Resort: Saalbach-Hinterglemm and Leogang - SkiCircus
Country: Austria
Author: Ousekjarr
Date: 22-29th January 2011
Our holiday: We alternate between large family groups and boys trips, with this being the latter. Just two of us on a trip to get the mileage in and revisit an old favourite. We visited Saalbach on our third ever trip back in 2003, and didn’t manage to get round it all so we fancied a return to refresh some memories and to compare our skiing now to our memories of impossibly difficult reds and runs so long we seemed to take days to get to the bottom of them.
Websites : http://www.saalbach.com has most of the information on the area, including accommodation searches, lift details, and so on.
Basics :Saalbach and Hinterglemm are the main places in the Glemmtaler, which is an east-west valley which opens from Maishofen on the main road north of Zell am See in Salzburgerland. We flew from Stansted to Salzburg with Air Berlin, and then picked up a pre-hired car from Holiday Autos at the airport. An Opel Astra was more than adequate, coping with 180cm skis with the back seats folded flat. Transfer time was 90 minutes on a Saturday evening, with no real traffic to speak of at any time during our trip. Alternatively, the train from Salzburg can get you as far as Zell am See, from where it is a 20-25 minute bus or taxi trip. There is also a Postbus which runs from the airport to the centre of Saalbach, via Zell - see http://www.oebb.at/ for details.
Flights: Air Berlin from Stansted were the find of the trip – this was the closest I’ve seen to business class on a budget price. Modern aircraft, leather seats allocated at check-in, in-flight entertainment, free soft drinks, and a stress-free experience - partially because they hadn’t sold out the flight so there were no queues and no struggling with bags in the cabin. When the gate opened, we strolled through in a leisurely fashion without having to stand in a queue for 45 minutes first to be sure of being able to sit together, walked to the plane, got on without queueing and via an airbridge rather than having to walk across the tarmac and climb the rickety steps, and everything was on time and very efficient. Offloading in Salzburg was done in 5 minutes and our bags were waiting for us, while on our return they’d clearly also had a word with the Stansted management as the passport control area was empty, and our bags were first on the carousel 90 seconds later. Amazing, and I’d definitely use them again, and in preference to Easyjet, Ryanair, Jet2 and Thomson who we’ve flown with before.
Lift system : Beginning to show its age in a few places, but there are some excellent modern lifts in the key places. The iconic Kohlmaisgipfelbahn gondola from the centre of Saalbach is an interesting exception – there are 20 gondolas on the wire, in four groups of five, so when one group is at the bottom station, one is at the top and the other two meet at a middle station. This was probably the height of technology when it was installed in 1990, but it is woefully inadequate now - although I suspect that they can’t get rid of it when it is on every postcard in town.
Kohlmaisgipfelbahn
In common with a number of gondolas in the area, these are standing room only so after a hard run down the hill you reach the top with your legs burning even more than when you finished the run, and on several occasions we had a coffee stop at the top to give our legs time to recover. The killer lift is the Schonleitenbahn out of Vorderglemm, which just seems to go on for ever, and it came to be known by us as the “Box of Pain” as it comes after a very long run down from the Schattberg – 7km long with 1000m of vertical, then a 15 minute stand in a cramped gondola.
There are a few 2- and 3-man chairlifts dotted around the mountain, including some non-detachable chairs which have a habit of trying to smack you in the back of the knees at high speed.
T-bars are limited to out of the way runs in the main, but one notable exception is the Bernkogel Schlepplift which you have to take if you are trying to complete the circuit from Saalbach to Hinterglemm – this is a 1.3km T-bar with two lanes, and there’s nothing you can do to avoid it.
Some recent investment is obvious in places, with heated chairs starting to creep in and a number of the more exposed chairlifts now fitted with bubbles. In addition, automatic safety bars are fitted to a couple of chairs.
The terrain : Both villages have slopes on either side of them, so with one set south facing and the other north facing, you can take your pick of conditions at any time of the day. In January, the north facing slopes are in shadow for just about all of the day, so tend to be harder and more snowsure. None of the mountains in the valley are huge – the highest peak is Schattberg, at 2097m, but the direct drop down into Saalbach at 1000m is steep, and the relatively high height of the village for Austria means that the lower slopes are generally kept in good condition until late in the season.
While the SkiCircus is (mainly) lift linked and it is possible to complete a circuit in an anti-clockwise direction, in reality there are five distinct areas which are then interconnected.
In Hinterglemm, the Zwolferkogel (1984m) is the more challenging area, with two long north-facing black runs from the top of 3km and 1.5km in length. Open reds and blues face south to south-east into the valley, and while there is a solitary blue run down to the valley floor this is not really a place for beginners. The two gondolas from the valley to the peak are fast and efficient, and a 6-man chair serves the runs on the back side while an old T-bar serves a single run on the farthest edge.
