Garmisch skiing
 

Looking to plan a trip & am interested in Garmisch, however, ski-europe.com indicates there are several drag lifts. I'm just envisioning the tow ropes I used as a kid. Does anyone have any scoop on this? Would you recommend it or another place? Thanks for your help.

My experience in skiing several areas in Europe (not Garmisch, however) is that "drag-lift" usually refers to what is known as a "poma" lift in the States - i.e., a pole with a disk, or to a T-bar. The only rope tows I've ever seen were very short, say 100' or so, and were only intended to help you move from one lift to another in places where you could just about as easily pole or skate.

There are many areas that I think would offer more varied skiing in a larger area than Garmisch - again, I haven't been to Garmisch I'm just basing this on extensive reviews of the available books and other sources. I'm particularly fond of the Grindelwald (Berner Oberland) area but have also enjoyed Zermatt/Cervinia and Ischgl, Austria.

Garmisch is not very snow reliable (except the Zugspitze - partly glacier skiing). The skiing area is also not even very large. Costs are a little lower than in the big Austrian resorts.

The drag lifts are T-bars. I have doubts that there are many remaining. They invested quite a lot of money over the last years, so you will use mostly chair-lifts and gondolas.

Don't know what your criteria are, so I cannot recommend an alternative region.

Thanks for your replies. We're looking to go for New Years Eve and are looking for a place that would be for the novice as well as those a bit more advanced.

You might want to try Berwang, or Alpbach Austria. Berwang is very close to Garmisch but has very nice facilities. Alpbach is probably 1-2 hours from Garmish, but also has very nice ski facilities.

Brings back fond memories--I learned to ski at Garmisch in 1959.