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St Anton |
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Europe offers some of the most extensive, extreme and beautiful skiing anywhere in the world. Tom Robbins, powderhound and deputy travel editor of the Observer newspaper, picks five of the very best Click to view Top 5 European Ski Resorts.
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Best for Real Men (St Anton, Austria) |
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 St Anton combines some of the most extensive and extreme skiing in the Alps with some of the most extreme après-ski drinking. The resort also boasts great food, service and charm. If you want to burn the candle at both ends, this is the place ... if you're hard enough.
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St Anton-am-Arlberg is the craggy jewel in the crown of the massive Arlberg ski region that takes in the resorts of Stuben, Zurs, Lech, St Christoph and Sonnenkopf. Beginners may find it tough going at first but for intermediates and experts the potential is unlimited. A friend of mine has spent six seasons working in St Anton and still he's finding new pitches to plough.
"St Anton is up there as one of the best freeriding locations in the world", say ski writers Pat Sharples and Vanessa Webb . "For competent riders with an appetite for challenging mountains and non-stop nightlife,
there is no better place to be."
Like the French super-resorts, the St Anton lift pass gives you access to a vast area but the character of the place is a world away from the "croque-monsieur-and-fries" of France's purpose-built ski factories.
In the Arlberg you can still ski from village to village, stopping for food and drink in traditional mountain restaurants. The locals here still pride themselves on great food and service.
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High Adrenalin |
 That said the place is very much a skier's resort. St Anton's altitude, steep shoots, dramatic cliffs and vast snowy bowls have made it a magnet for adrenalin junkies. Writing last year in The Sunday Times, my colleague Paul Nuki, described the early-morning scene at an off-piste meeting point:
"By 8.45am, the cafe is packed with about 30 men, each methodically checking though a rucksack full of equipment ... there are nylon shovels, carbon-fibre helmets, two-way radios, first-aid kits, rucksacks that inflate in case of avalanche and vests with built-in body armour.
"And then, just as a Swede to our right starts explaining that his avalanche probe is a metre longer than the average, an awed hush descends on the room. The cause? A German has trumped everyone by pulling out a metre-long snow saw, crafted from what looks like polished titanium."
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Serious Après-ski |
And it's not just the skiing the St Anton crowd take seriously. Almost as many people are injured (some killed) making their way down from the mountain bars as fall victim to the natural hazards of cliffs, trees and avalanches.
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 The après-ski scene is dominated by two of the most famous bars in the Alps - the Mooserwirt and The Krazy Kangaroo - which are perched opposite each other on the piste about 500m above the town. By 4pm both are packed with revellers dancing in ski boots on the tables, downing gallons of schnapps and singing in unison. The bonhomie is fantastic and don't worry about the girl dressed as a cop going round breathalising people - she's there to make sure you drink more, not less!
Another big plus for St Anton is that the train runs straight into the middle of town. This makes getting there from airports like Zurich very easy indeed.
If you want a quieter and cheaper holiday while retaining easy access to the same ski area, consider getting off the train a stop earlier and staying in Stuben or St Christoph. Stuben is tiny and very quiet indeed but brilliant for young children.
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Altitude: 1,300-2,800m [] Pistes: 272km
Pros: Extreme skiing; Extreme drinking
Cons: Accidents from both
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TYPICAL PRICE: Six-day Pass: €189/£128
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