Opposite the Zwolferkogel is a range of peaks of 1800m to 2000m in height featuring south-facing slopes, with a modern lift system covering the side of the valley. Two T-bars cover small areas, but as the Rosswaldlift was the only way to link to the runs down into Saalbach when we were there, it became a minor pain as it is short but steep and a little jerky. Normally there is a run from this lift down to the next lift over, but it was closed due to lack of cover. Much of this side of the valley is wooded, so many of the runs are tree-lined.
Schattberg is the range between Hinterglemm and Saalbach on the south side of the valley, with two peaks of 2020m and 2096m served by two modern and fast gondolas from the valley, one each in Hinterglemm and Saalbach. A third gondola covers the dip between the peaks, lifting from the lowest point back up to the higher peak. On the south side, a network of cruising blue and red runs are very popular, with the blue 2b Jausernabfahrt running 7km down into the valley – as mentioned above, the only way our from here is onto the other side of the hill, so this leg has to be skipped if trying to complete the SkiCircus circuit in the “wrong” direction. From each peak there are challenging black runs, with the Schattberg Nordabfaht being the longer and harder at 4km long and over 1000m of vertical.
Schattberg Express
On the opposite side of the valley is the main Saalbach area, served by a cluster of lifts from the top end of town. This main slope has a lot of learners, especially around the Turm chair which provides access to the main nursery slope – although as this has to be crossed diagonally to get back to the more useful lifts from several of the runs, there’s an unfortunate clash of priorities at times. At the bottom right of this slope as you ski down, a ramp or a newish lift drop you to street level, from where a 50m walk gets you to the Bernkogel lift which links back to the main Hinterglemm slopes.
View into Saalbach from Bernkogel
The lower part of this is a reasonable chairlift, but the top third is, as described above, a long and dreary T-bar. Worst still, if you are coming in the opposite direction, the run down alongside this starts with a gentle slope and then flattens out before turning gently uphill where the T-bar crests the ridge. Skiers can skate for about 100m if they’re energetic, but boarders and a lot of the learners end up walking a long way.
Finally, the Magic 6er out of Saalbach or the “Box of Pain” out of Vorderglemm deposit you on the linking runs to Leogang. These are worth a visit and are served by modern lifts, but do take care not to get stuck in Leogang at the end of the day, as it is 30km back to Saalbach by taxi.
Lift Links: this is the one area where the valley suffers a little in comparison to other places – it offers a huge amount of terrain, but there’s a couple of rather inconvenient villages in the way, so getting from one side of the valley to the other usually involves a walk through the pedestrian centre of the village. At best this is 50m, but at worst it is 200m down the main street of Saalbach, which is on a steepish slope and cobbled, so you will see falls on a regular basis. Where other resorts suffer from everything being out of town with a significant uplift before you can ski, Saalbach and Hinterglemm offer the convenience of being able to ski into town, but at a price. Other areas I’ve visited address this problem with free shuttle buses or even a tractor-pulled road train to get people between the lifts without major hassle, but not here.
Queues : The lift system is spread out over a wide area, so the largest queue we saw was about 50 people in total, with a 3 minute wait. However, this was in the low season, so I’m sure there could be queues of 5-6 minutes at peak times and for popular lifts. Basically, nothing to worry about.
At no time did any piste seem crowded – in most cases, they were positively quiet almost all of the time, although we were passed by what seemed to be a 40-person Alpine Infantry squad at one point who were eerily co-ordinated, and the last day of our trip included what we suspect was a Scottish rugby club, as they were all in kilts and none of them was on the anorexic side of the BMI scale.
The snow : On arrival, the roads and pavements were clear, it was -15, and there had been no more than 1cm of snow in the last two weeks. Our first day was clear but slightly overcast, and we found crispy pistes with icy patches in places, although the snow making in the valley is excellent and a lot of work had obviously been done to keep the pistes in the best condition possible. Some of the lower routes into the valley were closed, as there was no snowmaking available on them and the coverage was poor.
At 7pm, it started to snow heavily. By 10pm, there was 10cm over the whole of the valley, and it kept snowing for most of the next three days. Day two saw 30cm of powder over everything, which was great fun until it had been piled up on the pistes with hard and icy patches exposed between the piles, so many were finding it a challenge.
Four bar fence – all four bars were visible when we arrived, but only the top of the posts were visible as we left.
Day three saw another 30-40cm of fresh on top of what the piste bashers had managed to sort out the night before, so we experienced something new for us – a 30-35 degree black run with knee-deep undisturbed powder on it. At the bottom of this, the lift we’d been aiming for was still closed, so we skipped over the side of the hill to cut back to a roadway below, only to find that we were in waist deep fresh powder. Cue much giggling and high spirits...
