Hochgurgl-Obergurgl, Austria, March 24, 2022

[Tony Crocker]

These areas are a 20 minute free bus ride up to the end of the Otztal valley from Sölden. At 6,300 and 7,000 feet Obergurgl and Hochgurgl are the highest ski area bed bases in Austria, and so have a reputation for snow reliability.

Unfortunately these areas are severely flawed for current melt/freeze conditions with primary west exposure. Everything was rock solid until at least 11AM, which means noon after the Euro time change starting 3/27. Runs are being skied anyway in the morning, so there wasn’t much opportunity for smooth corn to develop.

Here’s Liz on a typical piste in the morning.

The warm March has melted off much of the hillside above her. But in a normal season those are fully covered slopes of intermediate pitch.

Here’s the upper stage of the Kirchenkarbahn gondola.

The bowl at right would be nice off piste run. The piste comes around to looker’s left from the back.

Here’s cross view of the base of two upper mountain Hochgurgl lifts plus the transport lift going to Obergurgl.

This is the type of intermediate oriented place that James would tear up between the pistes on a powder day. Everything is quite visible, with minimal avalanche risk so no guide needed.

Here I’m ascending the Mountain Star viewing platform at the top of the Wurmkogl 2 lift.

View down that lift:

View down the Valley and across to Sölden:

Zoomed view of Geislachkogl at Sölden:

View SE to the Dolomites:

Hochgurgl also has a Funslope.

Where you probably do not want to ski off piste is into the canyons between Hochgurgl and Obergurgl.

These are terrain traps which are deeper and narrower lower down.

We arrived in Obergurgl about 1PM. Skiing there was better as the snow had loosened up some. Quieter lower pistes like #3and #5 had good spring snow. Busier lower runs were more clumpy.

This deck at the top of Hohe Mut is another nice viewpoint.

We skied almost every piste here for a total of 27,000 vertical. It was not necessary to backtrack because there are bus stops at the Hochgurglbahn and at the Festkoglbahn in Obergurgl.

I tried to think of another west facing area where you have to wait half the day for snow to soften in spring, and might not soften at all if it’s not warm enough. Arizona Snowbowl’s primary Agassiz lift came to mind. Another example would be the High T and West Rustler at Alta.

 

[ChrisC]

I tried to think of another west facing area where you have to wait half the day for snow to soften in spring, and might not soften at all if it’s not warm enough. Arizona Snowbowl’s primary Agassiz lift came to mind. Another example would be the High T and West Rustler at Alta.

That's an unfortunate experience at Obergurgl. Generally, my British friends go there for schools early April holiday due to snow reliability and almost wintry conditions at that time of year.

The WePowder Guide indicates their snow primarily comes early and late in the season with a drier mid winter. In 2019 my friends were dealing with nearly 40" on April 1st.


Telluride has a nearly 50% Western exposure. If it's not sunny, skiing can be undesirable in spring. But there is plenty of north-facing terrain to negate this.

 

[Tony Crocker]

I've had 3 trips to Telluride, all in late March/early April and west facing Gold Hill has never been any good. But chair 9 is perfectly positioned for snow preservation.

Obergurgl has very little without at least partial west exposure. I would never advance schedule there in early April. We rode a gondola with some British skiers who were there on a one week package. We told them Sölden was much better, and it's 20 minutes away on a free bus. I doubt they took the hint for their last day, as of course they had a lift ticket package for the week. But after 5 days of skiing that crap, I wouldn't bat an eye at spending an extra 62 Euros for some much improved skiing.

 

[EMSC]

In general, my few experiences in the Alps tell me to go for the terrain and food and experience and not the snow conditions. The Alps seem to have lots of long snow droughts before and after the less than frequent large snow dumps. Of course if you get lucky that's icing, but not to be expected on a pre-planned trip. Just my personal experience over there.

If your mostly into trying to get good snow conditions there is always the west in North America or JaPow. I'm sure Tony has ample data suggesting that Europe is fine to pre-book, but I have seen far too many trips with less than great snow conditions on these and other boards, plus family & Friends, etc...

