Worldwide Ski Resorts • Austria • St Johann
Overview
St Johann in Tirol is a charming and friendly valley town that lies below the Kitzbuheler Mountain. Full of attractive traditional Tirolean architecture, it has a traffic free centre containing the shops, bars and the majority of the hotels that are about a ten minute walk from the lift station. Alternative accommodation can be found nearer to the slopes and at the neighbouring village of Eichenhof that has its own drag lift to the slopes. Most of the hotels are in the 3 and 4 star category, but there are also plenty of cheap and comfortable guest houses, as well as a selection of self catering apartments. Local restaurants have a first class reputation for traditional Austrian cuisine.
Profile
St Johann in Tirol stands at a modest 650m and provides access to the small local slopes that contain 60 km of piste and are served by 17 lifts. Don’t let this fact put you off however, as the local pass includes skiing on the conveniently close neighbouring resorts of Fieberbrunn and Waidring Steinplatte where those in search of fresh terrain will find some excellent skiing. There is also a Kitzbuheler Alpenskipass that covers skiing in the entire region, including Kitzbuhel itself which is only a short train ride away. The resort has an excellent snow record, with north facing slopes and plenty of snow making equipment to ensure that the runs remain covered.
Unfortunately, there is very little here to interest expert skiers or better intermediates. The one black run is not worthy of its grading and there are few tests of skill to keep adrenaline levels up. Frankly, it is a resort that is best suited to early intermediates, improvers and beginners and everyone else will almost certainly try the neighbours for a little variation. Snowboarders do have a small terrain park at their disposal, but there are too many drag lifts here to make life enjoyable for boarders. Cross country skiers are better off with some excellent trails over 75 km to explore. Novices will find the nursery slopes here hard to beat. In fact it is an excellent place to learn with highly recommended ski schools and plenty of suitably quiet and pleasant runs on which to progress.
Mountain Information
The slopes are predominantly northward facing and lie directly above the town. The gondola from the town centre takes its passengers as far as Harschbichl from where a selection of easy red and blue runs can be followed back down through the tree line to the town or in the other direction to Oberndorf that has its own gondola to return you to the mountain. The better intermediates will find that the more interesting runs lie over on this side of the mountain, starting from the Berstation Penzing. For those in search of something to eat, the local slopes have an extravagant number of highly recommended restaurants all over the mountain.
Apres Ski
The scene in St Johann in Tirol is surprisingly good with a plentiful supply of bars to be found throughout the town. Max’s Pub stands at the base of the main return route and gets pretty lively early on. After that there is always one event or another staged either by the tour operators or the resort management, to keep everyone happy.
Austrian Resort Guide
Resort Information • St Johann
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Resort Height | 670m |
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Top Station | 1700m |
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Bottom Station | 670m |
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Vertical Descent | 1030m |
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Drag Lifts | 10 |
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Chair Lifts | 6 |
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High Capacity | 1 |
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Opening Dates | Dec - April |
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Rating Expert | 8 |
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Rating Intermediate | 8 |
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Rating Beginner | 6 |
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Apres Ski Rating | 7 |
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Snow Reliability | 6 |
