I'm now in the home stretch of this trip: three days in the region of Montafon located in the far southwest corner of Austria bordering Switzerland. It's only an hour south of where I was in the Bregenzerwald. Gotta love the proximity of everything here compared to the distances in North America. My headquarters is Schruns, the largest village in Montafon, which has a storied history as an inspirational spot for author Ernest Hemingway.
I spent today at the largest ski area in the region, Silvretta Montafon. Just like yesterday’s stop, Brandnertal, two separate ski areas were connected by a tram, resulting in 88 miles of marked trails, tons of off-piste, and a lot of continuous vertical.
http://forum.nyskiblog.com/file/n4054273/124ba156ad.jpg
The story of how the ski area developed its own unique niche over the last few years is interesting. To differentiate itself from such well-known nearby ski regions as the Arlberg, Silvretta Montafon developed a tagline and ethos, “das sportlichste Skigebiet,” which translates into “the most sporting/athletic ski area” (it’s a lot catchier in German). They earn the name by offering numerous scheduled “experiences” that are divided into categories: athletic (sunrise skiing, freestyle park tour, night sledding/rodeln, off-piste first tracks, freeriding, etc.), enjoyable (culinary, movies), and family-oriented. Some can be self-guided; some are done with guides; others include instruction.
They've crowned the entire program with an inspired set of advertisements (hats off to the creative people who thought up and executed this). Here's my favorite: "During ski vacations, my ex always wanted to sleep in."
The experience I tried yesterday is called Hochjoch Totale, a variation of the classic sunrise ski run, where you go out and get turns before the lifts publically open on a run covering 5,700 vertical feet, reportedly the biggest continuous drop in Austria.
I joined a few others at the hotel bus stop at 7 am.
Arriving at the base at 7:15 am, you take a few gondolas to the summit and have a hot tea while admiring the sunrise...
Do some warm-up exercises:
Get ground rules from Raimond Köhler, who dreamed up and is in charge of the entire "experiences" program:
And then you and several dozen of your closest friends are set loose on the mountain:
You can do the whole run at your own pace, take a break whenever you want, or for those with iron thighs, attempt to clean the entire top-to-bottom shot without stopping. After meeting at the bottom, everyone takes the lifts back up to a mountain restaurant, where a titanic breakfast awaits.
Locals urged me to try the sweet regional favorite called “Brösel” in Montafon or “Riebel” in the rest of Vorarlberg. With a texture resembling cous cous, you eat it with applesauce and it’s fantastic.
Over the course of the morning, I managed to hit a few nice knee-deep lines.
And then cruised in for an early-afternoon drink on the sunny deck of a hut.
James ist ein weitgereister Skifreak aus den USA. Weitere Berichte kommen noch 
Sie richten sich an meine Landsleute die höchstwahrscheinlich nicht von Montafon oder Bregenzerwald gehört haben. ich interessiere mich dafür wie die verschiedenen Skigebiete versuchen sich gegenüber ihrem Zielpublikum zu positieren ohne darauf zu kommentieren.