First Time in Austria - St Anton

We have just returned from our first skiing holiday in St.Anton in Austria, we had a fantastic time, the snow was wonderful, the hotel was good, the ski hoisting from the hotel was excellent. The Apres ski, well you had to be there, Mrs S was dancing on tables and trying all sorts of new spirits. :mrgreen: We also had a day of guided off piste skiing, which was safe and secure and took us into some wonderful powder.
The general cost of meals, drinks, and equipment, etc seemed a cheaper than France :?: so we didn't spend too much. :oops:

The only surprise,was the quality of some of the lifts, small two man which nearly knocked you into next week when you got on them :shock: , and there were the "T" bars. Other lifts had heated seats and pull down covers but quite a few really needed upgrading.

Will we go back oh yes, but what part of Austria that is the question.

Its a classis resort. I only know 2 people who didnt like it - one because he is the worlds biggest anti-Austrian and hurt himself whilst there so didnt see much of the area, the other a numpty skier who found it simply too difficult for him.
Otherwise, the world rates this resort very highly.
Apres is indeed raucous!!!!
Never found a T bar but theres the odd older chair, bit of character if you ask me. The last 100m ride on the top of the Schindler chair is amazing though.

I love the place, but agree the lift system could do with some investment. Or at least the money they are spending better focused. Bits seem ridiculously over-engineered, while other keys lifts are rickety old two Man things.
The other thing are the piste markings and sign posts, they're not great.

andyhull wrote:I love the place, but agree the lift system could do with some investment. Or at least the money they are spending better focused. Bits seem ridiculously over-engineered, while other keys lifts are rickety old two Man things.
The other thing are the piste markings and sign posts, they're not great.

Nice to see that you have noticed Andy ...Most people ignore the short comings of St Anton because it is St Anton.

I think poor piste marking and signage is true for most Austrian resorts, Mayrhofen was just as bad.
Perhaps we're just spoiled by the amount of thought and investment the French put in.
St Anton isn't somewhere you go to cruse the pistes, just we had such poor off piste conditions that we spent far more time on piste than we would have liked.
Something that amazed me was Arlberg have just added a link to Warth, but there's virtually no signage at all pointing the way. They've obviously spent a lot of money on the new lift but it's like they don't want anyone to use it!

Ian Wickham wrote:

andyhull wrote:I love the place, but agree the lift system could do with some investment. Or at least the money they are spending better focused. Bits seem ridiculously over-engineered, while other keys lifts are rickety old two Man things.
The other thing are the piste markings and sign posts, they're not great.

Nice to see that you have noticed Andy ...Most people ignore the short comings of St Anton because it is St Anton.

........whilst others rate it, and I quote "rubbish" because its too difficult for them (not you I hasten to add), and because there was, get this and I quote again, "really bad visibility" when it snowed one morning :roll:
Its the people not the resort that have the problems with it.
Piste markings never caused me a problem, no one I know ever got lost, and the 2 man chairs at Stuben were actually great fun when they stopped abruptly and bounced about 30 feet up and down!!! The vast majority of lifts are modern, covered and heated with some even having tissue dispensers.

Only 1 issue we genuinely found - one short black was at best a blue, whilst another blue on the map should have been black and was carnage, cant remember the run numbers now.

Oh and watch out for that deadly run back down to St Christoph. It seems every time I didn't ski it, someone got helicoptered off or visibility was zero feet. Or something.

8) -)

As someone who skis only in Austria, I didn't like St Anton (only there for one day). I have never seen an Austrian resort with so many people sitting in the huts with house shoes on. For some reason they had chosen not to ski: go figure. Yes the black runs are easy. But the last run down, badly prepared, mogulled, slushy, and crowded with skiiers most of whom are struggling, should offer challenge and danger enough to satisfy anyone who is tempted to complain the blacks are too easy: it presents a major challenge, and if you are good enough to get down that in good style and are still left wanting something harder, you need challenges which very few pistes offer. Personally I prefer easy and safe resorts... there are many pretty, relatively low, resorts with good prices, excllent pistes, & modern lifts in Austria which I prefer to the large resorts who maybe do not have to work so hard because they are included in many packages.

However if you do go to St Anton, check out the ski musuem. It is combined with a very smart restaurant, and worth a visit.

St Anton is a real curiosity. It seems to generate real animosity with lots of people for some reason. Yes - it does have some issues but overall, the area is fantastic. Maybe not for everyone. It certainly is not a good place for beginners or timid intermediates, the home runs can be difficult and frightening around 3pm, especially when "good" skiers come flying through at outrageous speeds. There are also one or two bottlenecks that could do with some new runs/lifts. Getting down from Galzig involves either the Black Kandahar run or the Blue 4 valley run. The Kandahar is not terribly difficult if conditions are ok but can be a bit crowded for a Black. The valley run (4) is lovely if not busy. Unfortunately, this is rarely the position. More of a motorway, especially after lunch :evil:. They should really put a short lift up from that dip between Galzig and Schindler (bottom of Black 10). At the moment, coming back from the Stuben/Schindler/Valluga side requires you to ski down into the valley and come back on on the gondola or Zammermoos lift. Also, the bus services is simply not good enough, while taxi prices are outrageous. But these are (relatively) minor quibbles :wink:.

IMHO, the secret of St Anton is get out to the edges. The long blue run down to Stuben (Blue 17) can be great fun. Stuben itself has a few lovely reds. Yes - the rickety old 2-man chairs feel like a relic from an older era but I love the fact that they give you a fleece blankets to wrap up in on the (slow) journey up :shock:. Rendl is not too big but has a few pleasant pistes and is worth the spin over for a few hours.

If you want a challenge, there are any number of ski-routes that should keep you interested and that's not even mentioning the endless off-piste opportunities for the experts :wink:

Add to the mix, the lovely skiing in Zurs - the long Red 10 down from the Muggengrat lift is lovely - seriously steep first pitch followed by a long run out. Lech is a bit more gentle but has it own charms. Skiing of the top of Rufikopf down into Zurs is lovely trip with some spectacular scenery.

From Lech it is now an easy trip across to Warth which has some really nice skiing, including a couple of steep, if shortish, blacks. It also seems to offer lots of opportunities for short off-piste runs between pistes - great for those wanting to sample some powder without going back-country.

Prices in the area are high for Austria, especially ski hire. However, if you have lived through French prices, it will not phase you. Food is generally very good and, well, the après-ski is legendary :mrgreen:.

All-in-all, a wonderful ski area.