St Anton, Austria and Zurich Review

Hello all. I recently returned from my trip to Zurich and St Anton am Arlberg, Austria. I'm still blown away at how amazing of a trip it was. We spent 2 nights in Zurich to bookend the trip, but the focus was skiing in Austria. Catching an opera or ballet in the Zurich Operahaus is a must. Book in advance. St Anton was by far my favorite ski destination. The ski apres scene is unrivaled. We made some friends from Germany on NYE and I had a blast skiing and partying with them. 88 lifts and somethings like 350 km of skiable terrain. You can ski for weeks and not hit every piste. I hired a backcountry guide and that was definitely a highlight of the trip. I've uploaded a bunch of the pics to an imgur album:

IMGUR

If you have any questions or want any tips, hit me. I definitely plan to return.

EDIT:

This one is of Lake Zurich. You definitely want to stay close to the water when you're here. I'd love to get out on the lake during the summer, but I'm pretty ski-centric on vacations right now, so maybe I'll save this for when I'm older.



This is the opera house in Zurich. The inside was breath-taking. Do research in advance and buy decent tickets. This is a must do IMO.



Here's the inside. If I go back, I would definitely bring the tuxedo.



One of the more interesting structures in St. Anton was the church in town.



This is St. Anton viewed from the slope midway down the Galzig lift.



This is me sending it on a backcountry slope. Still pretty untouched even despite not having snowed for 5 days. The guide ran me about 350 euro, but is definitely a must do for advanced skiiers IMO.



This was part of the long winding trail back to a nearby village after coming down the backside of a slope off the Rendelbahn.



This was part of the hike up to the backcountry slope. You definitely have to be in decent shape to not be miserable. I can't imagine how tough it would have been if it had recently snowed. They didn't mention snow-shoes, but maybe it would have made it easier. My heavy park skis, didn't help the cause. My pulse was pretty much 180 bpm the whole time we were hiking up (which I would estimate at nearly an hour).



Another view from in St Anton.



Me and the backcountry guide. He was a Dane from the UK. You definitely won't have any problems if you don't speak German here.



The hotel we stayed at - Pepis Skihotel. I would definitely recommend this place. There's a ski shop right downstairs where you can store your stuff and get rentals. It's an easy walk to all the lifts as well. Right next to the train station as well. I only wish they had a hot tub for after a day of skiing. The shower functioned as a steam sauna, but I guess the hot tub is more of an American ski culture kind of thing. The staff was very accomodating and arranged nearly everything (dinner reservations, lessons and guides, rentals, lift passes, etc).



We met a group of Germans at the club on NYE. I skiied with them a couple of days later, and met up with them for ski apres at Mooserwirt twice. Great group of people, and I definitely plan on skiing with them again sometime.



One of the views from the Flexenbahn lift. This place is wide open.



This was the view as I was leaving Mooserwirt one night. It was definitely a crazy scene.



After Mooserwirt, you can either ski back to town or take the bus. I chose to ski. The slope down isn't really well lit, and was pretty much a battlefield. People wiped out left and right, lost skis, and screaming. It was chaos.



And finally, me and the gf before the opera.