Innsbruck & Tirol 23/24 Snow

A snowHead

Lizum is decent , the funicular is now defunct as they have built a brand new mega bubble from the base car park which has a mid station and replaced the painfully slow 2 seater to the very top.
My view of the Innsbruck area resorts i.e skiing capacity/snow conditions/lift systems/restaurants, having done each one of them in rotation for 1 day for 6/7 days, every year for the last 20 years is..
Serfaus ( not that local to Innsbruck - great for size).... Oetz ( great fro good snow due to height and cheapest ski lift ticket) ....Seefeld (Rosshutte only though - just a nice town and all above 1200 metres)... Ehrwald ( great for blue run cruising ).... Lizum ( great scenery).. Lermoos ( above and below tree line )...Hochzeiger (lovely open bowl - and best black run anywhere - black 5 - not that steep but a fun run of rollercoasters .... Berwang ( nice variety).... Bieberwier ( small and expensive for what it is - but the restaurant at the top of the 2nd chairlift is my fave in the Alps - a slide to the toilet , big open fire, top food , not expensive )

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Igls, Oberperfuss, Patcherkofel , Mutteralm, Zams.... avoid - not worth any of them for varying reasons... low altitute, lack of skiing variety, shortage of mileage

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@clarky999, and it's fair to say, you really haven't missed much, and are coming back in time for the first decent snow in weeks!

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@swskier, true! I got pretty much every powder day before leaving too snowHead

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@oscarkat, interesting to hear your observations. I’m a big fan of Oetz as well and quite liked Serfaus but it’s bit of a treck from Innsbruck for a short weekend. I classified Lermoos, Berwang etc in the same bracket, but are they a bit quicker to access than I’ve given them credit for? I’m pretty sure they aren’t served by trains?
I agree with your points about Axamer and Seefeld- although I’ve only had gloopy conditions skiing there (probably just bad luck).
The small size of ski area has kept me away from Oberperfuss and Igls but the later always tempts me as it’s so damn convenient!
I enjoyed Mutteralm though. A couple of great valley runs- admittedly only skied there for one day from 11am but worthwhile, especially when linking with Axamer the next day.

After all it is free

@clarky999, you must be the luckiest man alive to miss the weeks you have and been holed up in a tropical beach! Fair play to you!

Just back from a short trip skiing at Axamer Lizum (staying in Axams and getting the free bus) - it's pretty good at the moment, the short end to the gondola is basically crud by around 1pm though in spite of the fact that it snowed on Monday and Tuesday this week.

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I’ve just looked it up and it’s worse than that. You have to get the train to Garmisch (another area I’ve considered for a short break) and change. The journey takes 1hr 51 and only runs every 2 hours, so not worth it all!

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@EdYarker, Oddly St Anton is one of the most accessible areas by train. Direct fast trains to the centre of the village every two hours from Innsbruck, lockers & ski racks in the station. Kitzbühel pretty good too though needs a change in Wörgl. Zillertal good but again change in Jenbach and the Zillertalbahn is a bit slow. There have been issues with the line from Munich to Innsbruck via Garmisch with damage to the line from crashes and storms, it never has been a particularly good service and the connection onto Reutte is few and far between (German trains running in Austria). In a lot of places the station is not well placed for access to the skiing eg Brixen & Fieberbrunn or needs a bus connection eg Paznautal from Landeck. Give the Fernpass a wide berth at weekends, far too much traffic.

@munich_irish, thanks for this. I have used the train for Zillertal and it was a bit slow going all the way to Mayrhofen but I would imagine Fugen or especially Kaltenbach is better, with the lift walkable from the station.

I also went to Oetz via the train and bus which was quick and efficient.

And Seefeld, which was a great train journey. That was why I considered Garmisch (bring on the same line). Interesting what you say about the problems they’ve had with it. When I last researched a trip to Garmisch from Seefeld, Flixbus was a quicker and cheaper option, although it only went 3 times a day.

I also used the train widely when I stayed in St Johann in Tirol, accessing Kitzbuhel, Zell am See and Hopfgarten all very simply.

Yet to try St Anton via rail but the way prices are for accommodation there, a rail commute might be the only way I get back to the Arlberg any time soon!

You know it makes sense.

@EdYarker, Fügen from Jenbach is around 10/15 minutes, Kaltenbach is probably another 10/15mins or so roughly.

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

@swskier, But probably worth the extra 10 minutes for the larger ski area (and walkable from the station)?

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@EdYarker, I haven't skied Fügen yet, but yes would agree based purely on piste maps. Kaltenbach lift is about a 5 minute walk from the station.

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It’s certainly been an interesting few days. Thursday night’s torrential rain turned to snow on Friday morning all the way down to the valley bottom, which got the entire city excited for fresh snow. The Brenner was backed up with trucks, 150 of which had to be towed, resulting in a 10 hour closure. Other local mountain roads also suffered problems, with buses to Axamer Lizum apparently abandoning their passengers some way before the ski area! Stubai closed early, though I heard it was good while it lasted!