 

[Weathertoski]

Interesting assessment. I can tell you that Obergurgl is one of the most popular resorts in the Alps with UK families looking for a bit of luxury (most of the hotels are 4 star). It's partly the reputation for snow, there is no more reliable entirely non-glacial resort in the Alps. I understand your west facing concerns but it doesn't seem to bother most skiers and I have been here in April and found some excellent spring snow on the pistes. The other reason that it is popular is that it has this kind of end of Valley quietly upmarket feel with few crowds and, crucially, one of the best ski school set-ups for kids in Austria. I too would choose Solden over Obergurgl, not least because it has more interesting terrain, but many families swear by Obergurgl and come back year after year. It's a sort of British institution.

 

[Tony Crocker]

I always try to evaluate an area in context. Did I see an unusually good or bad day? Is a flaw inherent or was it just bad luck?

That's why I mentioned the Arizona Snowbowl and Alta comparisons. The weather we have had in the Alps the past week is quite typical for spring: warm but not excessively warm days with regular overnight freezes. Fraser in a recent report actually said this week was "normal spring weather." The part that's abnormal is that it hasn't snowed in a month, so the off piste is much more beat up, thin and irregular from uneven melting during that month.

So coming out of base areas, I'm sure we would all agree that the piles of sticky slush that develop at places like Serfaus-Fiss are a worse spring scenario than Obergurgl. But Serfaus-Fiss has abundant outlying terrain that was higher, east and NE facing for more gradual softening, plus a north facing terrain pod.

By contrast there is minimal escape from the west facing at Obergurgl: That's where the Arizona Snowbowl analogy is close. We were at AZ Snowbowl on a very quiet day 3 years ago. When the snow finally loosened up at 2PM, it was awesome corn for the last two hours. Obergurgl still had quite a few people skiing those pistes all day. That tends to scrape snow down to the subsurface. Thus we never saw long pitches of smooth corn even though we skied nearly every piste and did not leave until 3:30.

Is smooth groomer corn impossible in the Alps due to too much skier traffic? No! I skied 13,000 vertical of it at Orelle today in less than two hours. This is an example of why I like the massive places. People do not distribute evenly across terrain. The big places usually have outlying areas with relatively low skier density. James would be quick to point out the flip side: we also had smooth corn at under-the-radar Rifflsee on Saturday.

Therefore I say the west facing issue at Obergurgl is a feature not an anomaly, and thus it's not a place you want to be during "normal spring weather."

 

[Tony Crocker]

In general, my few experiences in the Alps tell me to go for the terrain and food and experience and not the snow conditions. The Alps seem to have lots of long snow droughts before and after the less than frequent large snow dumps. Of course if you get lucky that's icing, but not to be expected on a pre-planned trip. Just my personal experience over there.

If your mostly into trying to get good snow conditions there is always the west in North America or JaPow. I'm sure Tony has ample data suggesting that Europe is fine to pre-book, but I have seen far too many trips with less than great snow conditions on these and other boards, plus family & Friends, etc...

I exchanged data with with Weathertoski in 2014. Euro data is spotty compared to North America and is measured on average only 1/3 the way up total vertical vs. 1/2 in North America. Nonetheless some conclusions can be drawn. Both regions have numerous big name resorts that average 250 inches or so. The high end in North America is around 500 inches vs. 400 in the Alps. The Alps have some major places like Kitzbuhel and the Dolomites with average snowfall that would not be viable in western North America. However, unlike North America, the Alps get a ton of rain in the summer so there is no shortage of water for snowmaking. I once estimated that the Dolomites have 8,000 acres under snowmaking while to my knowledge no one in North America has more than 700.

As for volatility and extended droughts, The Alps are less volatile than California but more volatile than all the other North American ski regions. This is not the first time I've been here after a month with no new snow: that was also true at La Grave in early March 2008.

The more erratic incidence of new snow in the Alps is offset by it not being tracked out in the first 3 hours like many places in North America. Even after 7 days and 185K vertical with no powder on this trip, I still have averaged 14.1 % powder over 88 ski days in the Alps. That compares to 12.7% over 253 days in Utah, 10.6% over 91 days in Colorado and 9.7% over 88 days at Tahoe.

