TR SkiWelt, first time, 19-25 Feb

A snowHead

Thanks to those who helped me select SkiWelt as a new place to try this half term with my elder daughter.

It started tough. D1 arrived home from 3-day school trip nearly 11pm, alarm set for 0315. We will have a helluva journey with 3 hrs sleep. To Airport to drop D2 going to Sauze with school at 0410, then we waited another 3 hours for our plane to Munich, with a few screaming children, which landed midday. Bought a few pastries. In MUC, down to S bahn to Ostmunchen for €26 for 2 adults, then to Westendorf for €61 for 2, changing at Kufstein and Worgl. Rome2Rio and attendants suggested we move fast at each change, train in 5 mins or not for another hour, so not a relaxing journey lugging a heavy suitcase around. Arrived at Westendorf station about 1530 so traveling for 11 hours and pretty tired. Slightly sludgy walk over a path across a small field to get to apartment. Phone landlady who arrived in 5 mins. Apt has only one bedroom but she separated the twin beds.

At 1645 we grab a chocolate bar for more energy to explore the town before dark. Spar closed on Sundays, oh great. Nice restaurants all say “reservations needed”. Dutch number plates everywhere. Had a cheap pizza and lasagne. Getting cold and tired so back home. Wi-Fi password not working. Couldn’t survive longer and turned in at 8pm. Awake at 12, asleep before 2.

A snowHead

Awake at 7. Out to Spar for breakfast, home for fried eggs on toast.
Rent skis and boots. Sizes a bit odd (29.5 instead of 28.5, 160 skis instead of 168/172). Up the learner chair, across and down to gondola. Up and coffee and cake (skiboot size apfelstrudel and small bucket of cream) at 1145 while others are already on wurst and chips, with tall beers and jaeger shots. Queues by 1215 were out of the door. Down the blue 111 which had so many heavy-snow moguls it would easily be red in Andorra, then up the gondola. By 1320 decided to have lunch. I got an anaemic bratwurst, she got schnitzelsee, it was massive. Second coffee with a small bucket of cream on top, I tried stirring it in but that just made the coffee taste like it was scooped out from near the Exxon Valdiz. Note for no more mit Zahne. Down 11 to Brixen, more moguls (I’m now so glad I got shorter skis!), I’m starting to sweat and have to remove neck warmer etc. Temp at mid station says 11C. Gondola up, then thought we were skiing all the way down on Blue 111 but only to a gondola back up. Finally downloaded as daughter was exhausted, and lucky as we downloaded at 1655 and it should have shut 1645. Problem was, the lower gondola station is quite a walk through town to our hire shop; if we’d skied down we could have taken the cut across near the bottom to save us the walk.
Home for cheese on toast and orange juice, then daughter does homework.

First thoughts; pistes are full of snow but it is either thick and heavy or scrapy ice underneath. They are north facing, we look across to the south facing slopes of HochBrixen (?) and they are totally green other than a strip of white down one part, maybe Black 1. It could be April. Food and drinks are also thick and heavy, we will probably share portions from now on! Pistes aren’t bashed much, not these ones anyway. Westendorf town has a few cow and horse sheds and we can certainly smell them.

Lessons tomorrow morning.

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

@Orange200, thanks, keep 'em coming Very Happy

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@Orange200, The lift set up at Westendorf is a bit odd it is easy to go the "wrong" way if you are heading for Choralm. I would avoid going over to Brixen the runs down on that side are poor especially in the current mild weather, you are better off heading towards Kitzbühel. The weather is due to be warm / mild until Wednesday then cooler with some precipitation (not sure if rain or snow in SkiWelt).

Kaffee mit Sahne normally brings a small portion of "kaffee creme" not a dollop of whipped cream, perhaps asking for a cappuccino might be safer or try asking for "eine Haferl Milchkaffee" (mug of milky coffee). Austrian food can be on the heavy side and the mountain spots can be rather unimaginative lots of Wurst / Schnitzel mit Pommes, Tiroler Gröstl (fry up with an egg on the top) etc. If that sort of thing doesnt appeal there is usually pasta too. If you have a sweet tooth then try Kaiserschmarn (chopped up pancake) but probably best shared.

