Zell Am See

Our first experience skiing in the Alps was kind of a bust. We went with the Frankfurt Ski Club and loved the part where they plan and organize everything and all we had to do was hop on the bus and enjoy the ride. Zell Am See is about a 9 hour drive by bus from Frankfurt - a tidbit we failed to inquire about when we signed up for the trip. We arrived late Friday night and loaded all of our stuff on the gondola for a quick ride to the top of the mountain where our hotel was located. It was a ski-in, ski-out in a great location (pretty cool, right?)

Saturday morning we awoke to rain, yes rain, at the top of the mountain. By the time we ate breakfast, rented skis and managed 3 runs in the wind & rain, all lifts were closed and we found ourselves at the bottom of the hill waiting for a break in what was now officially a storm so that they could run the gondola to get us back up to our hotel. We spent the rest of the afternoon enjoying the view from our room...

Sunday morning, the wind was still strong enough and the lifts still closed that we (the whole group of 30) decided to call it quits and head home. We got all our stuff together and waited for the men-in-charge to decide it was safe to run the gondola and get us down. Four of our group had decided to ski down (for one last run) and meet us at the bus. Instead, by the time we got to the bottom (where there was no storm), a very few lifts had opened up and they decided to keep skiing the few green runs that were available (did I mention there was very little snow and the skiing was pretty worthless to begin with?). No one was happy about it, but apparently since our originally scheduled departure was 3:00pm and the lifts were "technically" open, club policy dictated that the trip captain was not to terminate the trip early. So we had no choice but to wait impatiently for 2 1/2 hours while they skiied their little hearts out on crappy snow.

I'm pretty sure I have learned the life lesson before about trying to do anything with a large group of people (especially one with whom you are not well acquainted). Unfortunately, we were forced to re-learn it the hard way. While several club veterans assured us that this was not the norm & were equally frustrated by the situation, we will think long and hard about traveling with this group again. Check back next season. We may have completely forgotten our lesson learned by then.