasses. Seeing the once so stunning glacier so bare of snow is a really shocking sight that pitchforks the issue of global warming right back to the fore front of your thoughts, had it been able to escape from there during the summer.

The hotzone.tv crew still managed to set up a really nice park with big jumps, small jumps and an arrangement of nice jibs you could shred in soft, slushy snow under blazing sun. Feeling transported right back to your last spring sessions, it was perfect to get back your feeling for the latest tricks you had learnt by end of the last season.

Although icy slopes might not be the best conditions to test new gear such as banana, rocker and Trible Base Technology boards, the combination with the soft slush gave you a full perspective on the overall capacity of such boards, which isn’t bad either – like that you at least know what you can expect if you end up packing a powder stick for your trip just to find out the resort is an ice cube…which doesn’t have to be the end of the world, you just need to work those boards right and nail your turns with enough power.

And as if the lust for snow hadn’t been tickled enough, we had a little room party with the Onboard crew on Saturday night to see the premier of the new Forum movie Forever. Now I really can’t wait for the white gold to fall from the sky in endless masses and will pray to Petrus (as we call the weather god in German) every day to send us snow as soon as he can…

If you have the same feeling of unbearable yearning, take a trip to the Hintertux glacier and celebrate your own season opening – if you ask me, conditions don’t really matter that much, is all about the shred…

Happy shredding!