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Resort: Obergurgl
Domain: n/a
Country: Austria
Date: 5/3/05-12/3/05
Our holiday: We're a thirtysomething couple who started ski-ing a few years ago, this is our 7th week ski=ing and the second time we have not spent the whole week in lessons.
Website : www.obergurgl.com
Basics : Obergurgl is at the end of Oetz valley which runs south from the Inn valley. The coach transfer was about 1.5 hours from Innsbruck airport, the second half of the transfer is up the valley and is a bit twisty in places. We were on a package deal booked through Inghams.
Lift system : A range of fixed and detachable chairlifts, a couple of gondolas – including the link to Hochgurgl and 2 really long drag lifts in the Hochgurgl area, which we didn’t try. The only time we saw any queues were when a lift stopped for a short time and around 2pm, when the second session of the daily ski school starts. The ski pass can be extended to cover a day in Solden which is a half hour bus trip away.
The terrain : Here is a piste map: http://db.intermaps.com/im/skimaps/obergurgl/
The ski area can be divided into three chunks; the area above Obergurgl; the area above Hochgurgl and the area reached by the Gaisberg lift from Obergurgl, below Hangerer.
This third area provides some nice tree lined pistes served mainly by the Steinmannbahn lift, although several of them are marked as reds they are fairly gentle except for the shortest of sections, there are in fact many routes between the trees and its not really clear what is piste and what isn’t. A nice area for some warm up runs; ski-ing between the trees or if the wind is a bit too strong in the two higher areas.
The area above Obergurgl is based on an enormously wide blue piste served by the Rosskarbahn and the Feskogl gondola, above this are a couple of red runs accessed by the Plattachbahn – these get their grading through their steepness – they’re both quite wide and there’s nothing scary about them.
The link over to the Hochgurgl is pretty straightforward and takes about 10 minutes, there are some beautiful views up the side valleys. The blue piste down to the Obergurgl end is on the harder end of the blue scale. The Hochgurgl side feels like more varied terrain, rather than being a single slab of blue piste there are several smaller areas. If you take the Top Wurmkogl II chairlift you’ll find yourself at the summit of the Wurmkogl, looking over into the Dolomites. It’s an exposed position, not ideal for those concerned about heights but the views are fantastic. There are both black and blue routes descending from the summit, the blue is a long zigzagging road piste. We didn’t try out the Schmerspitzebahn or the runs fed by the two long drag lifts (Kirchenkarlift and the Vorderer Wurmkogllift).
The snow : Temperatures in Obergurgl have been very low for several weeks now, with a strong wind. We had a couple of light dustings of snow. Generally snow conditions were good, although a few pistes were stripped back to ice, in places, by the wind.
Off-piste : Can’t comment on this
The resort : The resort appears to have been purpose built in the early 1970’s and runs in a rather extended strip along the road. It is not unattractive but doesn’t have any real character. It has a number of large ski equipment shops, but we found few places to buy tourist essentials, such as cowbells wink

It seems to cater mainly for the older, wealthier visitor and consequently there aren’t many snowboarders around.
Food : David’s Hutte, at the bottom of the Steinmannbahn is a small but pleasant service restaurant – it can get rather busy. The Neder Hutte, at the top of the Gaisberg lift is renowned for its après ski. We enjoyed lunch at the large self-service Wurmkoglhutte restaurant above Hochgurgl. These were all nice places to visit. The Schonweishutte is a 20 minute walk from the top of the Steinmannbahn, open Wednesday, Thursday and Friday – this was recommended to us but we were too lazy to make the walk Shocked

Accommodation : We stayed half board at the Hotel Gotthard (http://www.gotthard-zeit.com/), which is ski-in / ski-out right next to the Rosskar and Gaisberg lifts. Largish rooms, good food, friendly staff, a ground floor level boot room! They also offer a free après ski cake buffet, although sometimes the cakes are sausages or meatloaf rolling eyes

Costs: Accommodation in resort is relatively expensive. Food is pretty good, with very uniform cost, we paid about €3 for hot chocolate, €5 for a bowl of soup, €7 for a pasta or grostl dish pretty much wherever we went. A 6 day adult lift pass is €187 and superior ski hire €109 for a week. Unusually Inghams allowed us to use pretty much any ski hire shop in the village for the one price.
Conclusion: We enjoyed Obergurgl, there’s a nice range of pistes, the mountain food is good and the Hotel Gotthard was friendly.

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