 Poster: A snowHead
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Hi it's time to book a Austrian ski trip for myself and gf
I've been looking at either Alpendorf or Wagrain for a weeks SC accomodation 4-11th Feb 2012. Anyone any thoughts on which to choose. Looking for some nice cruisey easy blue runs for the gf.
How do they compare in attractiveness of the villages and accessibility to the slopes. I presume they both have a mini market for food.
We'll be visiting Salzburg one day in the week via train. Alpendorf seems a little nearer the train station, but I don't imagine it will matter too much a few more miles by taxi from Wagrain if the skiing/village is better there.
We're planning on having private lessons with Skischule Rot-Weiß-Rot ski school.
Thanks
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Samerberg Sue is your expert here Elmer, I'm sure she'll spot your post before long.
She took me there for a day a couple of seasons ago, fantastic place!
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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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Elmer, If you want to move around, then Alpendorf is your best bet. The road to St. Jo from Wagrain is about 10pm and very windy, but rarely shut. There is good skiing in both places, so I would let the price decide where actually go.
Rot-Weiß-Rot have ski schools in both locations. If you are in Alpendorf, then ask for a lesson from Gerhard Sint (Chairman of the Salzburg Ski Instructors Association - SSBV and a national Trainer examiner). If Gerhard is not available, then ask for Dani, Helmut, or Gottfried as they are the best. They all speak excellent English and will give excellent value for money
If you are based in Wagrain, ask for Siegi Kreidenhuber and take his advice if he is not available. Gerhard and Seigi are trainers and examiners for the SSBV.
Enjoy your holiday it is a wonderful area.
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I suppose by staying in Wagrain one can access easier to the Fachau which is linked to one side of the mountain in Wagrain.
Wagrain is fully linked with Alpendorf so staying at either end still enable the visitor to enjoy both resorts well.
Couldn't tell much difference between the two towns but the last time I skied there I stayed at FlachauWinkl and so we skied Alpendorf by starting from the Wagrain end and had lunch at Alpendorf. Samerberg Sue will have a better information.
From the Ski Amade piste map St Johann is not linked with Alpendorf and has only 3 lifts thus we didn't bother with it.
Geographically there is more skiing available in Wagrain than Alpendorf because the nearer access to the Fachau resort. In addition I am sure you can take a bus from Wagrain to Kleinarl to access the Flachauwinkl/Zauchensee area which seems to be one of the most popular parts of Ski Amade. There is a short trip of about 5 minutes by a "cho cho" train, a tractor disguised as a train, at the bottom of Fachauwinkl to take the visitors to the Zauchensee side. In this aspect Alpendorf cannot match the skiing variety available at the Wagrain end.
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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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saikee, It is very easy to ski from Alpendorf to Flachau and even Zauchensee. You just need to follow the signs! I've stayed there on and off many times for the past 20+ years. I've often taken 2nd and third week skiers over and back again and never had to rush or resort to taxis to get them back.
You can ski from Alpendorf to Zauchensee easily in half a day and get back without pushing it too hard at all. I've done it often.
The original poster indicated they were looking at staying in Alpendorf, so no problem for them. Even if they were in St Johann itself, the free bus system is excellent as runs all day without any problems.
The problem with Wagrain is that it is rather spread out along the axes of three valleys and movement to either lift system, Graffenberg or Flying Mozart can be slow. The shuttle between the two lift systems is excellent, as is the link to and from Kleinarl. However, the buses around the village are not so brilliant as the roads are so narrow. I always use a car and have done since my second trip there as it just makes life easier.
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saikee, Agree on this. Easier access to much more skiing from Wagrain. Nothing will be missed on the Wagrain/Alpendorf side but lots added with Flachau and more importantly Kleinarl/Flachauwinkl/Zauchensee - all excellent.
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Tom W, Both areas offer a huge amount of skiing. 
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Sue; not sure about the rolly eyes there... surely you aggree that being in wagrain offers more skiing potential than being on the alpendorf side. seems pretty clear to me as on the alpendorf side it takes at least 40min to get to the top and down to the bottom of the graff (in wagrain). So for a cruisy blue skier that is over an hour... double that for getting home again....ly
Being in Wagrain is a much better option. The busses to Mozart/Graff are every 10min in Feb, so you can easily decide whether to hit either side of the valley. The bus up to Kleinarl is also very regular which then opens up Flachau Winkl and zauchensee very comfortably. IMO Flachau winkl is also the best place for you to find your 'cruisy blues' as it is almost entirely made of them!
