J2Ski Forum Posts and Replies by alpine

Not being able to ski - doubt it very much.

Not being able to ski in good conditions - possible but unlikely.

As Tino_11 said, there is a lot of investment in every Austrian resort in snowmaking (which doesn't only mean snowmaking at the time you are going, but at the start of the season when you are making a base).

Before I came to Austria (from French resorts), I too was skeptical of the height of the resorts. But they have a very professional industry built around skiing - if the snow was consistently dodgy there wouldn't be one.

The Gastein valley is a nice area (although split up into a number of different sections, obviously). If you were concerned about height, snow and size of area, I would look at somewhere like Lech (expensive) or Serfaus (unknown on British market).

Those are actually the lifts used for traveling. If you look at the News section of that site you can see that it says "Pistes: Skiing again from from mid September" and on the Webcams link it has no runs marked as open.

The areas directly around Innsbruck (Hungerberg and Igls) won't be open until the main resorts in the Tyrol are, but the glacier area in the Stubai already is:

http://www.stubaier-gletscher.com/index.php?l=en

You can buy a lift pass in Zell am See that also covers the glacier at Kaprun, which is easily reachable from the town.

Try Zell am See - that's a pretty quick and easy transfer, a good party town and has the Kitzsteinhorn glacier at Kaprun nearby on the same pass.

Austrian ski schools typically have English-speaking instructors, especially in children's classes and, since Serfaus is a popular resort for the Dutch, it is even more likely over there.

You can have a look at the information for Serfaus skiing over here but I'm afraid I can't help you with any information about apartments. The tourist office probably can, however.