You’ve probably seen them on Facebook or you’ve probably heard a bunch of your friends talk about it. Maybe they’re like me who has been there…twice (maybe a third time again, not sure). The Ski Week always have awesome vids, teasers, and websites for their event. So beyond the spectacle and marketing, is it worth it? Fun? Is it what it actually looks like? This comprehensive review will look at each criteria and answer as much detail as possible for you with regards to The Ski Week Austria.
If you want to read about the review of Obertauern [the town/destination] outside of The Ski Week, click that link.
Just quickly, if you want to see actual videos and footages of the event, just click here for the TSW Autria 2019 and this one for TSW Austria 2018.
Transportation / Logistics
Let’s start from the top: getting there, transportation, and how to get to the actual place. The airport you will be landing in is Salzburg. There are other alternatives by land and air too. Salzburg is a nice little town. It’s fairly accessible and the town’s thriving. After my second trip there, I realized the (small) size of the town is perfect, especially after the event. Why? Because. You. Will. Go. Hard. For. DAZEEEE. Salzburg is nice little town to travel and have a relaxed and calm adventure in after your crazy week.
It’s pretty easy to get to Obertauern directly. With The Ski Week, you should’ve arranged for a round-trip transfer. If you did, they’ll be literally just in front of you as soon as you exit baggage area, into the arrivals; same story for when you’re heading back. If by any chance you can’t do their scheduled transfers, there are taxi companies that will do the exact same thing with the same ease there. I did this on my first attendance since I went 3 days ahead of the actual event.
Within the Town / Event
With regards to the logistics of everything when you’re there, everything’s all figured out for you! I think this is one of many excellent things TSW has, the logistics. Once you arrive there, someone from the team will receive you, check you in, get you familiarized and/or hyped up, then everything’s just fun, snowboard, and parties from there onwards. They constantly communicate with you/everyone via their Day8 App so everyone’s in the loop. The leads check in rooms and post stuff on your door from time to time too. You will always be informed. You will be buzzed before dinner and even then, they have a system to guide you to the next events and everything.
If you need to go around town for whatever reason (e.g.: groceries, late-night grubs) they have a call-in taxi service available 24/7 for a fixed price. I think it’s 8…or 12 euros.
People
They. are. amazing! This is probably the best thing I love about The Ski Week…well, the snowboard too, and the après…and…~ok a lot of things. You meet so many people from all around the world. So many accents, so many languages, I LOVE IT. This is my thing. I love this. I love meeting and connecting with different people from different cultures!
Whether you’re coming solo or with your friends, it helps to be open and friendly and just start conversations with people there. It’s like frosh week: it looks intense and intimidating with a pressure to be “fun” but in reality all of you attendees are equally scared and anxious lol. So once you realize that, embrace that reality, and just admit to yourself that you’re there to have clean fun (at least to start), that’s when things naturally happen around/with you!
Variety
There’s a variety of people there: people from different continents, different skill level. Trust, there are beginner people there too and what’s even more intense is that, there are legit people who attend and pay the entire thing, just to après hahahah! I don’t blame them though and it’s worth it…European après deserves its own article.
There are fun and genuine people, also shy people. Surprisingly I didn’t meet much douchebag people. I hope that helps? I realize my experience may not be the same since I’m not a woman but I haven’t directly dealt with any, and I haven’t heard women complain about them at all (again, maybe it just didn’t reach me). To be absolutely fair, I’m sure there’s one guy, “there’s always that one guy…” haha! But what I’m trying to say is that, you will have a fun and safe experience and not have to worry about things 24/7.
Again, what I highly suggest is to just attend, expect nothing, drink and celebrate and dance like a goof since you’re on one of the nicest areas to ski in the world, and just let the world come to you. It will, and it’ll be fun! Sounds hippy I know, but trust me, if you come in there with an agenda, people will know and you won’t have a good time. Just enjoy the mountain! And speaking of…
Mountain
Size
It’s definitely massive. I’m coming from a North American small/medium “hill” like Blue Mountain or Mont Tremblant. It’s around 4-5x bigger than those for sure. On the other spectrum, it’s in the lower end compared to the ultimates (e.g.: Whistler, Laax, Matterhorn, Trois Vallées, etc). It’s definitely large enough that you can go to different trails every day for a week. They have a variety of difficulties too so you will both be happy and challenged. They have nice features too like that timed trails, that thing that looks like a snowboard cross track, etc. They’re not known for terrain parks though. Just don’t. I’ve been disappointed twice lol.
Snow Quality
I read this in a brochure or something: Obertauern is ideal and popular because of its geographical location. I forgot, something about elevation and behind a mountain or something? So what ends up naturally happening is that they have dumps of snow and it stays pow longer (and longer seasons) due to those natural advantages. I don’t know if The Ski Week knew about that, but it definitely works for March skiing.
