 Poster: A snowHead
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Just back from a great time in Zell Am See, but I have to ask, does anyone know if the piste bashers are on strike there?
With two kids still learning, the state of the pistes is pretty important to me, and I have to say the maintenance in Zell was very poor.
I am used to seeing the lights up the mountain every evening as the bashers do their work -we only saw this on one night out of 7.
early morning visits to most pitses revealed not the nice grooved lines of a freshly bashed piste - just last night's moguls!
Anyone else noticed this? 
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Not been to zell am see this year but had a day in alpbach and stubai and had the same experience - pistes not pisted
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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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pjd, I thought this was a good thing 
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Was the snow too soft for the piste bashers to work?
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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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neilinmk, I can imagine that was very annoying, especially with little kids learning. Here, most pistes are groomed most nights, with the exception of some black runs which are left (though often just for a few days) because that's the way people like them.
Especially in spring, if yesterday's great mushy mounds are left to freeze overnight, ungroomed, the result would be unskiable for most of us. Or if skiable, not worth bothering with. Sounds a bit rubbish.
In the past week, because it's snowed all night and into the next day, and because many of the pistes are groomed early in the night, there's been heaps of fresh snow on the pistes during the day. It's been fantastic.   I can kid myself I can ski powder when there's only 10 - 12" of it on a nicely groomed base. But they've certainly been pisted the following evening.
On the other hand pistes are are never, ever, groomed during the day - which I think is a good thing. Machines on the piste are dangerous and it doesn't do any of us any harm to deal with one day's lumps.
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pam w, I was astonished to see lots of piste bashers during the day in Wengen a couple of years ago. I had to get out of the way of them on several occasions. Have rarely seen one during the day in France.
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neilinmk, Was certainly fine in January when I was there.
It has been very mild of late so could be too soft? The snowbase, even at the top, is historically thin for Zell. From what I saw throughout January and see on the web or hear from friends since it has not been a great snow year there. Not a bad one either, but far from the best.
Zell is open until the 18th this year which is about a week later than last year. I'm not sure just how robustly contracted the mountain workers are for the whole season but Spring seems to have come very quickly in the valley so maybe some of the workers have gone to their (presumably better paid) summer jobs as construction and other work that is not possible in winter starts up again.
If that is the case then its a pretty poor show from such a wealthy mountain company ( 50% ish owned by Porsche). Then again maybe staff leaving before the seasons end is an unavoidable reflection of the economics of living and working in a ski resort 
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