Adv/Int skiing in Austria

I hav'nt been skiing in Europe before, but after reading posts on the forum Austria sounds like a great place to go over France & Italy.

I'm really hoping someone could give me some advice as there are so many more resorts in Europe than I could imagine and I'd hate to spend all the ££ and end up somewhere I regret...

I'm been skiing since I could walk-in Australia though-and my girlfriend is a good intermediate skier, so we're up for somewhere exciting....but we're both <25 so we've also got a tight budget...

If anyone could steer us in the right direction, even if that means that we should look outside Austria I'd appreciate your opinions.

Cheers
Alex

Jonesy wrote:I hav'nt been skiing in Europe before, but after reading posts on the forum Austria sounds like a great place to go over France & Italy.

It's rumoured that we have skiing here in Switzerland as well :D

There's plenty of good skiing in Austria as well though. St Anton is the inevitable suggestion although, equally inevitably, it struggles to live up to the reputation.

When we lived in southern Germany my favourite places were Lech, Stuben, the Stubai and Obergurgl.

Jonesy,

A lot of ski resorts in Austria are on the low side. These days it is best to aim high to be on the safe side. I have enjoyed Solden, Obergurgl, St Anton and Obertauen all of which have high, good and reasonably extensive skiing.

Best,

Geoff

Geoff Smith wrote:Jonesy,

A lot of ski resorts in Austria are on the low side. These days it is best to aim high to be on the safe side. I have enjoyed Solden, Obergurgl, St Anton and Obertauen all of which have high, good and reasonably extensive skiing.

I'm sure there's no mileage in kicking off that whole one country versus another thing but it must be said that this old chestnut that Austrian ski stations are low and don't get snow should really be consigned to the trash bin of urban (mountain) myths.

The Arctic is 0m above sea level and they get plenty of snow :D

For that matter high altitude ski stations often have problems with snow as well so the safe rule about going high turns out not to be too safe sometimes.

Ise,

I don't know about "urban myths" but I did choose my words with some care. I did not say" Austrian ski stations are low and don't get snow". I simply made the rather cautious observation that it is best to aim high to be on the safe side. This comment was based on looking at comparative snow statistics for low and high resorts over the last few years. From these data it is clear that there is a higher probability of getting more snow at higher levels. This does not preclude the possibility, of course, of the reverse happening from time to time.

Happy days

Geoff Smith

Geoff Smith wrote: From these data it is clear that there is a higher probability of getting more snow at higher levels. This does not preclude the possibility, of course, of the reverse happening from time to time.

I'd be especially careful of that comparison, you need to take account of how much snow is required to open a slope particularly for early season. Some high level stations are pretty good at PR and exploiting that confusion. Slopes round here take a few cm to be skiable as it's alpine meadow, up at Zinal it take a lot of snow to make a slope skiable at least one metre more in fact. We've had a couple of winters this century where that's played out.

A lot of Austrian ski resorts are on the low side, but it's their location and not altitude that's responsible for snow.

Hi there. You sound like you know your snow! Question for you. Thinking about going to Saalbach early Feb or early March. Which week is probably going to be best for good snow conditions?

clareybearey wrote:Hi there. You sound like you know your snow! Question for you. Thinking about going to Saalbach early Feb or early March. Which week is probably going to be best for good snow conditions?

Yes, there's some good collective knowledge on snow round here.

For me, it's pretty hard to make that finer judgment. It's late enough that the base should be good so it's down to how much snow's falling right then which is hard to predict.

As for speculation, this is a La Niña year and apparently some of the models for that have a follow-on of substantial snow falls the following Jan' and Feb'. Who knows? But it's fun to imagine :D