Skiing in Zell am See

Hi,Im going to Zell am See in March with ten friends who are aggressive intermediates,can anyone let me know what the skiing is like and also the night life.

The grafter

Hi

There's a reasonable amount in Zell to keep your group happy, although the ski area is hardly extensive.

The red down to Shuttdorf can be quite a test in less-than-ideal conditions and some of the runs further over are interesting enough.

If conditions aren't great head to Kaprun and the glacier, but expect queues and limited terrain.

Nightlife is pretty good, mind!!

Have a good one.

Nigel Bray wrote:aggressive intermediates.

This cunjures up images of people fighting on the pistes!

I learnt to ski in Zell am See so have something of a soft spot for it and usually get back every season even if just for a few days - and am never dissapointed. (I'll be in Kaprun this Nov. and Zell for a few days in March 2009).

Black runs 13 & 14 are great fun and as prvious poster mentioed red 10 down to Shuttdorf can be a killer at the end of the day if it's chopped up. The red runs over on sonnenalm are pretty good and it's usually quiter in that sector to.

Some nice places to eat on the mountain and the new TrassXpress gondola that opened for last season has vastly improved the uplift from Schmittental which used to be a real bottlneck. Lots of good apres in town to.

Dave

The Zell am See-Kaprun area is pretty reasonable as far as I remember. I went years ago and am going this winter. It's not one of the big resorts in Austria, but good enough in the area of the two resorts. I was at Serre Chevalier in the French Southern Alps last year which is a really super resort, equal second largest in Europe with about 9 or so other very large resorts. But the skiing you can do from Zell-Kaprun is reasonable by comparison (see below).

If a skiier is restrained or like me, who starts at post beginner to lowest intermediate most years I go skiing (sometimes mid beginner, sometimes getting better then ending worse than I started), it should be good to really good. (I think I made lowest advanced skiier stage once when much younger, forgotten totally after a gap of years.)

If your advanced intermediate friends like to rush down lots of runs a day it might be a little little.

But that would be fine because the the Zell-Kaprun ski area is one of a host of mountain resorts in and not very far from SalzburgerLand which come under the Salzburg SuperSkiCard. This is as low priced as something like a couple of Euro per day more than the Zell-Kaprun area pass. (Great idea, these people know you can only ski in one resort at a time).

That means that your skiing from Zell can easily include Saalbach Hinterglemm. Saalbach is 32 minutes away by public bus from Zell am See, a bus leaves Zell at around 8.20 a.m. Leogang and a few other small resorts covered with this card are close to Zell am See. 2 hours or so at the little resort over the lake also should be interesting.

As the SuperSkiCard is nearly the same price as the Zell-Kaprun card, and also as both passes have little discount per day between 1 / 2 day cards and 6 day cards, you can take a day off, buy 1 / 2 day passes as you like (for smaller areas or the big card) and not miss out much on the discount for a 6 day pass and no rest day which many resorts give.

The pretty great Kitzbuehel is included in the SuperSkiPass. EDIT: I had posted that it seemed to take hours by train to Kitzbuehel. But www.bahn.de tells me tonight it takes around 50 minutes by train (trains start very early mornings) to Kitzbuehel. A smaller resort is Alpin Kitzbuehel.

Anyway, the proximity of Saalbach-Hinterglemm and Leogang just more than doubles the ski area available from Zell with minimal travelling time. Where I was last year, the Serre Chevalier buses took around 30 minutes to the next but one mountain of the 4 mountains, though they were connected at the top for skiing (then again, mountain tops were not infrequently closed because of high winds or little visibility). After a few days starting skiing at the mountain where I stayed in S.Ch., it was sensible to take the bus to other mountains (55 minutes between ski-lifts at the two furthest mountains, Monetier and Briancon).

Including Saalbach makes going to Zell am See / Kaprun indistinguishable from a good sized medium resort. (If staying in Kaprun, I am not sure what time the buses start to Zell for getting an early bus to Saalbach Hinterglemm).

Have a look at the website, and the list of the 23 resorts. There are web links on that list to the home pages for each listed ski area, also a large area map. You can see what you can make (try www.bahn.de and www.obb.at for train and bus times, though some routes just don't seem to be available online). The Salzburg SuperSkiCard website is at:

http://www.salzburgsuperskicard.com/eng/" target="_new" rel="nofollow"> http://www.salzburgsuperskicard.com/eng/

I can't find the price for the bus (number 680) between Zell am See and Saalbach. The train from Zell to Kitzbuehel seems to be 11 Euros 60c. 2nd class, single journey.

nigel,great place ,very friendly,good skiing for all,one of my faves.tree lined in zell and wide open in kaprun,go to kaprun early for 2/3 hours and back to zell for lunch when i say early first gondola up.

Will be in Kaprun in 3 days time, I think Zell is showing as opening 22/11 so hopefully wil get a chance to ski there to - though I don't think theres much snow ... yet.

I'll let you know.

Dave