Day four finally cleared a little to show us that another 20cm of fresh snow had been added, and suddenly the areas which had been left alone on the previous days because of the low visibility were sought out and soon tracked out – in places, the wind drifted snow was over 1m deep, and we saw several people disappear up to their armpits at times. Inevitably, we also saw one group of three people from the chair lift, disconsolately prodding the snow with their poles to find the missing skis, and they were still at it an hour later.
Two days - tracked out
Off-piste : There were lots of runs through the trees, down the lift lines, and from the shoulders of hills next to lifts where it was possible to find untracked snow two or three days after the main dump. At the sides of many of the pistes there were also areas which could be accessed easily, and almost all of them had also been marked for hazards and fenced off in the few dangerous places, so this was a great place for those venturing into the off-piste for the first time as well as for those who wanted to walk for 20 minutes before they found their ideal line.
For the really keen: Hinterglemm has a floodlit piste which seems to get a fair number of people on it, but we’re always too tired from a full day of skiing to trade eating and drinking time for more downhills. Looks pretty though...
Floodlit piste
Fashion reporting : nothing captured on film, but there were a surprising number of 1970s Nevica one-piece suits in evidence during the week, and none of them seemed to be worn in an ironic style. The most cringe-worthy moment of the whole week was as we sat down to lunch in the Pfefferalm (probably the smallest, darkest and most basic alm I’ve ever seen), and a group of about 8 English people came in and sat in the opposite corner – three were in the kit they’d bought 30 years ago, including a puke coloured one piece, and one guy with a lilac Nevica suit with a 3-inch wide fabric belt on it, who were then joined by a non-skiing friend dressed entirely in tweed (though I can’t say I saw his underwear :-0 ). Mr Tweed then delivered two copies of the Daily Telegraph to the group, who then spent the next 30 minutes complaining about bloody foreigners while loudly ordering vegetable soup followed by pudding with custard rather than making any attempt at speaking German. I do despair of some of our fellow countrymen sometimes...
Other resorts nearby: A day trip to Zell am See or Kaprun is easily possible, but given the extent of the Glemmtaler area neither is likely to appeal unless the snow conditions are very bad, in which case everyone within 50 miles will be on the glacier in Kaprun. On a clear day, the Kitzsteinhorn glacier is visible from the top of the Schattberg if you know where to look:
View to Kitzsteinhorn, Kaprun – the peak in the centre with a wisp of cloud is Kitzsteinhorn, while the flattish area to the right is the main part of the glacier.
Facilities : Saalbach and Hinterglemm have Spar markets in the centre of the villages, plus the old market hall in Saalbach is also now a supermarket. There are multiple hire shops, fashion outlets and so on, though the shopping in Saalbach is probably more extensive than in Hinterglemm. The key shops are open 7 days a week, until at least 8pm, but the ski hire places can be a bit funny – of the 6 or so in the valley, only Intersport Bauer in Saalbach opened before 9am on Sunday, so having arrived at 8pm on Saturday night they were the obvious choice for our hire kit as they opened at 8am. All of the hire shops are closed by 5.30.
Hinterglemm used to have a reasonable swimming pool, but apparently it was demolished to make way for a hotel some time ago, as we found out to our disappointment when we tried to find it again after 7 years. Some maps still show it, to add to the confusion. Saalbach has an outdoor pool, open from spring to autumn only, so if you can’t get access to one of the many hotel pools, the only option is to go to Zell am See by car or postbus and use the excellent facility there.
Food : We’ve yet to have a bad experience in Austria. Good wholesome food is easy to find at a range of prices, although the menu can be a little limited if you’re not a fan of Austrian or Italian cuisine, or if you are vegetarian.
We did find one excellent Mexican restaurant, Pipamex at the AlpenHotel in Saalbach, where the food was well cooked, tasty, quick, and at a reasonable price.
Apres Ski: There are any number of places to choose from, but we really enjoyed the Goaßstall in Hinterglemm, which combines a great atmosphere with excellent service and reasonable prices – €4 for a large beer or gluhwein. The building is a converted goat shed with a small hay loft, and an extensive terrace, all of which are busy but friendly when the day comes to an end. At around 7pm, everyone gets turfed out to allow them to clear up and reset everything for dinner (with the staff in smart uniforms), and the whole place turns into a civilised restaurant until about 9, when the staff change back into casuals and the place turns back into a bar and the music gets louder.
Goaßstall residents
Goaßstall deck
The only problem with the Goaßstall is that it is 50m up the main slope, so after a few refreshments you may think you have to clip back in and ski the short distance down into town. However, at the entrance to the decking is a sign which points to “Toilets, Shop, Tunnel” – the bar has a tunnel which connects the basement to the road alongside the piste for deliveries, so it is possible to walk in and out easily.
Reiterkogel from Zwolferkogel – the Goaßstall is below the Z-shaped toboggan runs, where two pistes meet.