In the current heavy conditions the last run of the day can end up being rather a trial, especially if you dont have the right technique to deal with piles of soft snow (all the pistes will be bashed but will turn into piles of sugar by early afternoon) better to finish earlier and find a bar for a beer or two

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

Thanks again @munich_irish, yes I saw some plates of kaiserschmarn being handed out, very definitely for sharing!

Spag Bol is around and may be an option today.

It’s been mentioned before but they are not so happy to take cards for small amounts (when I paid for a €4.70 coffee she typed in €5.20).

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@Orange200, I had no issues using a card over the weekend, only thing I need cash for was the hotel wanted a €5 cash deposit for the key card which was very odd it was hardly a cheap hotel, but that was St Anton. Occasionally you see signs along the lines of "EC card only from €10".

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After all it is free

@pam w, I paid €13 for a cappuccino and water in St Anton, but that was in one of the prime apres spots. You would pay around €3 in a bakers.

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I think Austrian prices up the mountain are very reasonable - if the UK was in the Alps (if you get my drift) we'd have Swiss or French prices

My lunch in Ellmau was a large spag bol, a 0.5litre Fanta and a good sized bar of Alpenmilch - exactly €20 (£17.60)

snowHeads are a friendly bunch.

I paid 3 euros for coffee in Combloux in October - sitting down in nice garden/terrace. It would be more up the mountain in Megeve, and there are no doubt places in Courchevel 1850 where you could pay 13 euros. France/Austria sound much of a muchness but coffee is always good value in Italy - it's regarded as a basic human right!

snow reports

To bed at 11, wake up at 0300, not sure if I got back to sleep. Out for our 4-hr lessons at 0845 over the white frosty fields. Hens peck around the ski school building, as they peck around our apartment block at times. This is a working village. Both instructors young, Dutch; we go up. Outrageous traffic on the mountain in the morning, people of all ages tearing past on both sides. Even instructor was annoyed with them. It was so difficult to concentrate, with them and the newly flattened, and overnight very hard crusted, piste. At a couple of points I felt I was at a high level of video game, where the computer throws more and more people at you at higher speeds while you try to complete tasks.

Notwithstanding, I got some good drills: hold poles in front horizontally, or hold poles in front vertically one in each hand, for short turns; imagine you’re lifting both heels through short turns (LOVED that one, forcing the weight forwards and forcing feet to stay parallel); airplanes with ski poles out to the side, dragging one downhill with the other in the air. This latter good for weight on downhill ski but excellent for keeping unsympathetic one-week visitors at a reasonable distance. Another good one was going across the mountain with upper ski toe in the snow, heel in the air; it was really tough until he pointed out my weight was between the two skis and should be well over the downhill ski, it was a lot easier then.

We didn’t get down to Brixen as he’d hoped; I really needed a mid-morning coffee, and by now the top slopes were back to soft heavy moguls and even if I wasn’t actually falling, my thighs were really starting to tire. Also it’s pretty hot and I’m sweating; my helmet is a bit old and the sweatband foam has started to disintegrate so I wipe my forehead a lot. I was shown a luxury chair (117?) like a load of geek gaming chairs stuck together, and told that the metre high tree stumps under the chair were totally invisible two weeks ago.

Lessons end, had lunch with daughter, waiting ages at the self service at 1320, with an €11 breezeblock of lasagna for me and an €8 kiddie spag Bol for her (actually a normal adult portion with a little packet of haribo on the side, rather than the family size “adult portion” which seems common here; but €3 cheaper as daughter was waiting at a table next door and they couldn’t complain she was too old). Paid €3.10 for a small mug of coffee after, implying it was €1.60 just for yesterday’s squirt of cream on top.

