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Serfaus-Fiss-Ladis ☆☆☆☆

18th January 2009 permanent link

Times visited:	once
Last visited:	January 2009 (yesterday)
Rating:	Very Good

Serfaus-Fiss-Ladis is a huge area of ski lifts linking three villages in the western Tirol. By Austrian non-glacier standards it’s high - 1,400 to 2,800 metres. Great high mountain scenery, very good snow at the moment.

I suspect this would be great place for advanced skiers. There are lots of black runs, and boy are they harder than the ones in Gasteinertal. I tried one, the Fiss-Ladis “Directissima”, but I should have listened to the guy in the lift who said it was really steep. It’s really steep. I lost my nerve and blew my second or third turn, and slid a long way on my back, wondering when I was going to stop and feeling very happy that I was wearing the helmet my wife bought me for my birthday last year.

Wear a helmet, folks.

After this I felt no further need to prove my manhood by embarrassing and scaring myself on other runs with names like “Vertical” or “Kamikaze”. Instead I spent the rest of my day cruising around enjoying myself on nice, mellow red and blue runs and looking for bits of powder between them.

I went to Ladis by bus on a day trip from Munich organised by my employer’s company sports club. Lots of companies in Munich do these in the winter, and it’s an interesting option. If you only want to go to the mountains for a day, there’s a lot to be said for somebody else doing the four hours driving while you snooze or admire the scenery. Especially in the inevitable autobahn traffic jam on the way back when you’re tired. On the other hand: these buses leave very early in the morning. I like getting the early ski lifts and having the slopes to myself for an hour – my son and I had a great boys’ private mountain one morning last week in Bad Gastein – but persuading my wife to get out of bed at 4:30 just to go skiing turned out to be unfeasible.

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