In the main street of Hinterglemm there is something for everyone, from the nightclub meat-market to the loud street bar, but one surprise is that behind the loud outside bar in the
main street is a surprisingly civilised restaurant which serves good wholesome food without breaking the bank.
Accommodation : The valley suffers to a certain extent from being strung out – the centre of each village has a number of hotels and chalet buildings, almost all in the traditional style, but this does mean that accommodation on the outskirts is more likely, and the road between Hinterglemm and Saalbach has a fairly large number of places which are comfortable and reasonably priced, but they do suffer from being a long way from the action.
For this trip, cost was a major factor for us, so we ended up in a modern apartment block on the very eastern edge of Hinterglemm. The apartment was small, and on the top floor of five in the block, so not ideal. However, at €50 per night it was very attractive, and even from here it was no more than a 15 minute walk into town. A ski bus stop was 100m away, so on most days we got the bus to the lifts in Hinterglemm.
Last run, Kohlmais
Last run
Costs:
Flights £120pp
Car hire £210 plus €35 for fuel
Accommodation €175pp
Ski hire €116pp for premium skis, 6 days
Lift pass €195 for 6 days
Typical lunches on the mountain were around €10pp for a main course and large drink. A 0.5L beer was €3.50-4.00 both on and off the mountain, with gluhwein at €4, and hot chocolate or coffee around €3. Evening meals varied from pizzas at €8 to steaks at €25.
All in, around £800 for a week.
Conclusion: Saalbach-Hinterglemm is definitely on the radar for anyone skiing in Austria, with most of the UK operators having a large number of packages to the area. It offers a wide range of cruising blues and reds, and enough of a challenge on its black runs and off-piste to keep more advanced skiers and boarders happy. It has a reputation as being more expensive than some places in Austria without aspiring to St Anton levels, but in the main this is probably undeserved as you can find good accommodation, food and drinks at reasonable prices if you are prepared to look. At the other end of the scale, the top hotels in Saalbach and Hinterglemm are 4* for a reason, and the bill will have a similar number of digits per person.
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Nice report - the comment about the non-anorexic kilted formation skiers made me chuckle...
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?
worz666, sorry - we only spent one evening in Saalbach, so there's not much I can recommend.
Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
So, having scoped out Saalbach-Hinterglemm last year, I returned to Hinterglemm this year with my family in tow, so here's an update and some additional info reflecting our changed experiences:
Date: 11-18th February 2012 (half term)
Our holiday: this was our family trip for the year, now restricted to school holidays as my son is now 5. However, this did mean that he was ready for proper ski school, having previously had two sampler mornings in Kaprun last year when he was realistically too small to do much more than shuffle around on skis on a very flat slope. We also have a daughter who will be 3 in a few weeks, and we brought my wife's non-skiing parents for quality time with their grandchildren (aka free childcare )
All of our trips are DIY these days, as 3 hour coach transfers with tired kids are not fun, and neither is trying to arrange alternative food for a 2-year old who refuses to eat what’s on the menu.
Pre-holiday: In preparation, our son had been to three lessons at Hemel, all of one hour duration, which got him familiar with the equipment but didn't really provide much in the way of technique development. We had three different teachers, who were average, excellent and poor respectively - since there's no way to know beforehand who will be taking each class, it's a bit of a lottery. The one big plus, which we only realised later, was that he learned to use the drag rope and was confident on it by the time we went on holiday.
Our outbound journey: Having discovered early on that the cheapest flights to Salzburg for half term week were going at £380 per person, and of course we'd have 4 full fares to pay, we decided to look at driving instead. We booked a crossing via EuroTunnel, at £138 return, and planned for an overnight stop in each direction to make the journey more pleasant. We departed at 8am on Friday 10th after a slightly worried night watching 3 inches of snow fall in Cambridgeshire, but in the morning the roads were clear. We arrived ahead of schedule at Folkestone, and were booked onto an earlier train than we'd reserved, so even with a subsequent delay of 30 minutes, we arrived in Calais 40 minutes earlier than planned. Turning left out of the tunnel site, we headed for Dunkirk and into Belgium, taking the route from Bruges to Brussels, then Liege, Aachen, Cologne, Bonn, Stuttgart, and then to our overnight stop at Ulm. All of this was pretty simple, except for a slight navigational issue as we approached Brussels - we knew we wanted the road to Liege, but since none of the signs showed it, we carried on towards Brussels until suddenly we found ourselves running out of motorway and arriving at traffic lights in a suburban area with the dome of the Basilica fairly clear on the skyline. Doing a quick u-turn, it dawned on us that since Belgium is bi-lingual and we'd been driving through the Dutch-speaking area, maybe the very French-sounding Liege had a Dutch name... Cross-checking the road numbers, it seemed that the road to Luik was the one we wanted, and so we surmised that Luik = Liege.
