eaf Posted January 23, 2018 Report Posted January 23, 2018 Are you glued to your monitors watching snowfall on that intersection in the middle of Jackson Hole and counting days until your flight? I'm trying to memorize the major zones in the Arlberg ski area that we'll be leaving for this Saturday. Have never skied in that part of Alps and can only anticipate things based on friends' feedback and various reviews. The area is huge. The fact that it's hard to find online maps of all individual zones isn't helping at all. Roughly it's divided into the very busy, popular and advanced St. Anton, more intermediate-friendly and less busy Zurs+Lech+Oberlech, quiet Warth+Shrocken and a Sonnenkopf, which can only be reached from St. Anton by bus. The villages are all scattered around 4000ft elevation, the peaks in the St. Anton area can reach 9200ft, but generally stay around 7500ft. The easiest Warth+Shrocken have a 1800ft vertical. At St. Anton the vertical is about 4900ft. The skiing areas are all connected (except for Sonnenkopf), and like Sella Ronda in Italy, they have a circular route here called White Ring that one can take to tour Lech-Oberlech-Zug-Zurs in one day. Except that if Sella Ronda is about 40km long, here it's more like 20km, and so we should be done with it in half a day. You basically hop on a lift, ski down, hop on a second lift, ski down, etc until you make a complete circle and come back to where you've started. From what we've gathered when we planned this trip last year, St. Anton is the most expensive area with lodging that costs several $K per accommodation per week. The price is driven by its popularity, difficulty of the trails and intensity of night life. People on a budget tend to stay in nearby Lech or even Sonnenkopf, with the latter having a big disadvantage of being disconnected from the rest of the skiing area. We picked Warth as the smallest and the quietest connected village of all. Price-wise it's somewhere in the middle. The 2BR apartments for a week cost us around $900. During summer it's possible to drive from Warth to Lech and then farther south to St. Anton, in winter this road is closed. This would make Warth disconnected from the rest of the resort, but a few years ago they've finished a lift that can be used to expand from Warth+Shrocken area into Lech, Zurs and then farther to St. Christof, St. Anton and finally Sonnenkopf. We'll have to continuously keep track of time to make sure we can always ski back to Warth, for otherwise we'll get stuck for night in a place with no easy way of getting back "home". The plan is to ski for 6 days, weather permitting, and take a small break in the middle to drive to Neuschwanstein castle. The skipass is gonna cost €280, plus the rent will be about half of that. Now, that's when I'll get to hand-flex all those Austrian Kastles any way I want! Warth+Shrocken: http://www.ultimate-ski.com/ski-resorts/austria/bregenzerwald/warth-schroecken/ski-area.aspx Lech+Zurs: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/ski/resort-guides/Ski-Lech-resort-guide/ St. Anton: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/ski/resort-guides/Ski-St-Anton-resort-guide/ Sonnenkopf: http://www.ultimate-ski.com/ski-resorts/austria/vorarlberg/sonnenkopf.aspx White Ring: https://www.skiarlberg.at/en/regions/ski-area/lech-oberlech-zuers/the-white-ring Map: These maps are difficult to read because they try to show perspective, but this ends up distorting the scale of the resorts in the back. E.g. Warth+Schroken in the top-right corner of the picture above actually look like this on a dedicated map. And hey, do I see three peaks here as well? MC for sure! 8 Quote
saltyant Posted January 23, 2018 Report Posted January 23, 2018 (edited) Damn, that map is huge! Looks just like MC as you say in your post because it has 3 peaks. I would get lost despite my navigational wizardry. I'm jealous you get to see Neuschwanstein, that's high up on my bucket list. You can ski on Kastles and then go to a Castle. That's so cool! Edited January 23, 2018 by saltyant Quote
GrilledSteezeSandwich Posted January 23, 2018 Report Posted January 23, 2018 Looks like fun..if you wind up in a different village are there taxis available? What airport are you flying into??? Are you planning on hiring a guide? Quote
