Kitzbühel next year?

[David Woodhouse]

On Sun, 2008-03-16 at 20:12 +0100, David Woodhouse wrote:
> For a start, can we have a show of hands... who's interested in coming
> next year if we do it in Europe, and who would be interested if we do it
> in the US or Canada instead?¹ 
>
> While that's not a rhetorical question (and I do want to be able to make
> a decent guess at numbers), I'm kind of assuming that we'll end up doing
> it in Europe next year.

Getting a reasonably accurate count quite early would be good, if we
can. We were quite lucky in Avoriaz to be able to overbook, and cancel
as late as January without losing the deposit. I'm not sure we'll get
that luxury this year.

I count Johannes, Bernie, Michael, Carsten, Jes, Michel and myself as
having answered at least 'probably'. Including Friederike and Fabienne,
that would be 9 people -- some of whom may not actually be able to make
it in the end, but on the other hand, we've also a few months to chase
up more new participants and elicit an answer from the other 40-odd
members of the skigeek mailing list who haven't responded yet too.

There's also three guys who were skiing/boarding with me last week, who
may well be interested in joining us for next year's trip. So I'm
planning roughly for 10-12 people including 2 couples, as a first guess.

We were thinking about the week starting March 7th, but maybe we could
start on February 28th instead, if the prices aren't much different
(which I suspect they won't be). Does anyone have any preference?

> The place I usually stay is Aurach. It's a few kilometres out of
> Kitzbühel and a small place (two hotels, a ski shop and a bar). But you
> can ski back down to it in good weather, it's easy enough to get up the
> mountain from, and it's cheap and pleasant. Lacks the variety of
> restaurants, but it isn't hard to get into Kitzbühel if we want to.

I picked up a brochure from the Kitzbühel tourist office last week and
I'm looking into apartments in town -- but to be honest I'm more
inclined to stay in Aurach, probably at Heike's Pension:
http://www.hotel-pension-heike.at/

There's a bus stop on the main road about 50 yards away from the front
door, and free ski buses either to Paß Thurn or Kitzbühel and beyond --
so you can start your day at either end of the resort. I much prefer
that to trekking through town and up the hill to the Hahnenkammbahn in
ski boots, from a place in town. And if the snow is good, you can ski
straight back down into Aurach at the end of the day too.

Ski shop and bar are right outside Heike's, and there's good food at the
Wiesenegg Hotel next door or at the Hechenmoos on the main road. I also
found another nice restaurant within walking distance.

We'll probably hire a people carrier to get some people from Munich or
Salzburg airport, which means we'll have transport into town if we want
it (not that taxis are hard to come by anyway).

I've just mailed Heike to check, but I think prices should turn out
fairly similar to last year, if not a little cheaper -- maybe €300 per
person or something like that (for B&B).

Ski passes for the week would be about €200, ski hire from about €100 up
to €150 if you want 'expert' kit:
http://members.aon.at/skinoichl/e_version/e_shop_main.htm

-- 
dwmw2