Refreshed next morning despite arriving at our overnight stop to a smoky bar full of firemen and fire service cadets on a night out (they left 20 minutes later...), we left at 0800 and travelled on via the Munich ring road (which was clear until the very end, where we were delayed by 50 minutes) to Siegsdorf, where we turned southwards towards Lofer, then on to Saalfelden and then into the valley, arriving at 1230. The roads had been clear and relatively quiet for almost all of the journey, with the expected exception of the Munich area.
Our return journey: Leaving Hinterglemm at 0800 on Saturday 18th, we were delayed for 30 minutes by the main roundabout in Saalfelden, which always seems to snarl up the outbound traffic based on our experiences of trying to take that route back to Salzburg airport. After that, the Munich ring road was again slow in places, but not to the same extent as before. Once clear of Munich, we had a clear run all the way to Aachen, where we stopped overnight in a small village just south of the road, and only a couple of miles from the Belgian border. Leaving at 0830 the next morning, we were in Calais by 1130, and again got bumped to an earlier train. Having dreaded the return check-in based on reports here and elsewhere of horrendous queues of 2 hours and more at passport control, it took us less than 10 minutes from arrival at the check-in to parking in the departure lane. With a simple crossing and clear traffic in the UK, we were home by 1500.
Car preparation: our main car is a Zafira 1.9 diesel which has been used for commuting as well as long journeys, so has 160000 miles on the clock in just over 5 years. With 17” alloy wheels, it looked expensive to fit winter tyres, but as the same model can be supplied with 16” wheels as standard, I ordered four Nankang Snow SV-2 tyres on new steel rims from mytyres.co.uk at a total of £442. The Nankang tyres aren’t top of the range, but they score consistently well in reviews and as a full snow tyre rather than all-season or M&S marked, I was happy with my choice. They were delivered 5 days later direct from Germany, and fitted by me in two hours a few weeks before Christmas to bed them in and try them out on the 110-mile daily roundtrip commute. Apart from being slightly noisier, there was no appreciable difference – until the cold weather came, and on fen roads where normally I was used to the car being a bit nervous if prodded a little hard, it was as solid as on a summer day.
Given I’ve never needed to use chains on multiple hire cars in Austria, I was reluctant to part with the £150 the dealer wanted for a badged set, so when Aldi advertised chains in their weekly specials at £20, I picked up a set which fitted the new wheels.
Also at Aldi, £10 got me a winter accessory kit with a good scraper, lock de-icer, and spray windscreen de-icer. Another £8 got me a gallon of screenwash good to -60C, which wasn’t available anywhere else I looked.
Total distance driven: 1868 miles, with the door to door distance being as near to 900 miles as made no difference. The additional 68 miles was between Hinterglemm and Zell am See on a couple of occasions to collect the grandparents and to visit the town in mid-week.
The skiing: conditions were pretty good on arrival, with blue skies and excellent pistes for the first two days. Tuesday had some light snow and low visibility, but nothing too dramatic. Wednesday had been scheduled as a day off for us, partly to give our son a rest, but mainly so we could do family things together (of which more later). This turned out to be a good call, as it started to snow heavily on Tuesday afternoon, and didn’t stop until Thursday morning. When we hit the slopes on Thursday, knee-deep powder covered all of the pistes, and any venture off the sides became waist deep in places. However, the avalanche risk was 4 throughout the valley, and all of the upper slopes were shut – the first time I’ve ever experienced such a closure in 10+ years of visiting Austria. Throughout the day, muffled rumbles signalled the efforts of the avalanche control teams all the way down the valley, and the piste bashers ran throughout the day on the upper slopes to prepare them for the next morning. Despite the quantity of fresh snow on the pistes on Thursday, they stayed in excellent condition throughout the day, packing down rather than turning into the horrible mogul fields I’d been expecting.
Friday was a great day, still overcast, but with reasonable contrast and good conditions all over the mountain. All of the lifts except one were open again, and we had a good day revisiting our favourite runs of the week.
Given this was half term week, I was amazed at the lack of queues and the lack of people on the slopes. We’d previously been in Saalbach at New Year and in the low season in mid January, so we’d seen the very busy and very empty extremes, and I was expecting it to be as bad as at New Year – but if anything, it was almost quieter than at the “quiet” time. The coach parks showed plenty of evidence of UK school trips from every corner of the country, including one from Parks of Hamilton (that’s a long coach journey, just to get to Dover...), and almost unbelievably, one from 4 miles from our home with kids from the local secondary school.
Peak season in Hinterglemm
Our longest queue of the week was 4 minutes, at the Zwolferkogel lift in the morning.
