If you travel well, I highly, highly recommend taking at least one trip to ski in Europe! We try to go every year and have done so 11 of the last 13 years.
So many differences, but for me its mainly the people. One of the most interesting, imo, is you'll see a lot more 70, 80 and even 90 year olds out there enjoying the day. For the most part, the elevation is lower then the Rockies, so depending on the conditions it can be very slushy/patchy nearer the bottom. So many small or single lift places to ski. It seems like every town in Austria and Switzerland has their own lift/tow rope/resort. You can find amazing skiing in so many places when the conditions are right!! Places like Innsbruck are amazing in that you can reach close to 20 resort within a 2 hour drive (and probably 50 more if you count the individual town runs). On the Stubai glacier right on the Austrian/Italian border, you can probably ski year round!
Quite a few resorts are near borders. You can be skiing in one country, take the next lift and end up in another. Many resorts are accessible via trains. The first time I ever got on a ski lift that had a heated seat was in Lech many years ago. You should have seen the smile on my friends face when he realized it! "OMG can you believe this!!!"
That barely scratches the surface. Being from the US, (obviously) its much more of an adventure to ski in the Alps. Would recommend timing a trip for February/March, as I've been there in December and January when there just wasn't enough snow to cover the lower elevations. In general, the snow is much better in Colorado and Utah. Pretty hard to find champagne powder out there but if you're lucky and time it right.... |
