Day trip: St Anton or Flachau ?

A snowHead

Going to try one of these day trip things, they seem all the rage these days.

Friday 19 Jan. Two options:

1. Stansted to Friedrichshafen (arrive 09:05) then onto St Anton in hire car (approx 1 hr 30), return flight at 21:40

2. Stansted to Salzburg (arrive 09:15) then onto Flachau (or any one of a number of resorts within 1 hr of Salzburg) in hire car (approx 45 mins), return flight at 21:55.

Allowing for collecting rental skis and lift pass should get (all things being equal) most if not all of the afternoon on the slopes. At best could be on the first lift in Flachau at about 11:30, St Anton maybe 12:00 ?

What would you do ? Pros / cons ? Anyone fancy it ?

btw, flights are £32 return.

brian

masmith, if you're going on a Friday could you really resist staying over a night or 2 ? Assuming a lift shut time of 4.30 for Januray then even just staying for Saturday will give you about a 167% increase in slope time. Seems rude not to.

I think I'll stick to Glenshee for day trips Confused

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

thanks brian, sort of defeats the object though, tempting as it is ....

You need to Login to know who's really who.

masmith,
On a brief day trip from Obertauern I was deeply unimpressed with Flachau, dull skiing and very very crowded the day I went. If you want to go to that area Zauchensee is far better IMHO.

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

Why drive all the way to St Anton when you got the Voralberg skiing virtually on the doorstep of Friedrichshafen ? There great little ski resorts at a fraction of the price.

http://www.au-schoppernau.at/schoppernau/

http://www.bregenzerwald.at/frameset_de.asp?http://www.bregenzerwald.at/410_682.htm

http://www.vorarlberg-tourism.at/xxl/_area/382733/_subArea/454041/_subArea2/384686/_lang/en/index.html

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stanton, thanks for the info on those Voralberg resorts, but looking at Autoroute they would only knock about 10 mins off the travel time (compared with St Anton). Suppose it's something we could decide on the day. As a resident expert, what would you say is the nearest area to Friedrichsafen with enough decent skiing (intermedite and up) for a day ?

T Bar, thanks for the info, how long to Obertauern from Salzburg, what do you think of it ? Don't necessarily want to go to Flachau or that particular area, just looking for decent skiing within as short a transfer as possible from S'burg and initial feelings were that Flachau ticked both boxes. Maybe not ? ....

Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...

The Arlberg is world class however to just go for one day seems a bit extreme Happy

St Anton is more of a Holiday destination, everthing price wise is gearded towards that including lift passes, In fact they try to keep day trippers out, especially cars.

I would try to limit my travelling time & go to a day resort , you can easily get some good vertical & cheap skiing at day resorts.

http://www.bergfex.com/vorarlberg/

I quite like it at Schoppernau

http://www.bergfex.com/diedamskopf/

Or even Laterns

http://www.bergfex.com/laterns/

Question?

Why go for just the day if your leaving on a Friday ??

After all it is free

masmith,
Not sure about the drive time from Salzburg as we flew to Munich.
Obertauern I would guess is maybe 15- 20 minutes further than Zauchensee though.
There is probably a bit more to do at Obertauern than Zauchensee and a bit more variety but for one day I would be very happy just at Zauchensee. Flachau as far as I could tell was identikit blue/easy red run without there being variety even within that category. There may be more to it than that but I didn't want to hang around to see especially given the queues. If you do a search with me as the author and any of those resorts as the subject I wrote a report on it earlier this year for a little more info. Anything more specific feel free to ask.

PS I have skied St A as well and agree with stanton above fantastic resort but you cannot get a real feel for it in what will amount to less than a day particularly if there are queues. Although I would shortlist the resorts and decide which one on the day according to snow conditions/weather forecast. (Avoid Obertauern in bad weather as there is less below the trees and it can get a bit windy.)

*Ski* the Net with snowHeads

... oh, and 3. it's my birthday and wanted to do something different !

snowHeads are a friendly bunch.

If ... and at the moment it's only an 'if', we decided to stay for one night only, what would be the likelyhood of finding a b&b that would accommodate just for the Saturday night, middle of Jan ?

Have seen other posts about having difficulty with one night stay, albeit in high season - do those in the know think we'd find somewhere (not too expensive !) ?

p.s. if we stayed over it woudl have to be St Anton.

snow reports

Masmith,

go for the Salzburg option. But avaoid Flachau, its on the main mortorway and can get really crowded as its so easily accesible. Oberyauern is aq good choice and proberly 60-90 mins from the airport. consider Zauchensee approx 60 mins from salzburg. given that you will likely be able to be on the slopes around 11-1130 once kitted out. Zauchensee has an intersport ski shop
in the Zentrum mall just under 4 lifts very convienient.. you should be able to get a taxi from the airport, it cuts down on faffing around with car hire. I've used these people a couple of times, works well quick, cheap, fast. andrea@taxi.at

masmith,

Your find somewhere in the outlying villages of St Anton without a problem. January is low season.

You know it makes sense.

bah humbug, couldn't round the friends up in time, the flight offer now expired (£32 one day, £140 the next) so for the time being this operation is on hold .. but your efforts have not gone to waste, am sure I'll do this trip soon. Thanks to all for contributions.

Help!!

Day trip: St Anton or Flachau ?

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