Frankly pottered around the top of the mountain after lunch, by now approaching 3pm, very warm and very tired, then picked our way correctly down to Choralpe gondola, went up and got off midstation (THATS the trick) then down and a last second cut across under two lifts to ski straight in to our shop/locker.

You know it makes sense.

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

Chin up OP...

When are you able to go home?

A snowHead

A snowHead

@Orange200, If you’re travelling back to Munich Airport by train check out the Bayern ticket. We went to Soll from Munich Airport a couple of weeks ago & train, via Munchen OST, to Kufstein was €36 for 2 adults (post bus to Soll was free with a mobile guest card, sent to us before we travelled out there)

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

Thanks for the tip, I’ll look into it but Westendorf is not a major station!

Day 3. Had a lie in this morning, clearly the pre-holiday cold and the antics of the journey out have caught up with me (and daughter!) so we wander out at close to 11am. Another beautiful sunny warm day, predicted 12C, and the big snow expected tomorrow has been delayed until Friday at the earliest. I found the ski bus stop direct to Brixen as we are in no condition to yo-yo round the mountain to get there by the enthusiast route; about once an hour but ours comes in 15 mins. Its free by showing the tickets given with our accommodation. Up to HochBrixen and decided to have an early lunch, sharing a spag bol and a small doorstep of apfelstrudel between us. We then got the chondola (another first! My daughter thought they were invented by a divorcing couple who couldn’t agree) up to Zinsberg, dropped down red 71 to see if we could cut across to the bottom of chair 66 but didn’t find the cut, so back up chair 71 and down blue 65a somehow to get to Brandstadl. By now most runs were a combination of scrapy ice or thick snow moguls, didn’t see a flat run at all.

Headed down to Scheffau by following the very long blue 61. The top was rather different snow to what we’ve seen up to now, the narrow pistes were covered by a few trucks’ worth of sugar; here is high and north facing. Quick, another skiing technique needed! Got down past that and the sugar thinned out a bit, but then the piste really narrowed but wasn’t at all level, so a challenge to stay in control, neither gaining speed too quickly over the crusty lumps, nor launching over the edge when trying to hockey stop.
It then widened out to a usual piste width but still mogulled.

Finally we came across a gondola station. I checked it on the map and found we weren’t even halfway down! There was mutual agreement just to turn back now, we needed the strength to get home on an unfamiliar journey. So we worked our way back, following yellow signposts to Westendorf and Brixen rather than any combination of numbered runs, and eventually took the long 6/1b down the south face of Zinsberg and HochBrixen. South face in 11C at top of mountain, you can guess that wasn’t easy. I now go back to the warning of Munich Irish at the start of this thread and can assuredly say he’s right; those pistes are tough and we were idiots not to download instead!!

Got to the bottom about 3.40, next bus back to Westendorf is 4.30, so trudged back to the bar and sank some ice tea. Skis and boots back, where the instructors told us they’d never seen conditions as hard as this, then out to the nice Waschaus (love their logo) for some tasty bar snacks and a couple of little pancakes as I hadn’t had anything for Shrove Yesterday.

I think if I had better technique or the pistes weren’t trashed I’d really like that central area. Will see how we feel tomorrow, perhaps to go straight to it. Trouble is the weather is due to get possibly wetter, though currently the risk of rain tomorrow has diminished. The new snow of course is only expected once we hand our skis back after Friday!

There were definitely a lot of people on the slopes today but it didn’t seem as crowded as before. And I won’t complain about lift queues, whatever there was moved quickly enough.

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The bottom half of the Scheffau home run is good fun. High speed blast. The blue path at the top is horrid - too steep for a narrow path.

Red 66 is a nice run at the top of Scheffau. It’s quiet and not that steep. Red 71 is good too.

Lift queues are usually overestimated. At lift 7 (almost the only way back from Soll towards Ellmau) there seemed to be a big queue. I timed it at under 5 minutes. Oh red 7 is also a bit more interesting than many, is quiet and not at all steep.

