Austria - Obergurgl

The resort of Obergurgl was my first experience of a skiing/snowboarding holiday so please forgive my inability to compare it with anything. Flying into Innsbruck (the nearest airport) is quite an experience, the plane swings between mountains upon its approach to the runway, providing spectacular views of of the scenery.

The coach trip to Obergurgl takes around one and three quarter hours (though I am not certain of this as it was ...
...as you wind towards your eventual destination.

Our accomodation was the Haus Gurgl, a very warm and clean hotel where many rooms came with shared blacony facilites, which could see either up or down the valley. The hotel had its own breakfast facilites and a pizza restaurant, but our package involved a 5-10 minute walk to one of the grander, older, hotels in the middle of the village which served excellent food, with a different menu ... more

The resort of Obergurgl was my first experience of a skiing/snowboarding holiday so please forgive my inability to compare it with anything. Flying into Innsbruck (the nearest airport) is quite an experience, the plane swings between mountains upon its approach to the runway, providing spectacular views of of the scenery.

The coach trip to Obergurgl takes around one and three quarter hours (though I am not certain of this as it was a year ago) and travels through many quaint Austrian villages as you wind towards your eventual destination.

Our accomodation was the Haus Gurgl, a very warm and clean hotel where many rooms came with shared blacony facilites, which could see either up or down the valley. The hotel had its own breakfast facilites and a pizza restaurant, but our package involved a 5-10 minute walk to one of the grander, older, hotels in the middle of the village which served excellent food, with a different menu every night, 5 courses with a couple of choices for each course. This was walk fairly enjoyable though if it were raining or bitterly cold it may well have been more of a chore.

I found that the different tour operators encouraged you to go to a specific shop to hire your equipment, despite the differences in the quality and service in different stores (I visited several during my week).

The facilities for getting onto the slopes are good (though you should remember that I have no other point of reference) with plenty of chair lifts to get you far up the mountain, and T bars to get you back to the top if you don't want to go all the way down, or conversely all the way up. Most hotels are located within walking distance of the lifts, although there is a shuttle service that runs between the 3 lowest lift stations.

As a beginner I must stress how important it is to commit yourself to a teaching group as soon as possible, I waited a day and ended up being put in a group where the oldest person was 12, and the only other Brit was 10 (I was 19 at the time) admittedly this wouldn't happen to everyone who waited a day ot join a group but I wouldn't recommend the experience to anyone. The instructors did speak good English, though when in a resort dominated by Germans you do tend to only get a short summary of any teaching lesson.

For non-skiers there is little to do in Obergurgl, with a distinct lack of walking trails available, a trip down to the more lively resort of Solden (30mins coach ride away) gives a change of scenery, and a wider variety of shops to visit, but I presume people don't visit a resort like Obergurgl to enjoy a city-style lifestyle with ski slopes on the door step. Travelling to Innsbruck is technically possible, but the bus schedule would only permit a couple of hours in the city before you would have to return to Obergurgl, there were no chartered trips to Innsbruck for tourists as far as we could see, so this should be considered when reading brochures that state that this trip is possible.

Overall, Obergurgl is a good resort for beginners and families, but I wouldn't recommend it to a group of young people or non-skiers. 

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