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Resort Guide

Suitability	Resort height: 540m
Families:		[Yes]
Glacier:		[No]
Beginners:		[4]
Intermediates:		[4]
Advanced:		[2]
Snowboarding:		[1]

A long time favourite of tourists from Britain and everywhere else, St Wolfgang is a large, year round resort in the 'lake district' of Upper Austria.

The small town, which can trace its history back through at least the past thousand years, sits on the banks of the Wolfgangsee Lake which has impressed the great and the good for centuries, appearing in everything from poetry to pictures over the years.

Skiing is very much just one of the reasons people choose to spend a winter holiday here. St Wolfgang's appeal is much more its picture-postcard appearance and strong cultural traditions. For skiers it is promoted primarily as a resort for beginners.

This makes sense to some extent if you are not planning to be instantly hooked and become a die-hard dawn-till-dusk snow freak. It makes less sense if maximum convenience is a priority, because your day on the slope begins and ends with a windy (if scenically spectacular) ascent from the resort at 540m to the base of the ski lifts on the Postalm, where the ski lifts are located, at 900m. It's a 45 minute journey each way.

The area is part of the larger Dachstein West area which provides 153km (95 miles) of runs in the wider region, compared to the small Postalm sector, but whether intermediate skiers will feel the hassle involved in reaching still more distant ski areas included on the pass is worthwhile is down to individual preference.

Beginners

St Wolfgang is marketing almost entirely at beginners in terms of UK skiers. The Postalm ski area does have many attractions for first timers, a major one being that it is of limited interest to more advanced skiers due to its small size and lack of truly challenging runs, so you will have the place mostly to yourself.

The main downside is the travel to and from the ski area from St Wolfgang, although ski school lessons are sometimes provided at Puchberg, a small nursery slope by the resort. However the low altitude of St Wolfgang itself makes snow cover here unpredictable.

Another selling point for beginners is that learning to ski here is very high value – with beginner packages including four hours tuition a day, ski rentals, lift ticket and ski pass less than half the cost of buying the equivalent package in a large resort.

Intermediates

Not recommended for more demanding intermediates, the small ski area is non-the-less rather a good choice for second-week skiers who will enjoy having the pistes to themselves and facing up to the challenge of the two red runs by the end of the week.

For more variety the Dachstein west area pass offers nearly 100 miles of largely intermediate level skiing, but whether St Wolfgang is the best place to be based to make the most of those opportunities is debatable.

Advanced

Not really a destination for advanced skiers at all, the local Postalm ski slopes have no difficult runs. The Dachstein West regional pass does have three blacks, including the intimidating Kanonenrohr descent at Gosau, but that's an hour away on the bus, so you would need to think hard why staying in St Wolfgang made sense if you wanted to ski there.

Snowboarding

As with the skiing, the local Postalm slopes are only really attractive to beginners who, thanks to the recent installation of a new quad chairlift, will find it easier to get up the slopes on their board compared to having to master the T bar.

Intermediate and advanced level boarders should look elsewhere, probably to Gosau on the area pass, which has a park and pipe, but is also a lengthy bus ride away.

Other Activities and Facilities

St Wolfgang offers indoor traditional bowling, ice skating, sleigh rides around the lake, winter hikes, snowshoe walks, curling and hot air balloon rides from the Lake. Weekly trips are also organised to the casino in Salzburg and to the thermal baths in Bad Ischl.

Many of the resort's hotels have swimming pools and other leisure facilities. There are also indoor tennis courts, a library and a museum and about 50 shops.

Après Ski and Dining Out

St Wolfgang has a good selection of bars including The White Horse Inn which is mentioned in an operetta and so attracts music buffs and inspires a regular operetta evening in the resort.

Other popular watering holes include the Ktaftstoff Bar and Kap Horn. Most of the restaurants serve traditional Austrian cuisine as you would expect, the Hotel Post is a good example. For Italian try the Mirabella or the Rudolfshohe.

Families

St Wolfgang doesn't have a non-skiing nursery facility but the Schischule Postalm-Wolfgangsee accepts children aged four and up for lessons. The ski area itself is very family friendly and offers low priced lift tickets for children.

Piste Map for St wolfgang

Accommodation in St wolfgang

• Cortisen - 4 star, half board
• Cortisen - 4 star, half board
• Forsterhof - 4 star, half board
• Forsterhof - 4 star, half board
• Forsterhof - 4 star, half board
• Forsterhof - 4 star, half board
• Furian - 4 star, half board
• Furian - 4 star, half board
• Gasthof Zimmerbrau - 3 star, half board
• Hotel Forsterhof - 4 star, half board
• Hotel Weisses Rossl - 4 star, half board
• Leifer - 3 star, half board
• Leifer - 3 star, full board
• Seehotel Cortisen - 4 star, half board
• Weissen Rossl - 4 star, half board
• Weissen Rossl - 4 star, half board
• Wiesbauer - 1 star, half board
• Zimmerbrau - 3 star, half board

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