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

@Orange200, I can imagine conditions are not good. I generally only go to the Arlberg these days but given that SkiWelt is the nearest big area to where I live (under an hour to Scheffau if no traffic) I have been a lot. Even so I restricted my visits either to snowy Decembers or to January as I was always concerned about poor piste conditions once the sun started to warm up, which it does in February. This year seems to be especially poor and I dont think you are missing much at the weekend as not sure there is going to be much snow at all.

The run down to Brixen is almost always poor, even when there is a 0.5m of fresh snow let alone in current circumstances. It is a shame that so many folk are having poor winter holidays (its a long way from Portugal to find ice and piles of sugar!)

The Bayen ticket is a good option. It is only valid from Kufstein and I doubt very much you can buy one at Westendorf. However you can buy it online see here, I cant find the English link so you will have to use Google translate. Cost for two of you €36 all the way to the airport. Note you cant use the long distance "EC" trains only the regional BRB ones that go from the end platforms at Kufstein (platforms 11 & 12??). I might be wrong about this but I think a valid ski pass covers use of the train to Wörgl

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@munich_irish, I was lucky - I went for 3 days at the end of January and it had just snowed and was mostly fine for the 3 days with good snow conditions. I stopped at mid stations on the south side (north side resort runs were good). I am going back next year at the same time and will then go down that side but only to get to Westendorf

Sounds like I'm going at about the right time in your opinion.

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@buchanan101, in good conditions there is some nice skiing, the run down from Choralm is good as is the "black" down from Brandstadl to Scheffau, I am not so keen on Söll (though the tobogganing is good). The problem is that it is low and can suffer both from low snowfall and high temperatures. It can be a really good option for families and those looking for a variety of relatively gentle piste skiing, "Austrian" atmosphere without full on apres.

After all it is free

One thing I’m impressed with here are the discounts. Child passes are literally 50% the cost of adult passes, and children are those born 2007-2016, so even my 14YO is a child. Then come youth passes, which are 75% adult cost, and my 16yo qualifies.

I see also low season starts from 18 March, which is vaguely a 20% discount off the high season prices.

On the other hand, we are struggling to find any working Wi-Fi, and I just had to buy extra GBs of data for daughter’s phone…

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Lifts open from 0730 on Thursdays for Early Bird skiing on some runs in Westendorf and Brixen, but that was always unlikely with my teenager…. So, out at 0940 for the 1030 bus to Brixen, and up to go down 71 for a couple of warm up runs. Cloudy day today with a predicted max of 8C and I never saw more than 6C at the lifts. Much, much nicer surface than the last days. Had half a roast chicken and chips between us for lunch, with a “small” plate of kaiserschmarm as we had to try it; no, don’t need that again. Then off to complete blue 61 down to Scheffau. The sugar at the top had blended and while still narrow it was more bearable. And at this point, spurred by the haunting metallic jangling of the lifts which sounded like the start of a song, I started singing Ghostbusters; and got rhythm and my mojo. Snow was in piles but soft, could cut through it rather than be slammed into it. Then we reached midstation, fit not tired, and took Buchanan‘s advice and continued down, and it was great! So good that we went straight back up and did it again. With a good surface that’s a lovely run.
There were several narrow sections where the snow had formed into diagonal washboard as everyone panic stops, but I worked out I could ski over the top of a few ridges towards the edge, then jump turn into a trough to be steered away from the edge again, and repeat.

My phrase to myself yesterday, as I forced myself through all the wet chop, was “be water, my friend”. Today as I moved faster, my phrase was … damn, forgot… at some points I was counting to 20, others I was singing.

Going up we saw a gondola going down with two ladies and a load of five year olds in versions of pink, with blonde pigtails, perched across the benches. It looked like two adults playing with their Barbie collection.

Headed home a bit later than expected and I started to get worried, the crowds on piste during the day (daughter used the expression “an infestation”) had disappeared, light was failing and I couldn’t see an easy route back to the top of Brixen; we certainly didn’t want to ski all the way down again! Got up one of the intermediate lifts (70?) less than 5 mins before it should close. Eventually found ourselves on blue 2a which happily took us back to Brixen gondola at about 1630 and downloaded; missed the bus to Westendorf and had to wait 45 mins for the next but no harm done. Skis away, off to Waschhaus again for nice hot snacks (wings/soup) before home. A very good day.

snowHeads are a friendly bunch.

