St Anton The plan

So How do you pick a destination for your annual ski holiday? Things to consider are quality and distances of the slopes / the height of the resort to ensure a good coverage of snow /the size of the resort to ensure decent après ski / how easy it is to get to the resort from home etc
          

      Myself and Ali have been choosing mostly a new resort for us every year for over 10 years now a few resorts we have done more than once but in general we like to try somewhere new , And this year we were keen to try St Anton , there is some superb slopes about this area and excellent après ski according to all the reviews we have read , the down side is its trickier to get to from Scotland , and it’s a bit more expensive than other resorts this meant that if we didn't go this year we may never go . We had always previously wanted to go Canada or America but the more we have looked into those resorts the less I am interested. Unfortunately bob couldn't justify the cost for himself and his family this year ,especially over other resorts and so has decided to give it a miss this year me Ali and cammy just decided we would book it through crystal and thankfully found a new crew member in Gary park on his first ski adventure! so that was it the 4 of us have booked a chalet package ski holiday to st Antons  , I have done a couple of chalet holidays before but this will be a first for the others in the crew I love the whole catered chalet holiday

          St Anton is rated among the top five resorts in the Alps for very good reason: located in Austria’s Arlberg region, one of Europe’s snowiest areas, it boasts 305km of pistes, 200km of off-piste itineraries and over 55km² of challenging off-piste terrain. In addition, it has a highly efficient lift system (88 lifts) and an attractive town bursting with stylish hotels, chalets and restaurants .Located within two to three hours' drive of three international airports and with a railway station at its heart, the resort is easy to reach and, once there, small enough to navigate on foot or by the free public buses. Furthermore, St Anton packs some serious heritage – it's the birthplace of the father of modern skiing, Johann Schneider, as well as being the spiritual home of après, thanks to the infamous Mooserwirt and Krazy Kanguruh bars     

             Gary is joining us as almost a complete beginner he has never skied in the alps before and has only been to snow zone in Glasgow and Polmont ski slopes for a couple of lessons ! so this is a whole new hobby for him ( lets see if we can get him down a black by the end of the week point and shoot Gary ! ) ,

  Ali booked an airport taxi for us because 4 men and their ski bags weren't going to squeeze into a family car with a driver ,with that in mind its going to be cheaper and easier for us than leaving a car at the airport or taking the train and tram to the airport, its a midday flight so we were due to set of to the airport together at 10:30 , untill BOSCH  I get a message from gary to phone him right away !! He has to cancel mega short notice we are all gutted but nobody more than him , we set off to the airport in plenty time a man down all looking forward to a couple of airport beers and trying not to let garys cancellation get us down , despite what the government thinks of this Scottish tradition, I love my airport pint and selfie, as I stated when I was interviewed on the Jeremy vine show in my capacity as Scottish spokesperson for drinkers voice  ,

We can't believe we are a man down it was all going so well and its hard to just pick up the fun times when one of your mates is having trouble at home, but it is our holiday and as the say for the stage-the show has to go on

we got a few airport beers and it was a bonus as they had punk IPA on the flight , the flight to innsbruck was uneventful there was an empty seat between me and ali ! we knew why and we used garys seat to view old ski videos from my computer memory cards , the bus journey from Innsbruck to st anton was just over an hour and cammy and ali would have slept the whole route if the crystal rep hadn't came over the speakers to tell us stuff so often , once we were at the apartments it was decide ali would still be in the rom him and gary would have shared ,and the chalet staff were really efficient getting all the groups sorted , before to long we were all unpacked and seated for dinner , chalet style ski holidays are my favourite kind of ski package but what happens is everyone gets the same to eat so 3 courses with plenty wine for dinner among all the other chalet holidaymakers in the dining area , plus a welcome chat from the chalet staff all good dinner was lovely and they staff were lovely ,

   with dinner done we headed out and what a beautiful town st anton is our walk into town was very pleasant the chalet roofs have around 3-4ft of snow sitting on the roofs , our chalet is next door to a bar called tom dooleys and the bar girl is a glasgow girl! well from troon but Scottish and she had a rugby top on and a tartan mini, scotland had been well beaten at the rugby and we had our first few beers next door but st anton has some excellent bars and we are tourists wanting to see the whole town , we went to Piccadilly which had  live music the usual rock anthems from a couple of ex pat seasonairs ,its what the alps is all about lol , as usual and as per tradition it was our usual late first night and a belly full of beer , we were late to bed and collapsed into deep sleep