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A lifelong skier and his son explore the sport's Austrian roots at the modern resort of St. Anton, home of the founders of many New England ski resorts in America.

A short walk from the main cable car that spirits skiers to St. Anton’s Galzig summit, there is a high-end restaurant tucked into a suitably traditional alpine chalet.  Although the food and decor at the Arlberg Kandahar House are spectacular, my preferred apres ski destination was the Ski und Heimatmuseum secreted upstairs.

Without taking anything away from the challenges and delights of a week’s skiing in St. Anton with my 13-year-old son Joshua, I count the hour that I spent in the museum, which traces the development of modern skiing from the slopes of the Austrian Arlberg to the hills of New Hampshire, Vermont, and Colorado, among my most memorable ski moments.

Linking Austria & New Hampshire

Hannes Schneider, a native of St. Anton, is the father of modern skiing and the international industry it supports. Opening the world’s first ski school in 1921, Schneider established a method of graduated instruction, from snowplow to the wedel, and popularized a  “buzz” about the sport -- exotic, upscale, and refreshing -- that remains as attractive today as it was in then.

Schneider moved to New Hampshire in the 1930s where he founded the Hannes Schneider Ski School at Mt. Cranmore in North Conway. My mother regularly rode the ski train from Boston to North Conway in the 1940s, and I made my first snowplow turns under the direction of one of Schneider’s instructors. As a kid I skied every winter weekend from the summit down the Arlberg, Kandahar, Koessler, and Schneider trails, named for their Austrian counterparts, oblivious to the history linking the slopes of St. Anton to America, and schussing too fast to care!

The Birthplace of Skiing

A generation of Austrian exiles labored hard to re-create their ancestral homes in the mountains of Vermont and New Hampshire, but there is little to compare to the experience of skiing the Austrian Alps. Spectacular mountain scenery never disappoints, nor does the mountain fare, and the small village of St. Anton, despite its international status, has not sold its soul to the demands of the market.

As I often do on my first day in any European mega-skiplex (the St. Anton region features 85 lifts, 260 kilometers of groomed trails and 180 kilometers of regulated off piste skiing), I opted for a guide. When my children were smaller I was concerned about finding ourselves many miles and ski lifts away from home at day’s end (or if the weather took a sudden turn for the worse.) Indeed I once found myself in the wrong country near the end of a day on the slopes! While Josh is an accomplished skier I still hesitate to explore such alpine expanses without the benefit of a day’s guided tour.

The main ski areas are to be found on the north side of town. On our first day we skied the less popular, and less crowded (although lift lines were never a factor anywhere during our stay), Rendl and Riffelscharte lifts, based a two-minute, free bus ride from the city center. The entire complex is above treeline and tops out at 2600 meters, but this white expanse can be deceiving. Well-marked groomed trails are easily distinguished from the oft-piste terrain nearby, but these marked out areas can experience concentrated ski traffic.