GrilledSteezeSandwich Posted January 23, 2018 Report Posted January 23, 2018 7 minutes ago, saltyant said: Damn, that map is huge! Looks just like MC as you say in your post because it has 3 peaks. I would get lost despite my navigational wizardry. I'm jealous you get to see Neuschwanstein, that's high up on my bucket list. You can ski on Kastles and then go to a Castle. That's so cool! Salty when you were in Europe a few summers ago were you in Austria?? Quote
Shadows Posted January 23, 2018 Report Posted January 23, 2018 Thats crazy. I would have to live there for a bit. Not sure a vacation would cut it 2 Quote
saltyant Posted January 23, 2018 Report Posted January 23, 2018 (edited) 11 minutes ago, GrilledSteezeSandwich said: Salty when you were in Europe a few summers ago were you in Austria?? Yes sir, I did 8 countries in 11 days on a group bus trip. England, Belgium (drove through without stopping), The Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Italy, Switzerland, and France. Here is a picture of me at the top of Jungfraujoch mountain in Switzerland, which was my favorite place. Damn, it feels good to be a gang-ster. Edited January 23, 2018 by saltyant Quote
eaf Posted January 23, 2018 Author Report Posted January 23, 2018 11 minutes ago, GrilledSteezeSandwich said: Looks like fun..if you wind up in a different village are there taxis available? What airport are you flying into??? Are you planning on hiring a guide? There is a rather long way around the area, but the direct path is closed due to winter. I hope I won't have to find out if there are cabs or not. We fly into Zurich, about 3 hours from Warth. No, we're not planning on a guide, we'll stay exclusively on piste. Which may be a shame because people say that Warth and Sonnenkopf do have awesome opportunities for skiing off piste. Quote
eaf Posted January 23, 2018 Author Report Posted January 23, 2018 6 minutes ago, saltyant said: Yes sir, I did 8 countries in 11 days on a group bus trip. England, Belgium (drove through without stopping), The Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Italy, Switzerland, and France. Here is a picture of me at the top of Jungfraujoch mountain in Switzerland, which was my favorite place. Damn, it feels good to be a gang-ster. This is an awesome place! I hope you watched North Face and took a special tour to visit that station with a balcony on the way up. We've been there in July two years ago. It was insanely hot and humid down (like 90-100F, a real anomaly), and just like your picture on top. 1 Quote
saltyant Posted January 23, 2018 Report Posted January 23, 2018 (edited) 11 minutes ago, eaf said: This is an awesome place! I hope you watched North Face and took a special tour to visit that station with a balcony on the way up. We've been there in July two years ago. It was insanely hot and humid down (like 90-100F, a real anomaly), and just like your picture on top. Do you mean this building below? I'm pretty sure that has the balcony where you can see the valley and Lauterbrunnen which are around 9,000 feet below. I didn't take a special tour though. Ironically, they have a tiny ski hill but I didn't ski and instead took a hike to another side of the mountain, which I found to be really fun. I can't believe it was that hot up there, it was about 30 degrees when I went in mid-September. Edited January 23, 2018 by saltyant Quote
GrilledSteezeSandwich Posted January 23, 2018 Report Posted January 23, 2018 37 minutes ago, saltyant said: Yes sir, I did 8 countries in 11 days on a group bus trip. England, Belgium (drove through without stopping), The Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Italy, Switzerland, and France. Here is a picture of me at the top of Jungfraujoch mountain in Switzerland, which was my favorite place. Damn, it feels good to be a gang-ster. Wow I thought it was ice cube!! 1 Quote
