 Poster: A snowHead
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is under consideration for a chaps trip in mid jan.. anyone been, typical austrian resort?
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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CANV CANVINGTON, been there. Good place, but not always great conditions. Excellent for a "Chaps trip" 
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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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CANV CANVINGTON, definitely a party town. Skiing is OK, but fairly low lying. Like Fox says, deffo a chaps trip destination.
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CANV CANVINGTON, we did a one-day trip to do the circuit when we were at Kaprun last year. There had been a recent dump and the snow was very good, except at village level where it was poor and slushy. Up high the snow was excellent. The runs are pretty easy for their grading except for Black 14, which is a black. One thing I didn't like about the set-up in both Saalbach and Hinterglemm was the need to traipse quite a long way to get between the lifts that served the two different sides of the valley. Not a problem if you plan to stick to one side, but we had a long cross-country skate/pole in Hinterglemm and another long walk in Saalbach to get between the different sides. We weren't there long enough to sample the apres, so I can't comment on that!
We did have an excellent mountain-side lunchtime meal 'though.
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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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Ditto docsquid's experience. I have limited exposure to Austrian ski areas, but I thought Saalbach compared favorably to major US resorts with respect to piste grooming and lift infrastructure, and was superior for on-hill dining options. BTW, on the Saalbach end of the valley (eastern) there was one easy connection with little walking from south side of valley to north More commentary and a couple photos:
http://www.dcski.com/articles/view_article.php?article_id=445&mode=search
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Thanks for that lot.. sounds fairly ideal.. will be doing 2 or 3 nights so no need for any traipsing.. being a bit easy wont bother a few on the trip, and after a couple of nights on the pop i wont be complaining much either!
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I went to Saalbach a couple of years ago and it was perfect, as with most resorts you just need to target different areas for each day/ half day, though you often have to build in the route back into your skiing time
There were some blistering runs and lots of great places for a cheeky beer or two, in particular there's a hut at the top of the nursery runs that has live bands each night, followed by a moon lit gluwein enduced ski to the bottom.
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It's possible to do a full circuit of the resorts, but you can only do it in one direction. I don't remember any traipsing on that.
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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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Elizabeth B, yes, we did it the "wrong" way round, hence going down Black 14 (which wasn't fun, ice, slush, rocks and twigs poking out). However the group who went the "right" way went down the wrong run and ended up traipsing too. I think there is enough skiing on one side to keep most people happy in any case.
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The right way is to go anticlockwise. You hit the nasty black only in clockwise direction and it is the last piste at the end of the valley at Hinterglemm.
Don't forget there is a branch going to Leogang at the front end of Saalbach Valley. One can disappear for a day skiing there too.
Saalbach/Hiterglemm is a long loop by skiing one side of the valley forward and coming back on the opposite side. On paper it could be longer than Sella Ronda and makes the St Anton "White Ring" looks like child play. However not many skiers talk about this route though.
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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saikee, yes, well we found that out only after we started down the nasty black  Still, it was a good day's skiing, but would have been even better had we not been using our own skis!
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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That run was closed when we went round that end of the valley so had to download in the lift. It's a good circuit to tackle though and with the bus up and down the valley an easy one to break out of if you get to a point where you've had enough.
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ive put your helpfull comments to the team and its a 100 per cent take up..
now any hotel recommendations.. ?
ideal scenario is obviously minimum effort ski in ski out .. and a decent bar a bit up the mountain for closing beers and a late ski down to the hotel or nearby boozer.. local action isnt that important as long as there is one good bar.. cost isnt an issue the more stars the better..
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You know it makes sense.
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The skiing in SH is good but not great.
The pistes are mostly blues and reds. They are shortish. They are more like hills than mountains.
Almost every run is covered by snowguns, so lack of snow should rarely be an issue.
The skibus service sucks. It is infrequent and overcrowded. Make sure you book into a hotel right by a major lift.
The scenery is attractive but not outstanding.
The nightlife is busy but downmarket.
Overall, SH is recommended. It has a certain Austrian charm. But don't expect a vintage resort.
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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CANV CANVINGTON, any of the hotels/guesthouses around the Schattberg express lift will be your friend. Dunno what yer budget is, but should be able to find summat decent for around 50E a night B&B.
EDIT: There's gonna be a gang of  s in twon from the 26th Jan!
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Poster: A snowHead
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Charlatanefc, our budget is huge.. alas ill be long gone by 26th of jan tho
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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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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It's a great place - we stayed at the hotel 'Alpin' - familie Thomas. Great food and service. Lovely family. Excellent ski area.