Accommodation: We booked two apartments in the Hubertushof in Hinterglemm, both because of its location right beside the Zwolferkogel lift, and because the building next door was the ski school. The hotel was good, with attentive and helpful staff, but the apartments weren’t quite what we’d been expecting as the kitchen area in each apartment was a 2-ring electric hob, a coffee machine, a small fridge, and a sink. No microwave, no oven, no grill, no toaster, no freezer. If they’d put a simple combination microwave/oven/grill in the corner, it would have been fine, but without it cooking for 6 was a bit more of a challenge than it needed to be. We’d planned to eat out every couple of days anyway, but even so I expected better at the price we were paying.
We also had dinner in the hotel on arrival, and breakfast the next day, as we managed to miss the 6pm closing time of the local supermarket while picking up the grandparents from Zell am See, and although breakfast was good, dinner was merely adequate – standard Austrian fare, without anything exceptional.
Ski School: We tried to book our son into ski school in advance, but were told just to bring him in when we arrived and they’d get it sorted. That made me nervous, but in the event everything worked out perfectly.
We turned up at Skischule Activ at 1600 on Saturday, and within 20 minutes he was kitted out and allocated a place for the week on a flexible 5-day booking over the 6 days we were there. We delivered him to the meeting point on the nursery slope at 0930 on Sunday, and were glad to see that he was put in a group with 5 others, 3 from the UK, one Dutch kid who also spoke English, and one German. All were under 7, and as well as the allocated instructor there was a second assistant, with maybe 7 staff in total in the immediate area to cope with 15-20 kids. For one of the busiest weeks of the year, that’s a great ratio. All of the instructors spoke good English, and throughout the week they were universally excellent.
Day 1 was spent walking up an Astroturf strip, then sliding down the gentlest of slopes and stopping at the bottom with a simple snowplough. Day 2 started the same way, but after lunch he progressed to the main learning slope, where a tow rope gave twice the length of slope and a slightly higher angle, with arches and gates set out down the course. By the end of day 2, he was navigating the gates with ease and stopping at the bottom, and thanks to the 3 hours at Hemel before we went, he mastered the rope tow in minutes – something that many of the others struggled with for several hours. Day 3 was more of the same, and now he was trying to race other kids to the gates, and swerving round the ones who fell or hesitated.
Day 4 was our rest day.
On day 5, he relocated to the main Unterschwarzach slope in Hinterglemm, and spent the day going up the Poma lift and coming back down in a crocodile with the instructors at head and tail. We dropped in on him regularly to see how he was doing, and managed to film some of it without being spotted until after he’d finished the run, so we were able to compliment him on his improvement without making him nervous. From being essentially unable to turn or stop before he went, we think the improvement is excellent.
At the end of day 5, I collected him from the ski school, and took him back to the lift for one more run, which he was eager to do. It was only as we reached the head of the queue that it suddenly occurred to me that the “self-service” sign on the lift meant no attendant to help him with the Poma button, and I would have to figure it out pretty quickly to avoid embarrassing us both and causing a queue. Fortunately, we got it on the first attempt I then discovered why one instructor always led the group down – he set off on his own from the top, but as he had no-one to follow, he made some very random turns and wandered all over the slope. Quickly getting in front, I set the course and he followed well, and we were both much more comfortable!
His biggest disappointment was that he wanted to go up the mountain in the gondolas. On day 6, his wish was granted – throughout the week, they’d shuffled the groups and where necessary sent the more advanced pupils off with a new instructor to do something extra, and so again one of the two instructors was changed and they all set off to the top of the Zwolferkogel in the gondola. Like many of the mountains in Austria, this is steep-sided but rounded on top, so the easiest slopes are higher up. The group spent the day skiing from the top down to the middle station, then going back up again.
In all, he had four different people supervising the groups he was in, but as they always had two instructors per group and only ever changed one when groups were shuffled, this was never disruptive and he had a great relationship with all of the instructors and with the other kids in the group.
In passing, we saw a couple of groups on the mountain during the week which made us glad of our choice of ski school. One of these had a single instructor from Frency’s, with 13 kids aged 8-10, so even if he was merely guiding a school group rather than teaching we were surprised and a little dismayed by the staffing ratio.
Lift Improvements: Several lifts were upgraded over the summer, the most welcome of which was the replacement of the old and slow Bernkogel chair by a gondola. However, this still terminates halfway up the mountain, and the dual T-bar system still runs the rest of the way to the summit, so there’s still some room for improvement.
Smoking in Austria: This has always been one of the downsides to any trip to Austria, but this year the difference has been remarkable. There has been a steady improvement in the availability of no smoking areas over the last few years, but suddenly it seems that smoking has fallen out of fashion, and even in the bars and alms where we couldn't get a seat in the no smoking area, it was pretty rare for us to notice the level of smoke, when in previous years it has been difficult to miss it. The corner seems to have been turned, and several places we went to had become entirely non-smoking, which was a massive improvement.
