The Harakiri slope in Mayrhofen is the kind of place that makes your stomach drop before you even see the edge. It is named after the Japanese ritual of samurai suicide, and once you are standing at the top looking down, you realize the name isn’t just for show. With a gradient of 78%, it is officially the steepest groomed run in Austria. It is basically a vertical wall of white, and from the top, you can’t even see the bottom of the slope.

What makes it so intimidating isn’t just the steepness. Because it is so vertical, the snow has to be prepared by special winched snowcats that anchor themselves to the mountain so they don’t slide off. This usually results in a surface that is hard, icy, and unforgiving. If you lose an edge here, you aren’t just falling; you are sliding for a few hundred meters until the mountain finally levels out.

There is a strange sort of tension at the top of the run. You see people standing there for five or ten minutes just staring over the edge, trying to decide if they actually want to do it. Some people click out of their skis and walk back to the chairlift in shame, while others just go for it. If you have the technique, it is an incredible rush, but it is definitely more about survival than it is about making pretty turns.

The best part of the whole experience is at the bottom. There is a real sense of relief when the ground finally flattens out and your heart rate starts to drop. You can even buy a “I Survived Harakiri” shirt in the village afterward to prove you did it. It is one of those runs that every serious skier wants to tick off their list, even if they only ever want to do it once.