Snowboarding in Austria.
The views from the slops are magnificent.
Before Corona happened, I spent these days in January and February preparing and packing for a snowboarding trip. Today, there are 3 °C outside and the first snow already fell. I have no time to go snowboarding. Therefore, it’s time to stroll down the memory lane of the last great trips. In school, I always went snowboarding with a youth travel group. When I remember correctly, I was 6 times with the same group (we all booked it as soon as it was available) to the same ski resort. After school, I went with my family and family friends to some smaller, with a bit more family-orientated skiing and activities.
For two years, I have been with a study college of mine; we both started with chemistry/chemical biology in Dortmund. For our studies, we went different ways, but we still managed to keep in touch and started traveling together. He actually learned snowboarding weeks before our first trip to Saalbach. As it was his first trip, we didn´t want to spend too much in case he really didn´t like it. As most people going skiing know, it´s pretty expensive joy. First, we had to find a way to get into Austria fairly cheaply, which wasn´t so successful. We took a night train from the Ruhr area, where we live, directly towards Saalbach. The advantage is that you gain two additional ski days. Most people come by car or train during the day, so the first and last day most of the time are travel days. Sadly, the train is not operating anymore, but good alternatives are the Nightjet trains from the Austrian ÖBB. Nice 8 full ski days, an easy and relaxing journey, but where to stay? We really had to save on that, so we booked a small apartment. The apartment was really more of a room in a pension; we had no own bathroom or so. There was a double bed, a small wardrobe, and a small sink in the room. It actually was too small to put our luggage on the floor and walk at the same time. Somehow, that was great; we didn´t need more as we came for snowboarding.
Best weather, great boards = awesome day.
I brought a new board for that trip, and it was totally worth it. The Bataleon Stallion is pure joy, really stable, and poppy. I´m more of a relaxed rider, I like just to have fun going down the slopes with friends. No need to be the fastest or do a lot of tricks. With jumps and tricks, I had a really bad experience some years ago where I injured my knee and angles badly. Since then, I have never tried any tricks again. One thing I always try out and really like is a bit of powder runs next to the main slope. I dream about one day going on a backcountry snowboarding trip in the US or Canada. In Europe, there are some fantastic off-piste possibilities, but nothing like Baldface Lodge or Heli-skiing. With my friend just starting out with snowboarding, the first couple of days, we stayed mainly at the easy (blue) slopes of Saalbach before adventuring out through the gigantic resort. One advice, don’t try to do the longest easy run in the resort on the first days with a beginner after a 12-hour train ride. It’s easily accessible, but once you start the run, there is no turning back, as there is no lift or gondola on the way. We took the 2a slope, which goes down all the way from Schattberg Ost to the valley. On the first day, it took us around 2-3 hours, later in the week, we did it in 10-20 min. The resort, as visible from the map, is huge, with 270 km of slopes. For beginners who don´t want to take a lift too often, I really can recommend the blue 146 slope directly in Saalbach. It´s a long run with a couple of short, steeper parts, perfect to learn and get used to the terrain.
Picture taken from the Saalbach homepage.
The resort itself is great. You have a lot of choices about what you want to ride and how far you want to adventure out from your hometown, as each valley town has its own great large area. One of the best things in Austria is food. Things like Schnitzel and Kaiserschmarrn (sweet cut-up pancake with raisins: worst translation ever) are must-eat food in Austria. The best places to try them, and the most expensive ones, most probably, are the ski huts next to the slopes. They are really nice and cozy most of the time and serve magnificent food. Some smaller ones are self-served and also offer small bites like sandwiches. As you can see on the map, there are a lot of options all over the resort. Some are only at the valley stations of the lifts, but some are also in the middle of a slope or at the mountain top. Our favorites were the Pulvermacherscherm between Saalbach and Fieberbrum and the Luis Alm, directly at the mentioned 146 slope in Saalbach. I must admit that an 8-day ski pass is really expensive with around 330€ in high season, but I think with the option given, it is somehow reasonable.
There was a lot of snow during the time we visited Saalbach, therefore many option to venture a bit off-piste and enjoy fresh powder.
Even after 13 years of snowboarding, one thing caught me a bit unprepared. As I always traveled over Eastern as I was still in school or parts of my travel group were still in school, most of the time was already quite warm. One year, I broke my arm on the second day of the trip and had to stay at the accommodation for the rest of the trip. That year, I sat in a short-sleeve shirt and shorts next to the slope, as temperatures reached around 15°C during the day and the sun was really warm. In Saalbach, on the other hand, we experienced the opposite. Half of the days had temperatures under -20°C. It was hard to ride in these temperatures; my jacket and scarf were completely frozen on the outside. The zippers were hardly moving, and sitting in the lifts was a pain as cold winds quickly made you freeze when you didn’t move. So remember, always come prepared for all weather conditions. Most of the time, I travel with a heavy, warm jacket for cold days and a flannel shirt with a vest for warmer days.
In 2019, we tried Kitzbühel; the ski resort is only a couple of kilometers smaller than Saalbach. The resort didn’t convince us as much as Saalbach; a lot of the valley runs have long, flat areas at the bottom (except for the famous Streif). For snowboarding, these long, flat areas are a problem, for the reason that as soon as you run out of speed, there is no way to build up new movement. Therefore, you have to walk and carry your board to the next lift. Besides that, the resort is great as well and has some really special and hidden runs. We really fell in love with a couple of longer ski routes, which are slopes that don´t get prepared overnight, like an indicated powder run. We used one nearly every day to get back to our hotel, as we stayed around 5 km outside Kitzbühel and otherwise had to take the ski bus. We used the night train to Kitzbühel again, and this time, we booked a bit more luxury hotel. It included breakfast and dinner, a sauna area, and great rooms. We lowered the average age by at least 5-10 years during our stay. There was only one couple nearly in our age range, so I would say the hotel was more for couples and friends groups in their 40s and 50s. The food was unbelievably good; the 3-course dinner every night was always stunning and delicious, with steaks, whole fish, and appetizers like cappuccino. We wanted accommodation with dinner as we hoped to spend less on the expensive ski huts, as in Saalbach, that was our biggest expense. In Kitzbühel, we realized that with a whole morning of boarding, you are always hungry at noon and have to eat something. For us, small snacks, like energy bars and apples, didn´t really do the thing; therefore, we still spent quite some money on the huts. Therefore, we decided to book a small apartment next time and just eat something great in the huts for lunch and only small bits like crackers or grapes for dinner, as we did in Saalbach.
Best sign in the morning: heavy fresh snowfall.
On the third day, we woke up to heavy snowfall in the morning. For me, it was a great sign; my friend wasn’t too convinced. He stayed at the hotel, used our spacious room, and just relaxed for half a day. I went out to one of the more quiet areas of the resort and had a lot of great powder turns on the slope. Every time you went back up again with the lift, the snowfall covered your tracks. Days when most people are staying home are some of the best (when you can live with a bit of poor visibility). You should at least always try; sometimes, you don´t know what you are missing out on.
In Kitzbühel, we didn´t have a favored slope; all were somehow good, but none was really magnificent. I liked it anyway, my friend, still a kind of a beginner, didn’t really like it for the many flat areas around the resort. Further, as you may realize by now, we are not really party people, so the aprés-ski scene was of no interest to us. Feel free to comment if you have any good spots around Europe to go snowboarding with a bit of everything. I’m always on the hunt for new places to go, especially skiing. This post is kind of a collection of thoughts about these resorts and skiing in Austria. I did not intend to describe these resorts or areas in detail, just a tiny idea of what you can experience there.
Even in the middle of the resort you can find some great shots.