@Orange200, glad you liked the Scheffau run from mid point. I had near perfect conditions 3 weeks ago.

You really need to work on your daughter… I was on 8:00 lift every day; so much better conditions and quiet…

snow reports

@buchanan101, er, I’m in the kitchen at 0905 on our last morning with gentle snoring next door, so I guess I’ll take that advice next time!

Credit to her, she has been doing some school work in the evenings.

Again the 1040 bus … teenagers… up to Brixen again. No snow on the south side until the gondola pulls in at the top, which my phone says is 1200m. I now see last downhill ride is 1645, so we cut it quite fine yesterday. Paid for a €3 coffee with a €50 note, after asking if it was ok - sure, no problem. Down towards Söll - says it’s red but wide and not steep at all - then onto Salvenbahn to go right up the top. Where I again notice nearly no snow on the south side, even if it is close to 1800m. Several reservoirs are almost completely empty, whether from lack of winter rain or from snow making I don’t know, but the latter very likely. These pistes are soggy (12c again today) but actually quite skiable.

While at the top top we decided to eat at HocheSalve/ Gipfelalm, despite the queue; hot damn WHAT a view. Nice food too. And too late I noticed the deck in the corner with 10 tables mounted on a slowly rotating turntable! However, walking down from the main deck on the narrow muddy path in 12C in ski boots after a couple of thousand tourists have passed through, when your balance is clearly affected by over a litre of beer at lunchtime, may not be a good idea, as one young man found out. Fully face first into the organic sludge, and a second time while trying to get up. I wonder if he had examined Bulgarian mountain loos in a previous life.

After all that wonder we popped down towards Söll by red 22, not steep but heavy snow. Yo-yo’d across the chairs to get back up to Hoche Salve, then yo-yo’d up and down 24-25 then 2b back to HochBrixen. Our download to the bus cut it so fine that I was 2m away from the bus doors when the closing beep started, but I stuck a foot in and we got on rather than waiting another hour for the next one. Return the kit, quick juice and carrot cake at Cafe Elisabeth, then home.

Home to a shower. You know those times where your boots have rubbed your shins and ankles all day, and you get in the shower and see chunks of dark red washing down the plug hole, and it takes you a couple of seconds to remember that you were wearing red fleece socks? Just had another one…

You know it makes sense.

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

@Orange200, the cake in Cafe Elisabeth is cracking. Very Happy

Thanks for your report, has had me chuckling. We absolutely loved Westerndorf in mid-march with lots of snow, clearly a different experience with different conditions (and a teenager!) Laughing

A snowHead

Woke to a white world; maybe 3-4cm overnight. Lovely to see, even if we wouldn’t ski it. Hope someone else here benefits.

I rented this place for 7 days though I’d only stay 6. So I had to tell landlady that I’d be leaving on Saturday 11am rather than Sunday. Phone refused to connect, wonder if my provider blocked it after I used it on arrival. Up at 8, tried daughters phone and it worked. Cleaned up, shut the door, decided to run for the train now rather than in an hour. Just made it, to find that it wasn’t arriving for another 20 minutes. Thanks Rome2Rio, something not right there. Bought tickets to Kufstein on the train, changed quickly at Worgl as the Kufstein train was about to leave. That train actually went all the way to Munich Haupt/Ost and no one asked for our tickets, so we got discounted travel. Bought tickets for the S Bahn to airport like an honest citizen. Arrived at the airport at 1330 for a 1730 flight, but warm and with good lunch on offer. MUC airport appears pretty empty on this Sat lunchtime. Anyway, home without incident to then share a few photos with younger daughter from Sauze.

A snowHead

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TR SkiWelt, first time, 19-25 Feb

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