Comparing to east coast North America, there’s barely any ice, YUS. Not a lot of those “packed powder” shiz we get in small resorts. It gets pebble-y and sticky sometimes at the base, but it’s literally the last 5 seconds of the run so you really do not care. It’s a good slow-pad.
Off-piste is definitely fun! I’ve only gone once and I think my problem is I don’t know the off-piste trails just yet so my smart and safe gut tells me “don’t go”. Don’t want to end up in powder bowl and get stuck there 😐
People Density
It’s not even a concern at all. When Europeans say “it’s busy”…it’s not lol (coming from NA lol). You’ll be there for a week and during weekdays there’s barely anyone. Even when you hit the weekends, it just doesn’t make a dent for me enough to complain about it. The size of the mountain greatly compensates maybe.
Accommodations
All The Ski Week Participants will be in this one (or two/three) big apartment complexes so house parties are just a knock away (yup, did that a lot lol). Everything you need is there. They also have concierge if you need help. There’s also a restaurant just downstairs! If you’re lucky and you are in Steinadler, that’s ski-in-ski-out!
With regards to the units themselves, it’s great! If you need more visual evidence, they’re at the start of my vids both in the 2018 and 2019 vids. Their units are clean, spacious, and really just geared towards having an apartment slopeside. I wish I owned one of those lol. Your only thing is that you guys would have to figure out the rooming concern lol. E.g.: if you’re a room of 5 ppl, that means there’s 2 bedrooms and someone’s gonna have to couch it. Ready? Fight!
Food
Food is not provided btw unless it’s the bubbles and brunch event, the lunch banquet, or oktoberfest. This is more of talking about the quality of the food. If you love Austrian/German food (sausages, beers, schnitzel, spaetzle) like me, this town’s a goldmine! I’m sure there are vegetarian options but I don’t know what would be the highlight for you guys lol. If you’re doing it right though, your diet for the week would be: beer/wine, beer/wine, beer/wine….then delivery pizza in the middle of the night.
Events/Activities
This is one of great things too with the entire event. I’ve never attended any fun events like these before. Part of me says it could be more, but to be realistic, those down times on and off the mountain were crucial to meeting, partying, and connecting with people. So in the end, I wouldn’t change a thing actually.
I’ll just list all of the events I can remember so you can see how fun it is:
- Snow fort, first night you guys hike up the trail to a snow port then party it there with gluhwine!
- Lunch banquet as seen in insta above
- Torchlight decent – everybody meets at the top of mountain on close. Lights will be turned off; everybody skis down with just your own torch 😀
- Pond Skim
- Bubbles and Brunch (yup, breakfast food + unli champagne)
- Après, après, and more après; après l’après (get it? haha)
Those are to name a few. Remember you still have house parties left, right, and center, and you have the entire mountain to enjoy during the day, you party vampire!
Price
I’ll start by saying it’s worth it, how about that lol. Again, the whole sport is expensive not because of the sport itself, but rather due to the logistics around it. The lift ticket is cheap in itself. I think it’s even cheaper than NA’s, but it’s the fact that: you have fly there, transfer, accoms, etc that makes it pricey. The price, so far to date, is around €1000-1200 depending on the room situation you have. So you see, just the forex makes it a bit expensive already when you haven’t done anything yet lol. They have payment options btw. They’re not going to ask the full upfront.
Unless you live in Germany or something, you’ll have to fly in and out, so that’s another sizeable expense.
Accommodation, lift pass, etc. are paid for already. Groceries are very reasonable since you’ll be pooling this with your roomies, so all you really need to worry about is pocket money. And honestly it’s not that much. You will naturally not spend much. You’ll be waking up maybe a little bit late-ish sometimes. You also don’t want to eat heavy because you want to take advantage of the mountain in tip-top condition. You guys will probably just eat up the mountain. That’s basically it. Dinner? Fuggedaboutit. When the mountain closes, all of you guys go straight for après (and trust me you’d want this). Again you’d want stuff yourself, but then again you wouldn’t want to because you see how the night’s gonna be and the sorts of fuckery you’ll be doing so you will most likely just drink a lot, not eat much loool.
After the event, you’ve paid for your transfer already and your RT ticket, so you’ll be back to reality in no time (womp womp).
Conclusion
Should you go? YES. Should you experience this at least once? Definitely. Is the price worth it? For me this was an easy yes. Not because I’m rollin’ on dough, but it’s just worth it for me. I had a great experience the first time around and I was even expecting it to flop the second time around since I had high expectations already but nope it didn’t (there were very minor things, but again, minor). I have made lifetime friends and connections in these trips and you honestly can’t put a price on that. You are accessing premium ski grounds here and it’s placed nicely in a warm Austrian community surrounded with delicious Austrian food, ugh. Yea…Just go.
Take it and go
Russell Peters
If you have any more questions, post in the comment below!
I was not paid or instructed by The Ski Week to write this article. So The Ski Week, if you feel like reposting this, please do!
