Brixen im Thale Sneeuwverwachting

Brixen is a rather spread out resort along what is now a fairly quiet town road after the building of a bypass on the town’s south side. We stayed in the excellent value Gasthof Hoferwirt which is only about 200 metres from the two main lifts. Those staying in the centre of the resort by the church will have either a 10 minute walk to the lifts or will need to use the frequent ski buses. There are ski and boot storage facilities at the Skiweltbahn and at Hochbrixen as the top of the Hochbrixen gondola. Access to Westendorf is by a series of fast bubbles from the valley. Unfortunately, the infrastructure higher up the mountain largely consists of older slower chair lifts. The weak link is the three person Fleiding lift which moves at a snail’s pace and is the only way to gain access to some excellent runs at the back of the resort. The red run 120 down towards Usterberg is highly recommended. Descents back to Brixen pose a problem for beginners and progressing intermediates. The descent from the bottom of the Jochbarn is south facing and gets badly cut up by the afternoon. It’s quite narrow too and gets crowded, so you have a mixture of beginners out of their depth, fast skiers and competent intermediates like us trying to avoid the carnage. We only skied this run once and took the lift down (with many other people) thereafter. Inevitably later in the week we watched a helicopter rescue from this piste later on in the week. The descent from Westendorf has the reverse sort of problem. It’s not busy, but that’s probably because the lower section becomes an ice sheet later on in the day. As it’s north facing and rarely gets the sun, most of the snow gets scraped off and the piste becomes polished to ice. We only skied this run once as well. Of course, these comments depend to the weather, temperature and time of day. Others may find them in better condition. Access to the rest of the ski circus is good, with lots of fast lifts and bubbles. Queueing is rare except at the weekend. Beginners may struggle with the runs to the important Almbahn connecting lift, as blue route 99 is anything but blue as it approaches the lift. We skied down to all of the resorts on the north side of the Skiwelt, some runs being more pleasant than others. The run at the Mittelstation at Hopfgarten declares itself as the best run in the Skiwelt and it would be hard to argue with that. If you head right over to the Astberg near Going, be aware that access from Ellmau is by the really slow two person Hausberg lift and then requires quite a bit of pole use to get over to Going. Runs are the top of this area are good and pretty quiet. The descent down piste 90 was in poor condition and you have to cross a couple of roads as well. Those with hire skis may scrape their way across, but we decided that removal was the best course of action. In conclusion, the Skiwelt generally has excellent infrastructure but one or two old chairs could do with being replaced. Mountain restaurants are large, well placed, have good facilities and generally reasonably priced compared to France. The main problem is, of course, the height of the resorts and mountains. When it’s cold and there’s been recent snow the area is superb for intermediates who want to cruise lots of piste miles. However, when it gets warm it’s quite different. On the first night we were there it rained in the evening so that there was a nice coating of ice on the corduroy early in the morning. Personally, I would only book to go to the Skiwelt at short notice when you know the conditions might be reasonable.