Our rest day: We have spent a lot of time in Zell am See over the years, and we love the atmosphere of the place, so we took the grandparents for a day in the city. For the first time we’ve ever experienced, the lake was frozen enough to be officially open for walking, with a marked path all the way across to Thumersbach. The path is marked by small pine trees dug into the ice about 50 metres apart, which was a bit surreal, but as it was snowing heavily for a lot of the time, we welcomed the navigational aids.
We’ve come to love the Mosshammer Konditorei in the centre of town, where the cakes are spectacularly good if a little expensive, and the atmosphere of the place is very welcoming. A short walk away, the church is worth a visit, with lower levels dating from the C9th, and the tower from the early 1300s.
Lessons learned: All in all, it was a good trip and we’d be happy to do it again. The drive was stress-free and relatively simple, assisted by our provision of a dual DVD player system in the back which could play DVDs or video files from a USB stick or SD card, with either separate or cloned displays. Both kids were kept happy by these, and at no point did they turn into screaming pumpkins, which was a concern early on in our planning. It helped that our 5-year old worked out the remote control fairly quickly, which saved us stopping to change programs.
We had a roof box on the car, which took the skis and boot bags, plus a cool bag of useful food items which ended up frozen solid due to the -16C overnight temperature in southern Germany. Fuel consumption averaged 42mpg, compared to 44mpg on my normal commute, and when the conditions and local laws allowed, we were travelling at 130kph (~80mph) through Belgium and much of Germany, and at 140kph (~85mph) on the unrestricted parts of the autobahn, with no adverse effects on the roofbox, fuel consumption, or handling of the car. We were still passed by Mercedes, BMW and Audi drivers in Germany who were doing 180kph or more, especially in the dark.
Costs for the drive were significantly cheaper than flying, especially when airport parking and transfers are taken into account. We reckoned that the total cost to fly would have been around £1850. By car, the costs were:
Winter tyres £442
Chains £20
Fuel £350
Screenwash,etc £20
Eurotunnel £138
EU Breakdown cover £35
EU insurance included in fully comp policy
Outbound B&B £70
Return B&B £80
Additional meals £100
Total £1255
From this, the chains and tyres will be good for at least one more trip (more likely 3-4 more), and of course we get the benefits of having winter tyres for 2-3 months of the year at home, so it is tempting to knock off £300 to reflect this. That makes the total by car 50% of the total by air.
In addition, we took a lot more stuff than we’d ever manage on a flight, no matter what the baggage allowance was. Sure, the kids get 20Kg of allowance each, but they can’t carry that, and neither can we when we have our own bags to carry on the tramp from the car park to bus stop, and bus stop to check-in, and reclaim to transfer vehicle. Having two full bags of toys and books for the kids was a lifesaver at times, and made the whole trip more pleasurable.
I also amazed the grandparents by taking my car up 15 degree slopes with hard-packed snow on them to get into the supermarket carpark, across car parks with 40cm of snow on the ground, and between Zell am See and Hinterglemm in a blizzard and in the dark with the snow lying on the road, all without dramas. The snow tyres worked wonderfully apart from under very extreme conditions.
Downsides: Driving had many advantages, but it also left me with the problem of digging the car out after a hard day on the slopes, when we got back on Thursday to find it in 50-60cm of snow with drifts around the front, and a wall of ice at the back where the hotel had ploughed the car park earlier. We decided I should clear it at the time, in case it snowed more and left us with a huge job to do on our last evening or the morning we were leaving, so 90 minutes later it was mainly clear and I tried to move it. Unfortunately, as the lower layer had thawed a little during the day and then frozen late in the afternoon, the wheels were on an inch thick sheet of ice, leaving me trying to reverse uphill out of the parking space, which was also on a 10-15 degree sidewards angle. However, just as I was about to break out the chains for the only time on the trip, two helpful Aussies appeared and helped push me out.
The return journey meant that we arrived home on Sunday, so had less time to recover before going back to work on Monday. However, I felt less tired after the drive than I do when flying, so I think for me the effect was about the same.
After all it is free
After all it is free
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If they’d put a simple combination microwave/oven/grill in the corner,
Thanks for the update - just to echo your experience: we are staying in Zell am See this week and were disappointed to find "fully equipped kitchenette" only had 2-ring hob. But when we complained, they gave us a microwave - and said they only had 4 for the 7 apartments in the block! I think they expect people to survive on take-aways and apres-ski.
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ousekjarr, Great couple of posts. The second one focussed naturally on your holiday in Hinterglemm rather than Saalbach, so a few bits of additional information.
Re Ski Hire shops in Saalbach opening before 9.00 on a Sunday - certainly SkiPro opens at 8.30 at the latest, earlier if necessary (e.g. T/O Reps arriving with a group). Likewise Snowacademy and Hansi's. They also stay open later on Saturdays IF the T/O Reps let them know about delayed flights and transfers.