The route in a bus/car from Wagrain to St. Johann is a windy and slow road... but why on earth do you want to go down there?... the skiing is not worth sticking your neck out for. The road out towards Flachau is easy going and only takes 10min to get on the A10 autobahn.
Getting to Salzburg.. the train is from St. Johann. It takes about 90min to get to Salzburg....save it for the summer with dirt cheap flights and have another days skiing 
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flangesax, rolly eyes because so many people "claim" to know a resort when they patently do not! There is masses of cruisey blues and they will be shown the best slopes by the instructors I recommended. There are no drag lifts that have to be used and masses of skiing around the Sonntagskogl and Hirschkogl slopes- don't forget the extension and improvements they have made and are still making down to the Buchau area as well. That area has had snow-making lances put in this summer to ensure the base holds up for longer.
Until they put in the Berghof to Graffenberg connection, Wagrain is bitty. The best skiing in Wagrain is certainly NOT the Flying Mozart side, it is the Moadörfl section (Rote  . Flachau is, as you and your missus know, somewhat over-rated and not too pleasant at the top in high season. Black 25 and the runs in and around the Wagrainerhaus bowl are fun but short. Flying Mozart runs are mostly reds, whichever way you chose to come down, it is a one-lift hill that links into another system as is Kleinarl. The opportunities for varying where you ski is better from Alpendorf or by coming up from Wagrain on the Graffenberg into the Wagrain-Alpendorf system. Unfortunately the bottom of the Wagrain runs (i.e. below the Graffenberg Express top station by the Krapfenhaus) are steep with varying fall lines and a tendency to be icy and intimidating for cautious blue run cruisers. I like them and any confident blue-run hero can cruise No 36, but they are not for the nervous.
For what the OP asked, Alpendorf offers what it says on the box and they are at the main HQ for the ski school they have chosen. There is a Rot-Weiß-Rot school in Wagrain but apart from Siegi and Manuel, most of the instructors are youngsters catering predominantly for groups of Scandies, Dutch and British school kids and are not really ones I would even know well enough (because of the annual turnover) to recommend. The Wagrain regular ski instructors are part of the Rudi Huber School.
I would choose to stay in Wagrain because I have a car and know my way around. For a first timer to the region with a nervous partner looking for good private lessons with doorstep skiing (most of the self-catering accommodation in Alpendorf is ski in/ski out), then Wagrain does not offer the best option for what they want.
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flangesax, trains to Salzburg from St Johann - 53 minutes is the quickest and 1 hour 12 minutes is the slowest! No changes and some spectacular scenery. If that's what they want to do, why not? 
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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In this part of Ski Amade the three big areas are
(1) Zauckensee-FlachauWinkl-Kleinarl
(2) Flachau
(3) Wagrain-Alpendorf.
Zauckensee-FlachauWinkl-Kleinarl make the best impression on me and has more variety of terrain.
Wagrain to Alpendorf is a long stretch crossing over 3 valleys and it takes quite a bit of doing to ski from Alpendorf to Wagrain (as some of the lifts are not known for their speed), unclip the ski, catch a bus to Kleinarl, ski from there to Flachauwinkl, hop into the cho cho train and ski to the far end of Zauchensee in half a day and come back without missing the last lift. I suppose good skiers with local knowledge can do it.
The bottom of Alpendorf has only one blue run via lift 54 and possible a small drag lift 59. The other choice is to take the cable car to the mid level to try the run 58 and 57 as coming down has to be by red runs or riding the same cable car 52 down. One can take chairlift 56 to its top and come down the cable car 60 to try the last blue run which returns back to the top of lift 54 as another way to avoid the red runs.
For a higher concentration of blue runs I think Kleinarl-Flachauwinkl is hard to beat but the logical accommodation to achieve this is Wagrain.
Don't claim any local knowledge but I did ski all the areas. The above information is visible from the piste map. One thing Ski Amade does it gives out a lot of details of how each area is connected.
