A few hours of turns at Bezau were enough to ward off jet lag, allow me to fall asleep at a proper local time, and be ready for the next day at Warth-Schröcken, which is widely regarded as the snowiest ski area in the Alps with well north of 400 inches every season. You may recall that the first time I skied there was during a fierce snowstorm where I spent most of the day brailling around the above-treeline terrain; thus, I was looking forward to today's forecast of clear skies and mid-winter temps.
As you can see in this map, Warth-Schröcken is connected to Lech/Zürs via the Auenfeldjet gondola in the upper right-hand corner, which creates Austria's largest ski area with 305km/190 miles of marked runs. Still, Warth-Schröcken on its own is sizable, spanning 3.5 miles across with a lot more off-piste acreage than the condensed trail map indicates, and satisfying long runs with up to 2,000 verts.
I arrived at 9:45 to the Salober Jet lift, one of the ski area's five high-speed lifts. You can see that the map these skiers are perusing is for the entire Arlberg circuit:
The same recognizable signage as at Lech/St. Anton/Zurs:
It's been mostly sunny for the past two weeks so while the groomed trails could've used a refresher in spots, the north-facing off-piste (2/3 of the terrain), tracked up as it was, stayed pleasantly chalky. I spent most of the afternoon doing laps in low-angle chop:
Lech in the upper left:
Heading into the village of Warth:
Mid-afternoon, I went to the same cute chalet (the Auenfeld hut) that I did seven years ago for coffee and apple strudel and just like then, I was sitting across from a pair of British skiers and we got into a long interesting chat.
My final run at 3:45 back to the base:
A relaxing day in the sun and I'm looking forward to another ski area tomorrow that I visited in 2015 and likewise saw very little of due to mostly whiteout conditions.
As you can see in this map, Warth-Schröcken is connected to Lech/Zürs via the Auenfeldjet gondola in the upper right-hand corner, which creates Austria's largest ski area with 305km/190 miles of marked runs. Still, Warth-Schröcken on its own is sizable, spanning 3.5 miles across with a lot more off-piste acreage than the condensed trail map indicates, and satisfying long runs with up to 2,000 verts.
I arrived at 9:45 to the Salober Jet lift, one of the ski area's five high-speed lifts. You can see that the map these skiers are perusing is for the entire Arlberg circuit:
The same recognizable signage as at Lech/St. Anton/Zurs:
It's been mostly sunny for the past two weeks so while the groomed trails could've used a refresher in spots, the north-facing off-piste (2/3 of the terrain), tracked up as it was, stayed pleasantly chalky. I spent most of the afternoon doing laps in low-angle chop:
Lech in the upper left:
Heading into the village of Warth:
Mid-afternoon, I went to the same cute chalet (the Auenfeld hut) that I did seven years ago for coffee and apple strudel and just like then, I was sitting across from a pair of British skiers and we got into a long interesting chat.
My final run at 3:45 back to the base:
A relaxing day in the sun and I'm looking forward to another ski area tomorrow that I visited in 2015 and likewise saw very little of due to mostly whiteout conditions.
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