 Poster: A snowHead
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So my first trip report for Snowheads.
This was a DIY trip for the two of us, over 50, skied 1 week a year for the past 25 years or so, mostly in Austria. Our last trip to Wagrain was in 2007 since when they have built the G link lift and added a couple of other lifts and pistes. We used the G link once to experience it but it isn’t really that useful if you are actually staying in Wagrain as you tend to decide to go to one or other mountain each day, more relevant if staying in Flachau or Alpendorf. A link between the two sides of Flachauwinkl would make sense but with a motorway not easy to do.
Travel
BA Gatwick to Salzburg scheduled flight which to our surprise was virtually full on a Tuesday and at least a third looked like they were not going skiing. Both Gatwick and Salzburg airports are much pleasanter when it isn’t Saturday. Booked a transfer with Huberreisen which was in theory a shared transfer but we had it to ourselves both ways. They were waiting for us as we came through arrivals and we were in Wagrain in about an hour. On the return I think they probably had a pickup to do as we were dropped at the airport 3 hours before our flight, as the airport was quiet this was no problem.
Accommodation
We stayed at the Wagrainerhof in the main street in Wagrain. Traditional Austrian, welcoming, clean, spacious room. Downstairs there was a separate ski room and boot room. The boot heaters were very effective. Only slight drawback was a steep set of stone steps down to the boot room from the street which needed a degree of caution in ski boots whilst carrying skis. Food was well presented and mostly Austrian. There aren’t that many English visitors so we had to translate the menu each morning to do our choice of main course, options were generally meat, fish or vegetarian.
Skiing
The ski bus stop was just along the road from the hotel and either you got off at the next stop for the Grafenberg lift station or stayed on to go up to the Flying Mozart lift. In theory the bus was supposed to either be a town loop or go to the Flying Mozart but we found as the last stop before the Grafenberg terminus the bus was already set up to go to the Flying Mozart. Buses were supposedly every 15 minutes at this point in the season, I think they were a little bit closer together than that.
Weather was mostly sunny and between 4 and 12 degree apart from the Sunday when it snowed and the clouds came in reducing visibility significantly.
Apart from a ski route or two all runs were open and generally well pisted. Typical spring skiing with hard pistes first thing and heavy and sticky lower down in the afternoon.
During the course of the week we covered all of the Wagrain, Flachau and Alpendorf runs several times. We took the bus up to Kleinarl on the Saturday to avoid weekend crowds in Flachau, only drawback of being there later in the season is there is only 1 bus an hour to Kleinarl as opposed to 4 an hour on weekdays in the season so we started skiing later than on other days. We got across to Zauchensee though and did the black Taunkar which was probably the longest black we did all week. With a wider selection of buses we’d probably have gone again and spent more time in Zauchensee. One slightly interesting run on the way down into Zauchensee we felt probably needed a black marking not red as you suddenly found a short steep pitch which was steeper than a number of blacks we had done and so there were several people on it looking as if they would rather not be there!
We skied in Flachau several days and worked out the best times to do different pistes, the Starjet 3 was the only lift that seemed to attract a queue so we tended to use that between 12 and 1 when most people were having lunch. The advantage of the Flachau bowl is that you can pick your route down taking advantage of different degrees of steepness.
Most pistes were fairly quiet. There were a lot of groups of children, probably because Wagrain has a number of Jungenhotels but they were generally with an instructor so no bother. Rote 8 seemed to attract a larger number of skiing maniacs than anywhere else who were determined to ski as close to your skis as they could. This was a pity as the run from the top to the gondola middle station was one of our favourite runs.
T bars have almost been phased out, the only one we did was the Stegback lift serving run 55 which was marked black but not too challenging as there was plenty of snow cover.
The most challenging runs and the only ones I didn’t want to do a second time were the ones under the Topliner lift, 24a and 24b. These are the highest runs in Wagrain and the top of the black 24a was hard packed and quite narrow. 24b the red was fairly narrow as well but wound its way round the shoulder of the mountain ending with a steep narrow track onto the bottom of the black. Steep narrow tracks are the one thing I can’t get to grips with so ended up shooting down it and turning up hill on the piste.
The snow conditions were probably better on the Grafenberg and Alpendorf than on the Flying Mozart due to the slope direction but a lot of the runs are quite short above Alpendorf, otherwise probably my favourite sector.
We tended to be on the slopes around 9:30, stop for coffee by 11:30 and lunch at 1:30 and then aim to be back down the bottom sometime after 4:00. There were plenty of places on the slopes to eat, we generally picked places mid slope rather than the Flachau bowl centre. Bottom of the Starjet 2 lift was a good stopping point for coffee as we could find a table outside with sun for me and shade for him and it was never crowded.
Can’t report on the Apres as we tended to use the hotel bar having caught the bus back from whichever lift station we ended up at. Wagrain itself has a good sized Spar and a Billa and there was a band one evening in the square by the tourist office.
We hired skis from Sport Obermoser which was by the bus stop for the bus to Kleinarl. Skis were fine, had been serviced. Towards the end of the holiday we went back in and swapped mine for a stiffer pair which edged better on steeper runs, same make as the ones my husband had but he’d put down he was an advanced skier rather than an intermediate as I did.
In summary a good trip, we knew we were taking a bit of a risk that the snow would be going that late in Ski Amade but there was enough to keep us going for the week and we’ll go back again at some stage. I prefer sunshine and heavy afternoon slopes to whiteout and solid pistes struggling to see where you are going.
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FAQ
on a ski resort I've honestly never heard of (although that could be said for most of ski resorts), thanks for the heads up! 