As far as pre-planned trips are concerned I agree with EMSC that the odds of unpredictably unpleasant/marginal conditions are higher in the Alps than in western North America. Liz or I have been involved in 7 pre-planned weeks.
1) Liz went with her ski club to Chamonix in March 2001 and encountered the dreaded "weather sandwich" of rain at low elevation with top lifts closed for visibility/snow stability. The day trip to Verbier was the only good ski day. She was not interested in returning to the Alps after that experience.
2) I went with a NASJA group to Chamonix in February 2004. Snowpack was good and weather nice the entire week. The only ski day with poor conditions was at Courmayeur which has bad exposure. Valle Blanche, Grands Montets and Verbier were excellent.
3) I went with Extremely Canadian to La Grave in March 2008., and as noted above it had not snowed in a month. The guides managed to get us into two of the big couloirs, but on the two bad weather days we did not ski at La Grave at all.
4) Richard and I stayed at the Sandhof in Lech in January 2013. There had not been recent snow, but overall coverage and conditions were decent. I got to ski the back of the Valluga with guides, which is a bucket list experience. The Sandhof offers attractive priced "winter sports weeks" in mid-January and was brought to my attention by James. This is a reasonable speculation I'd recommend to anyone as the Arlberg is a high snowfall region, Lech is a better base location than St. Anton (especially for intermediates) and the Sandhof "winter sports weeks" are a terrific bargain in an otherwise quite expensive resort.
5) Liz' ski club had a last minute cancellation for their February 2014 Zermatt week a month in advance. I checked with Fraser, who told me Zermatt had an adequate snowpack. I twisted Liz' arm on this, as Zermatt has superb snow preservation, so the odds were long on any major screwup. We got 3 small storms and abundant uncontested powder, so Liz did a 180 on her prior opinion of skiing the Alps.
6) Liz and I did a "winter sports week" at the Sandhof. This was a bit of a close call as the Arlberg had nothing but bare ground and man made WROD's at New Year's. But it dumped 5+ feet during the intervening two weeks before we arrived. We had 2 1/2 flexible weeks after leaving the Arlberg, skiing 4 other major complexes and spending 3+ days in Venice when the weather was crappy in the Alps.
7) The current week in Val Thorens was a 2020 paid trip deferred due to COVID and rebooked last fall. March in high altitude Val Thorens is a high probability speculation at least as reasonable as the Arlberg in January. The two sunny days so far have had clearly superior conditions to any of the places we skied in Austria last week with the exception of the very high Pitztal Glacier. The remaining 2 weeks after this one are completely flexible, and if ski conditions deteriorate northern Italy is not lacking in non-ski attractions.

Our 2018 and 2019 Alps trips were completely flexible. You may say, "Tony is retired so it's easy for him to criss cross the Alps over 2 plus weeks in a rental car." But James is strictly limited to one week trips and he too has been proactive about last minute switches, including his trip two weeks ago which was originally scheduled to the bare of snow southern French Alps. He even rescheduled a December 2017 trip from then snow starved Utah to Switzerland on short notice.

The bottom line for advance scheduling to the Alps is to have extremely high standards. You want the late Jan/early Feb period before the school holidays or mid to late March after them. During the earlier period only consider the high snowfall places. In the later period only consider the high altitude places.

In general heed Fraser's advice that altitude/exposure are more important than snowfall in terms of overall snow reliability in the Alps.

 

[jamesdeluxe]

Someone posted extensive reports from this week in the Ötztal, including one from the smaller area Vent. People on Alpinforum take so many pix (and seem to upload every last one of them to their TRs ), I wonder how they have time to ski. Lots of observations about the individual resorts, so Tony may want to translate it.

the odds of unpredictably unpleasant/marginal conditions are higher in the Alps than in western North America. Liz or I have been involved in 7 pre-planned weeks.
1) Liz went with her ski club to Chamonix in March 2001
2) I went with a NASJA group to Chamonix in February 2004
3) I went with Extremely Canadian to La Grave in March 2008

While I agree with that blanket statement -- especially due to the possibility of low-visibility at above-treeline terrain -- I'd argue that listing tales of destination trips separated by several years only provides an anecdotal overview of someone's personal experiences. You could've gone a week or two earlier or later and had completely different conditions.

 

[Tony Crocker]

Of course those 7 advance planned weeks are anecdotal and not a big sample size but overall illustrate a range of ski conditions for the Alps. I’ve commented before that I end up skiing about 3/4 of the available days in the Alps due to adverse weather and travel days between areas. This time was 16 out of 25 days but you can argue that expected ski day percentage might be a little lower this late in the season.