Ski Trips - St. Anton am Arlberg

Not long ago, a friend of mine from Northwestern University moved to Hamburg with her husband and two daughters.  One of their first vacations was to St. Anton in Austria for skiing.  That reminded me of my trip there. 

St. Anton is a skiing mecca - 2700 km of runs!  It's only a couple hours from Munich (she and family had to drive perhaps 8 hours from Hamburg). 

St. Anton is a specific town, but also references the general area with all of those ski slopes.  Below is the skiing map for the area, and you can see the neighboring villages of Lech, Zuers, Stuben, etc..

The practical area is also larger, because the towns just outside of the above map have more affordable lodging, with the drawback that you have to drive (or take the convenient ski bus) 30 minutes each way.  I stayed in Flirsch, a ways down the main road (east).  Each town has small hotels or houses to rent.

I mentioned affordable lodging because St. Anton is definitely an upscale ski area.  Lots of BMWs to be seen!  The ski lifts seemed to be pretty modern and attention given to upgrades, whereas other older/less posh areas will still simply maintain more T-bars and 2-person lifts. 

 

 Once you get up -- and the highest points are pretty high -- you can see what the fuss is all about.  Some of the views are dramatic, with trails running past peaks jutting through pure white snow:

The weather for my trip was great, and there were some places where the trails ran above the clouds.  You would overlook the valley covered by a blanket.  Very cool.

In the next photo, the trail actually disappears into the clouds below, with gorgeous peaks in the distance. 

Hopefully we can arrange to meet my friend next season and get some more shots (and video).  Until then, we have to start moving on to hiking & vacation season while waiting for the snow to return!