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I’m running a bit behind in posting wrapups of the places we’ve been, and we’ve only been to one so far!  Not a good sign. 

The first stop on our ski trip was St. Anton am Arlberg, Austria (http://www.stantonamarlberg.com/en/home/2.html), or “Stanton” as the cool kids call it (at least according to the guide from the tourism office; actual level of coolness may vary).  The Arlberg region encompasses a bunch of nearby towns that are all linked together on the same ski pass.  You can’t directly ski between them all, at least not without doing some crazy off-piste adventures, but there’s a lot of terrain on one pass.  It’s one of the oldest ski resorts in Europe — the Arlberg Ski Club was founded in 1901!  St. Anton had the world’s first winter aerial tram in 1937 (recently replaced by an incredibly shiny new one on its 70th anniversary), carrying 60,000 passengers its first year of operation.  It’s a huge, very impressive operation.

Getting there from Villars-Sur-Ollon, Switzerland involved us taking a bus to a long series of trains (Aigle->Lausanne->Zurich->St. Anton), and then eventually a taxi to our hotel.  I’m consistently impressed by the punctuality of the public transportation in Switzerland, and apparently Austria is up to the same standards.  I think we had maybe 30 minutes of ‘layover’ total between four transporation changes over a full day of travel, and there was never any question of not making a connection or something not being on time.  I don’t think Amtrak could pull that off!

We had 5 days of skiing in St. Anton on the Vail Resorts Epic Pass (http://www.snow.com/epic-pass.aspx), and we probably still didn’t get to half of the pistes.  Not to mention the dozens of ‘ski routes’ (avalanche-controlled off piste trails) and probably a hundred or more ‘off the map’ places that could be explored either from the lifts or with a ski touring setup (and a competent guide).  There’s no shortage of places to ski.

The problem right now is the snow.  Or, rather, the lack of it.  Europe has been running way warm and way dry so far this winter, so much of the adventurous terrain in St. Anton was either totally inaccessible or in bad shape (read: rocks and ice).  A storm did roll through while we were in town, but it ended up dropping a lot less snow than was originally forecast (maybe 2-3″).  That helped a bit with some pieces of off-piste that we could access (mostly between or along the edges of groomed trails), but a lot of the pistes were basically in ‘dust on crust’ condition by the end of each day.

On the plus side, other than one stormy day we basically had this the whole time:

So the warm weather’s not all bad.

Crowds were another issue.  We were in St. Anton right after New Year’s, and everyone in Europe was on ‘holiday’ through at least the 4th.  With the limited expert terrain, sometimes-icy pistes, and holiday crowds, it was a little dicey the first few days.  By that Saturday a lot of people had left and it was a lot less crazy both on the slopes and around the town.

The first couple days of skiing we were still feeling the place out, compounded by those being only my third and fourth days on skis for the season (and the first two were short days).  So there weren’t a whole lot of boundaries being pushed.  On our third day the weather cleared up and we took the tram alllllll the way up to the top of the Valluga, ‘Queen of the Arlberg’, the highest point in the area.  There were some stunning views from the top, where you could see into several countries:

This is looking back down the cableway to the midstation:

And the ride up from the midstation to the very top was in a little cabin like this:

Which added some excitement to the trip. 

I also found a fun surprise up at the top:

It’s a small world, I guess.

The town of St. Anton itself is pretty interesting, although the downtown area (‘Dorf’) has been heavily resortified.  There’s not much there besides bars, restaurants, ski shops, and hotels.  Plenty of places to party the night away if that’s what you are looking for!  (One of Lili’s British cousins who had been there before said a nickname for it is “St. Manton” because so many Brits go there for bachelor parties.)  We were staying in a bed and breakfast up in ‘Nasserein’, which was a bit quieter and more of a residential area… although still lots of hotels and rental units, at least on the side closer to town.

Completely coincidentially, I booked us a room at a bed and breakfast run by the son of a locally famous ski racer (Ernst Falch), which was a fun surprise.  I got to chat with Rainer (the current owner) a bit about his family — his brother Martin Falch won a bronze medal skiing in the 2002 Paralympics in Salt Lake City (Slalom), so he had lots of cool memorabilia from that as well as a bunch of his dad’s old trophies.  His brother has semi-retired from skiing and is now a top Ironman Triathlon competitor.  Both impressive and humbling — and I’m sure he could ski circles around me too!

Food in St. Anton was pretty good, although resort pricing did seem to be in effect (ie, $15 bratwursts up on the mountain).  And apparently the Austrians love them some Italian food.  There seemed to be a pizzeria or italian restaurant everywhere you went, although there was a fair amount of traditional Austrian/German cuisine as well.  We had a killer veal goulash the last day we were there, as well as… well, I can’t spell it, but some kind of crazy dessert pancakes with homemade plum jam.  Off the hook.

On our last day skiing we got over to visit Lech and saw a bit of the flashier side of the Arlberg region.  It had snowed a bit the night before, so we were able to go down one of the ‘ski-routes’ and get a bit of the off-piste experience.  Rumors that I double-ejected in the slushy snow near the bottom are entirely unfounded…

Another highlight of Lech was visiting the main Strolz store (http://www.strolz.at/en/sport-mode/).  I happen to own a pair of Strolz ski boots, which are made in Lech — they’re one of the few companies that makes a boot big enough for me, and they’re very very high quality and tremendously customizable.  (Unfortunately for me my local bootfitter does not offer free champagne while having your boots custom molded like they do in Lech.)  I thought it would be fun to take my boots home for a visit.  They have quite the retail setup, with a six-story emporium selling everything from housewares to toys to mountaineering gear to ski equipment to the latest winter fashions (and free wifi!)  Lili ended up buying a hat there — or, rather, I made her buy one so she would stop stealing mine when we were walking around town.  We were in a bit of a hurry and I didn’t get photos, but the link to their site above gives you a feel for it.

I also picked up one of their catalogs, which is ridiculously over the top.  The thing has a embossed cover with velour and gold leaf, and it’s got about a hundred glossy pages of sultry European fashion models showing off the latest winter clothes and gear in the most ridiculous ways possible (this year’s collection: “As Light As Air”).  I mean, obviously you would take your fancy winter duds and lounge around on bearskin rugs in the middle of the ski slopes, right?  And don’t forget the Dior sunglasses to go with your color-coordinated Bogner outfit and Bentley-branded skis.  (I’m not kidding: http://www.zaiforbentley.com/ )

At the end of that day (after a slight detour that made us late getting off the mountain), I also learned that the Austrians are VERY serious about grooming the slopes.  At 4:00 on the dot they start driving groomers down the hills whether there are still skiers out there or not!  (And there are still skiers out there, since a lot of the lifts run until 4:30.)  I kind of felt like Jaws was closing in on us from behind, with the ominous beeping and all.  Somehow I feel like OSHA would have some issues with that in the states…

Overall, even with the crowds and the homicidal groomers, we had a great time in St. Anton.

But if when I go back I’m waiting for a lot of snow and bringing the powder skis…