As mentioned in yesterday's TR, I'm currently skiing in what's acknowledged as the snowiest part of the Alps and of course, the region is going to leverage that in its marketing to visitors. Thus, Warth-Schröcken proclaims itself the ski area with the most snow, while today's stop, Damüls, calls itself the snowiest village.
http://forum.nyskiblog.com/file/n405397 ... slopes.jpg
Damüls tagline is "Willkommen im Schneereich" -- "Welcome to the Kingdom of Snow."
The state of my car (the dark one) since my arrival late yesterday afternoon underscored that ^^.
There was a short break in the storm at 9 am this morning, when I did a warmup lap next to a lift.
And from there, snow came down all day long. The only places I could find people to take photos were on groomed runs back to the lift, so no pix of all the face shots. I skied through the entire afternoon, which was a total whiteout.
I've stayed the last two nights at the very "gemütlich" (cozy, welcoming) Alpenhotel Mittagspitze, named after a famous peak that towers over the ski area.
Your day there starts with the de rigueur huge breakfast, including a table of Brötchen: delicious little rolls that you slather with butter and jam. They're something I really miss from when I lived in Germany, and Austrians take them just as seriously.
After 3.5 straight hours of powder, I was running on fumes and stopped in for lunch and ordered another dish that I don't get enough in the States: Spätzle, a type of noodle from Schwaben in southwest Germany, mixed with the local Vorarlberg cheese and roasted onions.
Meeting the local hosts is a really unique part of a trip to Austria and over lunch I got to know the owner of the family-owned hotel, Ingo Madlener, as well the head of the Damüls tourism office, Pascal Keiser. We had an interesting discussion about how the name of the region, Bregenzerwald (which refers to a forest), leads people to believe that the ski areas here aren't as impressive as their neighbors -- now that I think about it, I had that same perception before I came and saw that they're certainly worth the visit.
After dinner this evening, Ingo invited me for a glass of amazing high-end schnaps and then took me on a mid-evening tour of the local sights, including the old town church. It's something that comes naturally to business owners here -- communicating to guests what makes their village unique and why they're proud of it.