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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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Samerberg Sue, Agree that you can probably ski from Alpendorf to Zauchensee and back as you said but this is a lot of fast skiing to catch all the lifts back otherwise you're in trouble. We, for example, ski/board rather slowly and that's why I would prefer to have the access from Wagrain, so I can take my time and ski chosen area from 9am to 4pm and don't have to worry about catching all the lifts back.
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You know it makes sense.
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flangesax, trains to Salzburg from St Johann - 53 minutes is the quickest and 1 hour 12 minutes is the slowest! No changes and some spectacular scenery. If that's what they want to do, why not?
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Leave hotel, bus/taxi to St.Johann, get your tickets, get the train, arrive in Salzburg HBF, get to the old town/meribel.... tad over 90min don't you think?... 
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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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Poster: A snowHead
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Thanks for the feedback very helpful, Alpendorf it is then
The trip to Salzburg is the compromise with the GF who doesn't fancy a whole weeks solid skiing (madness I know!), but as this is only one of a number of ski weeks for me this season I don't mind.
I guess it's as well to get ski hire from Rot-Weiß-Rot. Would what they call VIP skis be suitable for me red runs (level 6 on the insideout scale http://www.insideoutskiing.com/level.html) and premium for the GF?
Thanks
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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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I remember a lot of agonising before my (and my wife's) first ski trip - choosing a resort that was good for beginners but also handy for a bit of culture in case we wanted a day off (culture = shops for her, a decent football team for me). Of course, the bug bit and we skiied all day every day.
Back to the question - if you want a day trip away from Alpendorf, maybe worth taking the bus up to Grossarl, easier than schlepping over to Zauchensee. I think that's all included on the lift ticket.
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
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Elmer, Their equipment is of a very high standard and well maintained. The VIP set is well worth it and you can ski different pair if skis each day if you want. They also do a Ski Set deal, which I think has a snowHead discount code doesn't it?
1gunsalute, It's not a schlepp but bloody good day's skiing going there and back!
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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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Elmer, IMO avoid the VIP selection.
these are normally very stiff race skis or specific skies for off-piste etc...
Judging by the inside-out list you linked to I'm sure the set down from VIP will suffice... no point wasting extra cash for something you won't really benefit from.
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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Samerberg Sue, True, a good days skiing! I just have an aversion to breaking it up with bus trips 
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1gunsalute, not going to be for much longer as there are plans to link Graffenberg with the mid station of the Flying Mozart with a 3S cable car (all the plans, everything sorted and in place, just the finance has to be raised) and Flachau-Winkl to be linked with Flachau, but I do not yet know how far those plans are!
The trip up to Kleinarl is no big deal either and a lot less time than the bus to Großarl! I drive there so it is not a bother, but funnily enough it is something I have not done very often as there is more than enough to keep me happy for a week in and around the Alpendorf-Wagrain-Flachau-Zauchensee area!
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Thanks for all the help
Self accommodation all booked for St. Johann and just sorting ski school and hire. Any recommendations for transfer companies from Salzburg airport?
Last edited by After all it is free  on Tue 20-12-11 18:32; edited 1 time in total
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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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Ask your hotel or the tourist office. I know a taxi company called Pichler used to do regular transfers but I'm not up to date these days as transfers for me mean throwing my gear into the car and pootling along the A8/A10 until I get there.
You can also get the train if you get to the Salzburg Hauptbahof (Main Station). Most accommodation arrange pick ups for you from the station at St Johann. There is a direct bus link from in front of the airport and you can get group tickets that are relatively cheap. Look at www.obb.at and select English as your language on the home page.
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Sorry for a bit of an off-thread question (this is snowHeads afterall...)
Samerberg Sue, as you seem to have the pulse of the place, do you know if Danji Jurkovic is still based in the area? I read something recently which seemed to suggest that he'd moved back to the Croatian National Team set-up on a more permanent basis (which seemed a bit odd given his business interests).
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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skisimon, Danni is still based in the area. He helps run a company called Snow Slippers as well as being a senior instructor with Rot-Weiß-Rot.
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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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Samerberg Sue, thank you. That's good to know, from a purely selfish point of view (when I last skied with him he suggested he may be able to sort out some work with the ski school - was a couple of years ago now mind). Thanks again.
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