eaf Posted January 23, 2018 Author Report Posted January 23, 2018 16 minutes ago, saltyant said: Do you mean this building below? I'm pretty sure that has the balcony where you can see the valley and Lauterbrunnen which are around 9,000 feet below. I didn't take a special tour though. Ironically, they have a tiny ski hill but I didn't ski and instead took a hike to another side of the mountain, which I found to be really fun. I can't believe it was that hot up there, it was about 30 degrees when I went in mid-September. No. In the movie they rode up the mountain through the tunnel and made a stop in the middle. They disembarked the train and went to an open balcony. That's also the balcony from where Luise climbed in an attempt to save the only guy who made it down in the blizzard. When you rode that train, it also made one stop, but the balcony there was all closed. There is a special tour that visits the place that's shown in the movie. Alas, we didn't make it. Quote
toast21602 Posted January 23, 2018 Report Posted January 23, 2018 Super jelly of this Euro trip too. I'm so damn powder hungry this year more than ever for some reason. What is the total anticipated cost of this trip? Quote
AtomicSkier Posted January 23, 2018 Report Posted January 23, 2018 1 hour ago, saltyant said: Damn, that map is huge! Looks just like MC as you say in your post because it has 3 peaks. I would get lost despite my navigational wizardry. I'm jealous you get to see Neuschwanstein, that's high up on my bucket list. You can ski on Kastles and then go to a Castle. That's so cool! I stopped by on my last European Delivery. 5 Quote
Shadows Posted January 23, 2018 Report Posted January 23, 2018 ^that thing looks boring compared to the one you got now 1 Quote
AtomicSkier Posted January 23, 2018 Report Posted January 23, 2018 Just now, Shadows said: ^that thing looks boring compared to the one you got now agreed. 1 Quote
eaf Posted January 23, 2018 Author Report Posted January 23, 2018 7 minutes ago, AtomicSkier said: I stopped by on my last European Delivery. Haha, we missed the factory tour. Were too late to schedule. Quote
eaf Posted January 23, 2018 Author Report Posted January 23, 2018 16 minutes ago, toast21602 said: Super jelly of this Euro trip too. I'm so damn powder hungry this year more than ever for some reason. What is the total anticipated cost of this trip? Assuming that we split 2BR apartment and car two ways, I think it's gonna be about $1500pp plus food. The car rent is insanely expensive in Switzerland. Quote
AtomicSkier Posted January 23, 2018 Report Posted January 23, 2018 4 minutes ago, eaf said: Haha, we missed the factory tour. Were too late to schedule. I've been on the tour 4 times now and it's been different every time (something is always off limits due to upcoming model, etc). Even as a BMW enthusiast, the museum is a snoozer, IMO. Quote
toast21602 Posted January 23, 2018 Report Posted January 23, 2018 1 minute ago, eaf said: Assuming that we split 2BR apartment and car two ways, I think it's gonna be about $1500pp plus food. The car rent is insanely expensive in Switzerland. That is pretty damn reasonable if that includes everything (except food & alcohol). Quote
GrilledSteezeSandwich Posted January 23, 2018 Report Posted January 23, 2018 1 minute ago, toast21602 said: That is pretty damn reasonable if that includes everything (except food & alcohol). You should try to get on Salty and Matt Edge trip next year to Verbier!!! Quote
toast21602 Posted January 23, 2018 Report Posted January 23, 2018 3 minutes ago, GrilledSteezeSandwich said: You should try to get on Salty and Matt Edge trip next year to Verbier!!! I'd rather ride Mountain Creek and Camelback in the same day. 3 1 1 2 1 Quote
eaf Posted January 23, 2018 Author Report Posted January 23, 2018 5 minutes ago, toast21602 said: That is pretty damn reasonable if that includes everything (except food & alcohol). Well, there is gas and tolls (vignette) that I didn't count, but other than that it should be all. 2 Quote
GrilledSteezeSandwich Posted January 23, 2018 Report Posted January 23, 2018 Just now, eaf said: Well, there is gas and tolls (vignette) that I didn't count, but other than that it should be all. How much is airfare? Quote
eaf Posted January 23, 2018 Author Report Posted January 23, 2018 16 minutes ago, GrilledSteezeSandwich said: How much is airfare? About $600. Apparently ZRH is a popular destination. There are like three daily flights going there from EWR. 1 Quote
Ski2Live Live2Ski Posted January 23, 2018 Report Posted January 23, 2018 Wow looks almost as cool as the true mountain. But do they have RFID readers at the lifts? Quote
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.