Skiiing in Austria

In Austria, skiing is much more than just a popular pastime; it's a national obsession, a way of life. Images of Alpine ski villages conjure fairy-tale fantasies of heavily timbered houses, onion-domed churches, welcoming locals, schnapps, and glühwein. Add to the mix some of the world's highest, treeless slopes, glaciers, and a lively après-ski scene, and you have a winter sport destination of extraordinary allure.

American skiers are often amazed to find how big European skiing is, in every sense of the word. The entire country embraces skiing, and the sport is deeply woven into the patterns of daily life in the Austrian countryside. In most cases, Alpine ski resorts are the result of the evolution of an Alpine village, where individual ski areas are linked together with a common ski pass and a spiderweb network of lifts spanning and connecting different valleys and multiple mountains. The trend of late has been resorts joining forces, creating “ski circuses” of stunning size.

Guides, Lifts, and Costs

To take full advantage of the promise of so much snowy terrain, American skiers should consider hiring a ski instructor–guide for a day or two. Private instructors are less expensive in Austria than in the United States, and the upper levels of Austrian ski-school classes are more about guiding than actual teaching.

It's often possible to ski the whole day without using the same lift twice, but care must be taken so you don't end your day at a village miles away from your hotel, or even the next country (some resorts are close to the German border). Lift systems in Austria are astonishingly sophisticated, and include double-decker cable cars and eight-person chairlifts. Many chairlifts have a weather protection bubble, and even heated seats. Magic-carpet loading aids efficiency, and nearly every lift has electronic entry, so you'll rarely see an attendant checking a ticket or marshalling the lineups. In addition, there are no ski-area boundaries, so you may see experienced skiers going off-piste (the French term for off-trail), skiing until they reach a village in the valley or the snow runs out.

Expect costs to balance out with those in the United States. Lift tickets and rental equipment in Austria are generally cheaper than in the United States, while eating out is more expensive. Lunch isn't a quick refueling stop here, but a leisurely midday break, and the slopes abound with unique huts welcoming skiers with hearty Austrian fare. As with skiing anywhere else in the world, you'll save money with multiday passes. Most resorts offer choices from 4 to 14 days.

Best Slopes

There are so many choices when it comes to Austrian skiing that you're not going to see it all, or ski it all, in one lifetime. Foreign ski enthusiasts and newcomers to Austrian slopes would do well to focus first on the biggest ski regions of the Arlberg, Tyrol, and Land Salzburg. These mega-ski regions showcase what makes Alpine skiing so special: an astonishing variety of slopes and lifts that allow the visitor to ski, day after day, often from one village to the next. True, there are many tiny and delightful ski villages in Austria, real discoveries for adventurous skiers, but it makes more sense to sample the feast of a major Skigebiet (interconnected ski region, sometimes called a ski arena) first. Here, to get you started, are some of the finest.

The Arlberg

This is a capital of Austrian skiing: a double constellation of ski-resort towns—Zürs, Lech, and Oberlech, in the Vorarlberg; and, just across the Arlberg Pass to the east and thus technically in the Tyrol, St. Anton, St. Christoph, and Stuben. These classic Arlberg resorts are interconnected by ski lifts and trails and share more than 260 km (160 miles) of groomed slopes (and limitless off-piste possibilities), 83 ski lifts, snowboard parks, carving areas and permanent race courses, and, significantly, a common ski pass.

St. Anton, part of the fabulous Arlberg area, is the cradle of skiing, where ski pioneer Hannes Schneider opened the world's first ski school back in 1921. A skier here can feel like a character out of a 1930s Luis Trenker ski film: from enjoying Jaeger tea after skiing to dinner at the Post Hotel. St. Anton links with elegant Lech in Vorarlberg (once a favorite of Princess Diana) and secretive Zurs, where royalty and celebrities discreetly vacation. In turn, Lech has recently been linked by lift with the villages of Warth and Schrocken in the next valley. St. Christoph is a spartan resort for skiing purists, a handful of handsome hotels lost in a sea of white, high above timberline, and the permanent home of the Austrian National Ski School's training and certification courses.

The pièce de résistance of Arlberg skiing is the all-day round-trip, on skis, from Zürs to Lech, Oberlech, and back. This ski epic starts with a 5-km (3-mile) off-piste run from the Madloch down to Zug and ends, late in the afternoon, many lifts and many thousands of vertical feet later, high on the opposite side of Zürs, swinging down the slopes of the Trittkopf.

The Tyrol/Innsbruck

Austria boasts resorts throughout the country, but the western province of Tyrol is the heart of Austrian skiing, chock-full of world-class skiing—about a third of all Austrian ski resorts are found here.

After St. Anton and the Arlberg, Kitzbühel, in the heart of the Tyrol, is Austria’s best-known ski destination, and although not as exclusive as Lech or Zürs, certainly one of Austria’s most elegant. “Kitz” is picture-perfect and posh—all medieval, cobbled streets, wrought-iron signs, and candles flickering in the windows of charming restaurants.

For an altogether different sort of ski vacation, especially for groups of skiers and nonskiers, consider staying in downtown Innsbruck and making day trips to the six ski areas of Olympia Ski World Innsbruck. Innsbruck has twice hosted the Winter Olympics, and boasts a stunning collection of medium-size ski areas with grand views.

In ever-increasing numbers, skiers are attracted by the excellent snow conditions and nightlife of Ischgl, in the Paznaun (Valley) southwest of Innsbruck, where you can cross-border ski into the village of Samnaun, Switzerland. Kufstein, northwest of Innsbruck, is in the center of 70 peaks more than 9,000 feet high, with more than 300 miles of skiable terrain.

In Salzburgerland, serene Zell am See overlooks a lake, and Bad Gastein dramatically sits astride a raging torrent. In Carinthia, mystical Heiligenblut broods at the foot of the Grossglockner, Austria's highest mountain, and Nassfeld extends into Italy.