'Fully equipped kitchenette' is just that - 2-ring hob, small fridge (although there is always a big fridge on the balcony) and maybe a microwave. The key phrase you need in Austria is 'Fully equipped KITCHEN' which will usually include a full cooker with oven, microwave, dishwasher, coffee machine, kettle, fridge, pots, pans, etc.
There is a new 'M-Preis' supermarket on the road between Saalbach and Hinterglemm (only really accessible for car drivers) and an excellent 'Billa' supermarket on the way in to Saalbach from Zell/Maishofen. One of the good points about Austria is that the Spar/Billa/M-Preis supermarkets are part of national chains, so the prices are the same as you would pay in Salzburg or Innsbruck - i.e. no 'resort mark-up'. Prices in Billa are about the same as Tesco in the UK, but tea is very expensive, so take a packet if that is your tipple.
The Postbus 260 from Salzburg Airport goes to Zell am See. If you are going to Saalbach or Hinterglemm, tell the driver and he'll drop you off at the crossroads just outside Maishofen, where the Postbus 680 out of Zell will be waiting for you. If you stay on the bus all the way to Zell, you'll need to wait another hour for the next bus. If the 260 is delayed, I have more than once experienced that the driver rings to his colleague on the connecting bus, and it then waits up to 15 mins at the crossroads. For other transfer options, search for 'Holiday Shuttle', 'Vorderegger' or Transferservice.at.
The two largest self-catering apartment complexes in Saalbach (Casa Alpina and the blocks by Hotel Sonne) both have swimming pools and when built in the 1980s, were better equipped than most of the hotels. Most apartments have been immaculately kept by their owners.
To add to your comment about queues - the last two weeks (mid-Feb 2012) have been high season in Saalbach. The longest wait that I have had was 10 minutes at 10.00 on the Bernkogel Gondola. This was because all of the childrens ski schools arrived at once. Otherwise, max. 5 minutes. I skied 2 pistes on Thursday afternoon on the Kohlmais side of Saalbach that had just 3 people on them - me and my 2 companions.
BTW 'Frency’s' is the clothing brand favoured by ski schools in Austria, so if you saw instructors in Hinterglemm in yellow and blue Frency’s uniforms, they will have been from the Snow and Fun ski school.
Ski the Net with snowHeads
Ski the Net with snowHeads
Excellent informative reports - saves me writing a full report too!
I've just got back from three days skiing in Hinterglemm and absolutely loved it. It was my first trip to Austria and I was thoroughly impressed. I skied Saturday 18th (a beautiful sunny day) to Monday 20th (Sun and Mon cloudy with light snow). I encountered almost no queues at all despite it being both Southern Germany and Dutch school holidays - the majority of the people I encountered in bars were Dutch, and of course there were noticably more locals skiing on Sunday.
I thought the lift system was amazing, and apart from the odd walk across town (as described above) the lifts linked perfectly. In fact, you can alternate your days skiing between the two sides sides of the mountain to avoid any walking - there is plenty of terrain to keep you occupied on both sides. I thought the lift system was easily as good as I found in the Three Valleys, and it was significantly quieter too. It was certainly much better linked than Wengen and Zermatt, though these Swiss resorts easily beat most Austrian resorts in terms of dramatic mountain views. I found some of the blues to be fairly steep in places, bordering on reds, whereas anything vaguely steep in Switzerland tends to be graded red, and some of the blues in Saalbach/Hinterglemm were certainly tougher than the equivalent grading which I encountered in the Three Valleys.
There was tons of snow, the best conditions I have encountered, and prices for food and drink were very reasonable. I can't comment on accommodation as I stayed with a friend. Smoky bars were not as big an issue as I anticipated as many bars/restaurants, especially those on the mountains, were totally non-smoking or had separate non-smoking areas.
All in all - highly recommended!
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
On the subject of smoking, we were in a mountain hut today for lunch and had to share a table with another couple. Tables had litle no-smoking signs on them. When they'd finished their food, the couple dug out their fags, got up and walked 5 metres to the bar where they lit up. But it wasnt actually too smoky and we put up with it as part of Austrian charm
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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the apartments weren’t quite what we’d been expecting as the kitchen area in each apartment was a 2-ring electric hob, a coffee machine, a small fridge, and a sink. No microwave, no oven, no grill, no toaster, no freezer.
Presumably the hotel hopes everyone will eat main meals there - though there should be a clear indication of exactly what is in the kitchen - must have been a challenge cooking for 6 on two rings!
To be fair, you wouldn't normally find a toaster except in British-owned apartments and I've yet to encounter an apartment with a freezer (though a freezing compartment in a standard sized fridge can be v useful).
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now he was trying to race other kids to the gates, and swerving round the ones who fell or hesitated.
FAQ
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Peak season in Hinterglemm
