12th Dachstein Alpen-Trophy

Gosau - Ten Years! In 1995, we had been to the snowy valley at the Dachstein for the first time with our first model balloon, and since then, we've never missed a year.
And just like every year, the weather was really great :-)

The big balloons took off in the morning mist.

This year, 13 model balloon teams were there - from Austria, Germany and even from Belgium.

Bram, Stijn and Luc De Wulf from Belgium at the basket of their model balloon OO-BOE-tje.

Up, up and away into a winter wonderland.

A big thankyou for the photos goes to Fiete & Max Schwuchow, Hans Grafetstetter and Martin Kaiser.

Also there: Peter Heinzel with his Michelin man and Helmut Scherer with the 250m³ model of Toni Meyer from Switzerland.

This year, there was not so much snow, so that one could walk through without major problems. Low winds made it possible for everyone to fly his model ballon over the village and follow it by foot. Many of the pilots flew until their propane went out.

The model envelope of Martin Kaiser did quite a spectacular, though probably unplanned, flight. When he had landed after one hour of flight and turned his envelope upsite down to empty it, the knot of the top rope went off, and the balloon began to rise.

We first thought it to be a rather short excursion, but no! The sun heated up the upper black part of the ballon in such a way, that it floated around over the village without its basket for over one and a half hour, before it came back down again and could be captured by Martin and his crew.

After the weather had spoiled us for two days, it became cloudy again on Sunday, but that couldn't keep us from introducing Martin Eutermoser's new model.

Oh, and before I forget: Greetings to the Uschi at the Koller Pub *ggg*

...see you next year at Gosau!