Euro Guidebooks — This one for Tirol

New Tyrolean backcountry skiing guidebook.

The Tirol of Austria (and northern Italy) is a terrific place to ski tour. Tyrolean terrain varies enough so you can almost always find something no matter the weather, the people are friendly, access is good, and the laid back hut and gasthaus scene keeps it mellow. That’s all why the locals like to keep it secret.

But you know what happens with secrets. Check out Axle and Johann’s new book covering Tyrolean backcountry skiing. This beefy tome is loaded with maps and photos (sometimes almost too loaded), comes with a disk containing GPS tracks you can work from a GPS enabled smart phone (take phone calls while you’re marching along the trail checking the GPS route so you know you’ll be to the hut in time for lunch), and more. Even though the book is written in German, by using an overall map to get your bearings, non-German speaking skiers could use it to find the goods with some help from the locals–if they’ll let you in on the secrets.

This page for Alpbach area where I end up quite often during my European soujourns. While the pages get a bit busy with all the various ways of presenting information, they sure don't lack in informing you about your destination. Really quite impressive. Click image to enlarge.

Every time I head over the pond, seems I end up doing a tour or two with guidebook author Axel Jentzsch-Rabl and his twin brother. They’re originally from Vienna, which is where Sigmund Freud hails from as well. I’ll let you guess what that might mean. But I can say they’re great guys to hang out with and they’re CRAZY about ski touring. To purchase, you can contact the authors directly via their websites:

The author’s main website.
The book