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
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| CANV CANVINGTON wrote: |
| Charlatanefc, our budget is huge.. |
So's Charlatanefc's bar bill 
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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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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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I have done my math again as I remember the Saalbach Hinterglem was longer than Sella Ronda, which everybody says is the longest.
I started at Vorderglemm at the very front end of the valley at the East side. The piste runs I covered were No. 66,51,48,85,28 and 22 on the North side. On the South side of the valley I did No. 11/11a, 7,4 and 2a/2b. The No. 2a/2b alone is 7km long. The total piste distance is 24.1km according to the information from the piste map. When the lift distance of 13.4km is added the circuit is 37.5km long.
The Italian Dolomites Sella Rond has a published 23km piste distance and a lift distance of 15.7km giving a circuit size 38.65km. In other word Sella Ronda circuit (inclusive of the chairlifts) is 3% longer but the Saalbach Hinterglemm has 4.7% more distance to ski on.
The White Ring in St Anton is reported to be 21.6km long.
Therefore Saalbach Hinterglemm is slightly smaller than Sella Ronda but has a slightly longer skiing distance.
Not saying distance is an important factor but one should know why it takes so long even if he/she has no wish to know skiing one of the biggest circuit in the Alps.
All the above circuits are not difficult as we managed to do them before we turn to 60 and we started learning skiing after 50 too. We consider ourselves weak skiers but not nervous as we had 7 to 8 years of experience behind us.
For the Saalbach circuit our strategy was to have lunch after passing through the mid-way point at Hinterglemm. If we didn't manage then we abort the attempt by cutting short the trip and turned back at lunch time. In the end we had a bit to spare as we did in Christmas time when the day light was short. It made sense to start from the Vorderglemm station (we had car) going anti-clockwise because after the last chairlift at piste No. 4 there was no pressure on us to catch the last chairlift and we leisurely ski down the 7km run to go back to the starting point.
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Sorry meant 'Alpenhotel'
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I went with a 3 other lads in Jan/Feb 2007 and was extremely concerned by the lack of snow, we arrived and there was barely a dusting of snow to be seen. The open runs were awfully brown and icy. However when we woke up the following morning, there has been about 4/5 inches of new snow and about 60% was then opened up. The snow cannons blasted all day and we had 3 brilliant days skiing. Certainly true that they can do wonders with not a lot of snow.
Nice mixture of runs, mainly reds and blues and i'd agree that many are quite short but I didn't find this a problem as there was so much skiing to be had.
Personally didn't find the ski bus a problem, we were staying in the Hotel Interstar about 3 miles out of Saalbach which was a lovely 4*. Only downer about the hotel was that the run to hotel was closed, two of my friends did ski it but said it wasn't much fun, very icy.
Bars and food are good, typical Austrian fodder and about €3.50 for large beer. Nightlife was good too, and i'm informed the strip club wasn't too bad either!
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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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ski-finder, hmm, sounds like you were there roughly when we were? We arrived on the last Friday in January, it was green fields that morning, went the pub after getting there, and woke upto a foot of fresh on the Saturday morning. Carried on snowing all day saturday, then the conditions were fantastic all week.
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Oops it was actually 23rd - 26th Jan, must have deteriorated after our brilliant three days, then picked up again the following week. I guess that just makes the pair of us very lucky. I remember kamikaze having terrible conditions but crossing his fingers for me 
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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ski-finder, Yup, think it was the 27th we went!
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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saikee, The previous time I went to Saalbach (not this year - as there was no snow as I reported in far too much detail and with too much misery at the time) we set ourselves the 'impossible challenge' of doing every red and black run in the resort in a day (sad - but the kinda thing that boys decide to do over a beer, so forgive me!). This was an interesting orienteering exercise as it involved a much longer version of the circuit. It took us 8 hours (first lift till post-lift closing near-darkness) skiing pretty hard without a break (we ate on on the lifts and stopped only for nature breaks) and our GPS had (including lifts, but they're generally straighter than the runs, and we lost GPS coverage in most gondelas) over 100km on it at the end of the day (our view was that about 70k was piste). Very tiring, but was actually one of the best days on skis I'd ever had (partly due to the crowd I was with). For good intermediates to moderately advanced skiers, Saalbach (late January this year aside) does offer a lot of great circuit skiing, and the chance to enjoy a lot of good to moderately difficult cruising.
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