On Saturday the sun came out but Stubai remained closed due to the large amount of snow that fell on Friday. It’s a big area that swallows a lot of people, so it was clear other places were going to be busier than normal. Patscherkofel was only running the lower lifts, which didn’t help. Axamer Lizum had a 6km tailback from the car park, so we didn’t think we would get a space, and we knew Schlick would be rammed because it would be taking a lot of visitors from Stubai. Kühtai had a freeride event running, so that wasn’t an attractive prospect either, so we opted for Nordkette, an area I haven’t skied at for about four years, but one we could get to very easily and without encountering any issues with traffic or parking.

They’d had a lot of snow, easily 50cm+ but had bombed most of it off Confused

Conditions were challenging – heavy avalanche debris into soggy wet concrete (Nordkette is south facing, and it was a warm day), but the sun was out and the crowds were elsewhere.

Stubai eventually opened in the afternoon, but only a couple of lifts and that was too late for most so it largely remained untouched. We expected a fight to get up there today, but the early morning cloud cover may have put some people off, so it wasn’t all that busy. Given the high avi risk, we skied very conservatively, but it was still thigh deep and kept snowing! The wind picked up more in the afternoon though, and the clouds came in, so it became more difficult to see and wind crust was forming throughout the day. There was still plenty of untracked snow at the end of the day, and the pistes are in excellent condition all the way to the bottom lifts.

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Thanks for the update @Scarlet, glad the snow has finally arrived. Will be interesting to hear what kind of Nick the other areas are in now.

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Edyarker...you are correct re lermoos and ehrwald in reality..too far from innsbruck..I sort if forgot we stay in mieming ( not a ski resort) and drive from there, but it's half way to lermoos from innsbruck and takes half an hour from innsbruck to mieming then a 35 mins drive to lermoos from mieming I e over an hour from innsbruck. Its nice though , and there are 4 resorts virtually next to each other in the zugspitz arena , all decent. You are right re the fernpass though...never, ever try it at the weekend , moving day etc and a main route for lorries from Germany into austria ( no lorries on Sunday though ) millions of Dutch use that route, and if its snowing hard it's carnage, but they try their best to keep it open , and do a goid job doing so.

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Finally made use of my Snowcard and skied outside the Zillertal yesterday!

I had to drop OH's friend back to the airport so arranged to ski with a couple of colleagues. The plan was to tour to the Glungezer hütte and peak, however the wind massively put a stop to that!

Instead we had an incredibly strenuous 2 runs of red 2 at Glungezer (as this was basically all that was open), 2hr lunch and a further 2 runs before heading back to the Zillertal!

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@swskier, I can see my house from here!
We went for a bike ride on Saturday, fully intending to ski on Sunday, but then saw that Stubai, Axamer Lizum and Patscherkofel were only partially open. At that point, I knew that the wind would be brutal and we sacked it off again. A friend who went to Kühtai said it wasn't very pleasant and he would call it a day early.

After all it is free

@Scarlet, after lunch it had died down, not up around the peaks, but at the top of the area we were skiing, and our 2 runs were really quite enjoyable in softened snow and some sun!

Surprise precipitation overnight. Woke up to sleet on the windows here in the city; now rain down here, but Stubai are reporting over 1m new snow during the night...

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Dd anyone get out in the Innsbruck area last weekend?

It was supposed to be the weekend we were coming out for but we decided against it in the end (good job too as sickness descended into the house) but wanted to know whether we missed much?

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@EdYarker, Yep, spent both days ski testing in Stubai. On Saturday it was snowing on and off all day, but there was only a few cm in total. The sun came out a bit on Sunday and the pistes were harder, but still nice to ski. The 6km queue on the road to get there was less good, and something I've only heard about but never previously experience. Lift queues were mostly not too bad.

Perfectly nice conditions, not too windy (last couple of weekends have been so blowy I've not been out), but nothing exciting.

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@Scarlet, thanks. Sounds ok. We most likely wouldn’t have gone to the glacier anyway, so would have avoided that jam! Will be back next year all being well.

No pics but fun skiing in Axamer Lizum yesterday. 10-15cms fresh, juuust enough snow to ski trees to the base station (nowhere near enough for valley runs though), and sun coming out from ~midday.

You know it makes sense.

It snowed down to the valley bottom yesterday, but soon melted. The rain continued most of the day though, becoming torrential in the evening. Coupled with the much cooler temperatures (the last two weekends, we've been out hiking in shorts and t-shirts), today looked very promising.

Not many places are still open, so we headed up to Stubai. I expected visibility to be pretty bad (it was), so being in familiar territory helped with navigation. Kindly, Stubai had neglected to open some of the pistes, so there they were, filling up with snow, and hardly anyone around. Well, it would be rude not to, especially as my partner was only on his second day of his new fat(ter!) skis. For readers of a fragile disposition, no ropes were ducked in the course of this endeavour.* That would be terribly irresponsible.

*Whatever wink

Off-piste was a good 30-40cm, and bottomless on my Directors. Pistes were smoothed out by fresh snow, wind, and a lack of people. Videos on my instas, for those kind enough to follow along. It was a bit too gorillas-in-the-mist for decent pics, but here's one of the other one standing around in some snow that not many other people had been down:

More tomorrow. Might go to Ischgl.

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Innsbruck & Tirol 23/24 Snow

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