Winter Wonderland – chasing snow in Austria

Hannis and I had a rare three weeks to spend together over Christmas so we thought we ought to make use of @nelliethesprinter and get away from London for some winter fun!

We left the UK the day after my 30th birthday party (ambitious eh) but booked a late afternoon flexi ferry. We decided to aim for Luxembourg to stop overnight on the way down to the Alps and spent the journey there deciding where exactly the snow was forecast to be best for the next four days.

Nellie is fully kitted out for snow adventures with good insulation, heating and winter tyres (with snow chains if needed) so we were aiming for the eye of the storm. Hannis had his eyes and ears out just before the trip and noticed a powder alert and video forecast by Meteo Morris (cheers dude!) that gave us an idea of how the storm was going to progress and directed us to Austria initially. We also used a couple of long range weather forecast maps to see what Austrian resorts we already knew about might be on the cards. We then used the Snow forecast app which has a neat little function that ranks resorts by the forecast levels of snow in the next 9 days and can also rank based on both snow and forecast weather conditions. We also looked at the size of the resorts to see where might be able to cope with the crazy amounts of snow and voila – Salzburger region won out! We chose Obertrauern as the first resort to visit.

We often use an app called park4night that that tells you where you can park your camper overnight and what facilities you might expect to find there. Since it’s crowd sourced information it isn’t 100% reliable but can give a good idea about where you might be able to park which is a head start. Obertauern didn’t have any listings but we thought we’d give it a bash anyway. Turns out it’s a reasonably unfriendly place to try and park overnight. The lift car parks close from 2200-0700 and the remaining car parking belongs to hotels or shops. We drove a little out of the town and found some parking just off the road near a ski bus stop which was ideal and we settled Nellie in for the night.

We whipped up some fajitas (Nellie has gas hobs and no oven, but you can warm up the tortillas on top of the pan the chicken is cooking in – genius!). We prepped kit and excitedly checked the weather forecast for the morning, quickly followed by bed.

True to the predictions it dumped 40cm of snow overnight and continued to snow all day while we skied. Snowy winter heaven if you’ve got the right cold weather kit! Obertrauern coped really well with the snow. We had woken up to the booms of controlled avalanche explosions but by the time we got on the slopes every single lift and piste was open. Bravo. The resort also didn’t feel particularly busy (fresh tracks all day wahoo!).

While we needed to get the bus in to town in the morning to buy lift passes before we starting to ski, we realised that we could ski almost all the way back to Nellie at the end of the day with just a short walk at the end due to the linear, sprawling nature of the resort. A conveniently located bar at the bottom of the last slope was a welcome end to the ski day with a few beers/wines and the first Schnapps of the trip. It was actually New Year’s Eve and we had a little tradition of Raclette to uphold so we went back to Nellie to toast 2018 with some nice red wine and plenty of cheese. We watched the midnight fireworks from Nellie’s skylights as it snowed gently on our heads poking out. Amazing end to the year.

New Year’s Day was a welcome bluebird. Public holiday, recent snow dump and blue skies was a recipe for a rammed resort. We headed up to the highest slopes that were largely hidden from the sun with the best snow and then tired out the legs on some long unpisted black runs that most of the hungover skiers were avidly avoiding.

We had itchy feet for new pastures and a review of the snow forecast app told us that Zauchensee and Flachauwinkl (two smaller resorts on the far side of the mountain to Obertauern) were due some excellent conditions. So after a last lift cheeky run and a quick shopping pit-stop we jumped in Nellie and drove 45 mins to our new base.

Flachauwinkl by comparison was super easy to park and had a much nicer small resort feel to it. We had bought a four day lift pass that allows access to a range of Salzburger region resorts (the Super Ski pass) which gave us the most flexibility and ability to support small resorts for just a fraction more money than a four day pass specifically for Obertauern. We are big fans of small resorts and moving around to experience lots of different places, especially as they seem to be more welcoming to vanlifers, less busy and have cosier and more personal restaurants and shops. Particularly when you have the ability to chase the best snow, small resorts with good conditions hands down beat big resorts with mediocre or rubbish weather. This is obviously with the caveat that the resorts can appropriately manage the conditions to open runs and lifts safely but we try to have an eye on the status of the resorts in the days running up to relocating.

The slopes were dreamy. Soft, fluffy powder with constant snowfall but decent visibility. It was also cold enough to maintain the lightness of the snow that had fallen overnight and kept on coming. As the slopes got more skied out we started to identify areas of off piste that looked safe. Both Hannis and I have done winter mountaineering and avalanche safety courses which is essential to keeping safe out in the mountains. We also both carry avalanche kit which consists of a shovel, probe and transceiver and regularly remind ourselves of how to use the kit. Safety first kids. I’m newer to skiing unpisted routes than Hannis and it’s really different in style and technique (and tiring!) but pays back dividends. There’s nothing like cutting through the powdery snow and making your own tracks down the mountain. These resorts had plenty of options including perfect snow nestled amongst steep tree runs to hide from the icy cold wind later in the day. Although I must admit it took me longer to navigate the tighter sections of trees than Hannis who seems to have supreme control of the direction of his board and the ability to see every lump of snow as his playground. Ok, enough gushing. On the last afternoon we pushed our [my] skiing limits until on the last run I could barely stand. We reckon that’s where the biggest skiing gains are made. Ski properly and make tonnes of effort when you’re the most tired.

We ended the day on a pretty big high but it was straight to business prepping Nellie and digging her out of her parking space to hit the road for the 1.5 day drive home. We really consider the driving as part of the adventure on these trips so it doesn’t feel too onerous to spend 3 days driving for 4 days on the slopes, especially considering the perfect conditions we’ve had. We almost went to spend New Year with some friends in a Swiss resort quite a few hours closer to the UK but the forecast was much worse and as they say, no friends on a powder day…

During the long drives is our chance to catch up and plan our next adventures before we give way to our busy individual lives in London and Kigali. 2019 is going to be a corker, stay tuned!

Get in touch if you want more advice on wintery van life or snow chasing!

Also, sorry we’re not up to date on our Broadener posts – we’ve both been snowed under at work (pun intended) and they’re on their way to being written!

Lots of love,

Fern and Hannis xxx