It was 4am when I finally cracked. David Hasselhoff was walking towards me, wearing his red Baywatch shorts and chatting to a giant rabbit. This was too much.
Scrambling backwards through the heaving Karma club, I leapt out into the freezing Austrian morning, babbling incoherently.
But where should I go next? I did have options. This was Rave on Snow, a 48-hour dance event that had mischievously turned the quaint resort of Saalbach into an electronic music mecca.
Seventy DJs had taken over the cobbled town square, a lift station, even the local school.
There were nine venues in total, the Âintimate and offbeat nature of each one contributing to the feeling of it being an illicit party rather than a commercial venture.
In every direction German, Austrian and Swiss partygoers were bounding around like gleeful gremlins, racing between venues gripping cans of Red Bull, oblivious of the snow settling gently on their shoulders.
By 10am that snow would be transformed into the kind of powder a person gets up early for. Ah, the irony.
“There’s no time for snowboarding,” yelled one confused punter, blonde in the way only Dutch teenagers can be. “We’re here for the music.”
More fool her, I thought six hours later as I clipped into my skis and shot off from the top of the Schattberg X-Press on red run five, my tired eyes struggling to see a route obliterated by cloud. It was early December, but Saalbach was enjoying its third year in a row of superb start-of-season snow.
This resort, and neighbouring base Hinterglemm, is nicknamed the “Skicircus” because the towns sit in a ring of mountains, with 199km of pistes offering powder runs, sweeping corduroy, freestyle parks and technical blacks.
This particular circus clown could have been on a World Cup descent for all it mattered, with lack of sleep and far too much caffeine mixing darkly with calf-deep powder.
The lift operator working the absolutely deserted Schattberg Sprinter, which takes skiers over to pistes leading into Hinterglemm, kindly suggested I try one of the 40 mountain restaurants before proceeding any further. This I obediently did, clinging wildly to my skis as the Westgipfelhutte loomed out of the gloom.
“I demand a Radler and schnitzel,” I heard a booming voice say. Curses, it was mine.
Retreating into a corner, I polished off the amazingly good food and began to feel more confident of my legs, of my ability to hold poles in hands that didn’t shake. But then I heard it. A faint but persistent beat was seeping through the clouds.
DJ Paul Kalkbrenner was beginning his set at 2020m, controlling the decks at the top of the Schattberg gondola.
It was noon and the game was on again. The scene was like something from a twisted fairytale. People dressed as tigers and bears were lolloping around, penguins bopped, a giant lizard made its way through the crowd and Day-Glo beanies graced the heads of impossibly beautiful girls wearing aviator sunglasses in spite of the heavy snow.
Everybody was dancing, hopping from foot to foot as steaming cups of glühwein spilled left and right in time with the beat.
And, sweet Jesus, what was this? David Hasselhoff again, dancing on the roof of the lift station — only this time I could see it wasn’t actually the Baywatch star, but a brave soul wearing swimming shorts in -10C.
Some people were tempted by the deep powder on routes 2a and 4a and they were chased down the runs by empty beer bottles. Getting off the returning chairlift was carnage.
Bodies piled on bodies, coordination lost in fits of giggles and yelps. When Pascal Feds took over the decks, I decided it was time I made my way back down. I opted to ski (hey, it’s a black run and I’ve not slept — what could possibly go wrong?), only to be greeted at the third corner by the sight of three naked men sliding down the steep slope on their bellies.
Rave on Snow started 17 years ago when a German, Thomas Kleutgen wanted a crazy weekend in the snow with his friends. “We wanted a bit of boarding and partying — we honestly never thought it would grow to be this big,” he said. “It’s basically the ultimate pre-Christmas party. It kicks off the season.”
You know your office Christmas party? Rave on Snow is better. The event may be big in Germany and Austria, but its reputation has yet to spread far beyond those borders so though it boasts world-class music acts, at its core it remains a giddy and exuberant party among mates.
After more schnitzel at the gloriously Austrian Kohlmais Stub’n restaurant (where I watched a man try to lift a glass the size of his torso filled with beer — was nothing in this town normal?) I made my way to the Dorfplatz — the outdoor arena that was Rave on Snow central — at 9pm in time to catch Andre Galluzzi’s set, a bonanza of lights, crazy inflatables and a lot of ice, which made dancing tricky.
The crowd was going nuts: people were careering across the frozen dance floor like spilt marbles.
This was not a time to hold back, I told myself, as I leapt into the fray, the heavy beat picking me up and sweeping me into the early hours of the morning via Dan Drastic’s funky tunes in the Taverne and the superb Johnny D at Saalbach’s converted school (sorry kids).
When it dawned on me that I was sporting three beanies and none of them was mine, I concluded it was time to take my leave and lurched out into the snow.
At 8am, as I left for the airport, the party was still going strong. People were dancing outside the Castello club as Domenico D’Agnelli wrapped up proceedings. One of the rascals was wearing my beanie. —