The Arlberg - St. Anton etc. 2/18-2/25, 2017

This year, CMR and our daughter were celebrating big birthdays during the February break, so we decided to head to the Alps to celebrate, and it didn't disappoint.  We flew into Zurich and headed straight for St. Anton, where we had an apartment booked for the week.  I was worried that the low snowfall this year would make the skiing difficult, but there was plenty of snow, at least on the pistes.  Off piste was variable but we still found plenty to ski - with the addition of the new Flexenbahn gondola system this year, the entire region is now linked, and it is huge.   The Flexenbahn addition also included several other gondolas as well, and it's quite impressive:


The Alrberg is called the "cradle of alpine skiing', but it should also be known as the home of the heated bubble six chair.  The lift system here is incredible.  Everywhere we went, we found a high speed bubble six or 8 person lift, many with heated seats. With all of the high technology though, they still haven't figured out how to load the lifts in an orderly manner - the level of pushing and shoving was almost comical.  We got used to it pretty quickly though - CMR can elbow his way through anything.  We usually started the day skiing in St. Anton, which had great runs, but were often crowded by mid morning.  There's a nice view down into the valley from the top of the Galzig tram.

From St. Anton, we made our way over to Zurs many days, where the skiing is wide open and the crowds were lower.

The village is just a bunch of hotels in between both sides of the  ski area.  We had a fancy lunch at one of the hotels one day, but we usually preferred to eat outside at one of the mountain huts in the region.

We made it over Lech a few times as well, once by cab and once by skiing over, which took quite a while, especially since we inadvertently took the scenic route which dumped us out onto the backside of Lech, and we had to walk through the village to get back on the lifts. It was worth it though, as the skiing there was great.


We also made it to Warth and Schrocken one day as Lech started to get crowded.  There were fewer crowds there, but the snowfall we had on Tuesday seemed to have fallen as rain there, so the conditions were not as good.  We did enjoy a nice lunch of goulash and bacon dumplings at a hut there.

One of our favorite areas was located near Stuben, in between St. Anton and Zurs.  The new Albonabahn gondola, which goes off of the back side of the Flexanbahn station, leads to an area with a lone double chair, 3 red runs, and a lot of off piste skiing. We spent a great morning there.


From our lunch perch at the top, we also saw a lot of people applying skins and going off with guides to farther reaches here.

St.Anton is known for its apres ski, and there are several bars located on the mountain along the last run down. Many have live bands, and it's a lot of fun, as long as you can ski the rest of the way down. Here are the crowds starting the gather at the Mooserwirt:

You can see the Krazy Kangaruh (center of the picture up on the mountain) still going strong even after dark.

The kids were not interested, but CMR and I stopped by one of the apres bars one day on the way down to enjoy their beer and live band.  It was pumping out really cheesy 80s music, and the crowd loved it. You can see the mayhem of the last run down in the background.



All in all, it was a fantastic trip.  Given the busy holiday week and the low snowfall, I didn't have high expectations, but the Arlberg far exceeded them.  The resort is very well run, the skiing is great, people are friendly (aside from the pushing and shoving in the lift lines) and the food is fantastic. We can't wait to go back.

Glad that you enjoyed the Arlberg. Now you know now why I avoid the last three weeks of February like the plague for major resorts. Most of the continent is on school break, resulting in those hideous lift free-for-alls. No idea why they refuse to make organized corrals like in North America. If you have no choice other than that time period, go as far off the beaten path as possible.

Great looking pictures and report thanks so much for posting.

In my limited experience in Europe the pushing and shoving in line is accepted as normal, not really sure why.

Wow.  Some great pictures.  How does the pricing (lift tickets/lodging/food) compare with N. America?

DB, lodging seems to be similar to N. America - you can go high or low depending on your needs/wants.  This time, we went high, as it was a big birthday trip.  We found that lift tickets, both here and in our 2014 trip to Chamonix, were waaay less expensive. I think we spent $900 euros for six full days of skiing for four people.  That works out to about $41 per person per day.  The nice thing here was that our 15 year old son is still considered a "child" for lift ticket prices, and even our 18 year old got the "youth" rate.  I found the food and drink in Austria to be better and less expensive than in resorts in North America.  St. Anton has a few cafeteria-style lodges, and we were laughing at the comparison to the Gore lodge - the food at these restaurants was amazing and the bathrooms at one of them probably won some type of interior design award - there were people actually taking selfies in the ladies room because it was so nice.

James, unfortunately we are stuck with President's week for 2 more years.  Then CMR and I will be empty nesters and can pick better ski weeks.  Our daughter is already mad that she will miss our winter ski trips when she leaves for college this year.

poindexter wrote

James, unfortunately we are stuck with President's week for 2 more years.  Then CMR and I will be empty nesters and can pick better ski weeks.

That's what I figured. Your choice is to either deal with that aspect of peak-season at top-shelf resorts in the Alps (and for the record, the lift-queue bollox are far worse in France) or find lesser-known places. You've seen my solution: off-peak at ski areas that are the Alps version of Hickory or Plattekill -- but they're still bigger and have more vertical than most in the U.S.