 Poster: A snowHead
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Package fromCrystal - flights to Salzburg and staying in Hotel Fischer.
Skiers - myself and Mr Eira. We both all pistes, him considerably faster and with a more gung ho attitude than me.
We chose St Johann partly because there wasn’t much choice when we came to book, but also because we wanted to explore lots of different resorts (our preferred way to ski - one day I’ll rant about the problems with mega resorts), but still have skiing in the village. It was always going to be Austria - Mr Eira speaks excellent German, I speak French like the policeman in ‘Allo ‘Allo.
We were undecided which pass to get - the 3 Länder ticket covers several small resorts - St Johann, Waidring, Hochfilzen and Lofer which are more or less linked by buses. This would have suited us, but snow conditions last week were so bad that Hochfilzen and Lofer were barely open. So we paid more for the SuperSki pass, which added in SkiWelt, Kitzbuhel and Saalbach, and loads of others as well. It was expensive, but around the same price as Ischgl’s so it’s all relative.
We hired skis from Sporthaus Rent Christl Haas, which allowed us to choose the makes of our skis. When we arrived they weren’t there, but as they gave us brand new equivalents that were excellent I have no complaints.
We eventually skied a day and a half in St Johann, a day in Fieberbrunn, two days in Waidring, a day in Kitzbuhel and spent a day getting from Fieberbrunn to Leogang. We had wanted to go to Westendorf, but it was too tricky, and we weren’t sure what the conditions were like. Everywhere struggled with snow.
Of the places we went we skied I had the worst day in Kitzbuhel. I was mildly unwell, and ski badly when pistes are crowded, unpisted and narrow. Kitzbuhel delivered on all fronts, though the valley runs that were open were excellent. The lift queues were appalling - I really wanted an afternoon hot chocolate, but we were thwarted by lift queues on the way home eating into our coffee time. It was one of those days wer at the bottom of each run you didn’t want to ski it again.
St Johann was pretty good, though suffered from having a few connecting runs closed, meaning a couple of lifts became pinch points. We had skied this a few years ago, before skistar bought and sold it and the lifts have improved enormously and the skiing is really good for a small area. We had a late flight on the way back, so we got most of a day’s skiing on Saturday, but it was a bit too warm really.
Waidring is another lovely small area, but the signposting is appalling. I became a bit obsessed with finding run 5, which existed on the map, but not on the ground. We eventually found it, off a different lift than expected and my sense of achievement was enormous. It was small enough that you couldn’t really get lost, and once you got the hang of it the runs were pretty varied and great fun. There’s no valley run, so we had to be aware of the lift and bus times. The queues were fairly short though, so no great hassle.
Saalbach on the other hand assumes that people can’t find their way out of a tunnel with the end clearly lit and signs appropriately. As someone who can’t find their way out of a tunnel with the end clearly lit I really appreciate this. Fieberbrunn is a great little area to ski, and quite frankly we would have been happy just going up the red to the left and blue to the right of the main run, but we did a very quick trip to Saalbach and skied most of the rest that was open. The second day in Saalbach we forced ourselves from a perfect looking Fieberbrunn and headed over to Saalbach where my partner had decided we could do a run to Leogang via Zwolferkogel. It turned out we could, but it was a long morning’s skiing. Saalbach is the near perfect resort for everyone - each run is so good you could happily ski it all day, and at each turn it seemed to get better. Even in the terrible conditions the snow gods had seemingly blessed it.
We travelled by bus and train, catching buses at around 9 o’clock from the train station. It all worked well, apart from the trip to Waidring where we got off at Larchenhof hotel and stood around looking for a big gondola until the driver kindly told us we were in the wrong place. On the way home a bus that we didn’t want stopped at the bus stop for a few minutes. When it pulled away we realised our bus had been hiding behind it and was now pulling off as well. Mr Eira stopped it by running into the middle of the road, waving his skis and poles. It worked.
The hotel was excellent - a big room and great food for six nights. On the night off we caught the train to Kitzbuhel, which was included in the guest card. I think we could have found somewhere easily in town. The only downside was the boot room was just a garage really, but if you ski locally they had a place near the lifts, I believe.
The flights were ok - Bristol Airport wasn’t too bad, but Salzburg airport went - queue for check in, go to toilet, buy a snack, queue for security, eat snack in queue, get depressed as queue was much longer than you thought, get through security, buy snack for plane, queue to get on plane. By the time we sat on our slightly delayed plane I realised I had been standing for around two hours.
The holiday was exactly what we wanted - St Johann is a great town, the ski area is fine for beginners and a couple of days, and there’s plenty of options locally. We’d happily go again.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Nice report. Thanks for posting.
I did something similar with my OH a few year’s ago and maintain that St Johann is the best located ski town in the Austrian alps. We even got the train to Zell am See one day.
The local slopes are surprisingly good too. I’m glad the weather just about held enough for you to enjoy them.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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Nice to read, off to st Johann for our third trip a month tomorrow! Debating whether to just buy the 3-lander lift pass, or wait until nearer the time in case snow means we need to train to kitzbuehel.
We stay at the Park which is the sister hotel to the Fischer, and where Fischer residents can use the boot room. But that’s only convenient if you’re getting the local morning lift as you say.
Fingers crossed there’s snow to open the remaining runs in the next 4 weeks!
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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I didn’t realise Skistar had flicked it off. Was that recent? Why?
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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Good to read this. We're off to Saalbach next Friday, but planning an afternoon ski at St Johann on our way there. Also glad to see about the SuperSki pass, as that will now save us a bit of money too!
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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@Pen Eira, nice report - thanks.
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| ster wrote: |
| I didn’t realise Skistar had flicked it off. Was that recent? Why? |
I think it was about 2 years ago. Not entirely sure why but their website at the time I think mentioned wanting to focus on Scandinavia where most of their operations were.
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Important message here- Salzburg airport cannot cope with Saturday traffic (fully understandable as the rest of the week it is quiet) and much more than reasonable time is required especially if you have to check in to drop baggage.
Jealous, I loved St Johann in T last time I was there. Thanks for the trip report
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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Excellent report.
Stayed in the park hotel with Crystal last March. First time visit it St Johann and agree with all your comments, a great base if you like to ski a variety of different places. Ending up drinking in the Hotel Fischer after skiing, a really good atmosphere and would probably stay there in future.
Very under rated and I will definitely be going back.
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Just a couple of things I forgot to mention. We’ve skied Kitzbuhel before, but from the Kirchberg lifts, and they seem much better to get round the resort from the Hahnenkamm lift. But you do miss out on seeing Dave Ryding’s gondola.
I was expecting Salzburg to be bad after Innsbruck last year. It’s the problem with many transfer coaches arriving and flights leaving at the same time. If I could have controlled the time I would have got there earlier to try to sneak through.
I was inspired to do this report because I read several reviews before we went which helped make our mind up. It really is a great town to get around, as well as being very pretty.
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