Where to Ski And Snowboard -

Review of Schladming

12th March 2007 by David C Sutton 

It is seven years since I started to learn to ski at Schladming and six since I was last there. I decided to revisit this year to see how much it and I had changed. Having now experienced the area as a beginner and confident intermediate, I would like to offer my opinion of the area.
As a beginner I accepted the icy mornings and ‘slushy’ (not quite thawed, but distinctly sticky) moguls in the afternoon as normal, but I now consider them more challenging than anything else I have experienced in the intervening years in Europe and USA.
Revisiting this year I stayed in the Zum Kaiserweg, close to the Planai Golden Gondola and Hochwurzen chairlift. The accommodation, service, food and location were excellent. Also, despite the season’s poor snowfall, the piste conditions at the higher levels were highly enjoyable.
Although the fact that few runs are designated black, I consider this resort is one of the most challenging I have visited. In my view, some red runs would be black in other resorts. Also, many runs deteriorate during the day, moguls being the norm on the lower levels of even the higher runs and the descents to town level being both steep and slushy into the bargain. A return from the Reiteralm peak one lunchtime was more challenging than the World Cup run on the Planai the next day.
The new Planai Gondola is a superb addition to the resort’s facilities and enables unstressed descent from quite a high level, thus avoiding the sticky afternoon conditions that can be daunting when one is tired. On the other hand, I learned to ski there and I consider the quality of instruction to be excellent. In five visits I have never had a bad instructor or a wasted lesson.
Overall, I consider the Schladming area to offer the intermediate skier more than adequate challenges with runs and conditions that will expose technical weaknesses in most. It is also an excellent place to learn, although I would advise beginners to stay in Rohrmoos rather than down in Schladming town in order to avoid the more difficult homeward runs at the end of the day.

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