I had so much fun visiting Sölden earlier in the season that I came back again with a crew to complete some more exploration and to see if I could fully find the love. Well I certainly found the love in the incredible off-piste snow & terrain, and then found more later doing an all-time best on-mountain après ski safari down to the base. What a sensational combo on a sunny Austrian powder day.

The ski highlights included first tracks down a few 1,000m vertical descents on Gaislachkogl. What a fabulous peak. So much terrain in all directions and a lot more ‘approachable’ than a contemporary like the Gemsstock in Andermatt. Did some fun lines in and around the Rettenbach Glacier as well. There were some superb descents with cold, deep snow that avoid all the traffic on the trails.

For lunch I couldn’t go past the Tiefenbachgletscher restaurant self-serve restaurant. Its quality food at reasonable prices and plenty of seating make it an excellent option when in the higher parts of the ski area.

The après ski highlights included a big off-piste descent and a host of slopeside bars in and around the Heidebahn before a final ski back into town. The best way to do this world-class après ski run is from the top of Gaislachkogl. Pick a freeride route off the backside and descend all the way to the traverse trail leading to the splendidly situated Hotel Silbertal. Have your first beer on the magnificent deck. From here push further along the trail to the Gaislachalm (chug a beer), and then a further traverse to the Alpengasthof Sonneck (chug a beer). This fascinating group of bars can be reached via a marked route that is usually groomed, so if not feeling up to the big descent from Gaislachkogl, one can easily avoid it and still do the après ski run. But its not over yet! From the Sonneck deck, mount up again and get dragged up the hill again on the adjacent T-bar. At the top head across to the Heidealm (chug a beer). Next push across and down the pistes looking for the left turn onto the route to the Löple Alm (chuck a beer). Finally, descend to the bottom of the Heide chairlift and hit Bubis Schi- & Almhütte (chug a beer). From here it is a point and shoot all the way back toward town via the #8 piste. Turning onto #9 piste for the final descent to the road usually is busy & bumped , so take care. The safer alternative to the full descent into town is going from Bubis ascend the Heide chair & ski #3a piste to the Gaislachkogl middle station for a download on the gondola. Regardless of which way you go down, on a sunny afternoon the whole journey is a funtastic ski & booze combo.

I have fallen for Solden. I still don’t like the town, and the pistes can be too crowded & dangerous in parts, but overall the ski hill delivers some exceptional off-piste riding, and top-quality upper mountain snow, on-mountain restaurants & an après ski tour to rival the best of them (and trust me, I have done a few!).

See our thoughts on the pros & cons of the ski resort via the Sölden overview page.

See our video here

First powder day in Austria and it did not disappoint. Huge variety off-piste. Rode fresh untracked off-piste lines until the end of the day.

Lots of options here, but you don't want to get caught behind the crowds heading up to the glaciers.

Cracking apres ski run all the way down.
See our video here

For me, Sölden is a love-hate relationship. I love that it has massive terrain options on a powder day, long descents, and gets snow from all sorts of directions. I hate the town & the mass of humanity on the lifts & piste trails, so it’s always with a sense of trepidation that I ski here. But visiting midweek out of peak season in late February had me quietly confident of a good time.

Timing is everything in skiing, and I figured I had timed it well. There had also been alot of snow falling on the Italian side of the Alps with a classic Sud Stau weather pattern, and I expected (correctly as it turns out), that Solden would get alot of spillover from it. And so I skied 20 to 40cm+ of premium untouched powder on what turned out to be a fantastic ski day. The day was made even better in that there were always off-piste powder alternatives to the resort's insanely busy and bumped on-piste trails, so I barely skied on piste at all.

The snow in the valley was poor after a long warm spell from mid-January, and it was an easy decision to make early to not ski the valley trails back into town. (That is not a big deal in reality - this mountain has a huge skiable vertical of almost 2,000m.) Fresh snow was evident from around 2,00m elevation and the snowpack was abundant - one of Sölden's great strengths. Unfortunately the visibility was initially poor, but with a promise of clearing up periodically as the day went on. From Giggajoch to the base of the Rettenbach Glacier was as classically hideous a journey as Solden can provide. Long lift lines, a multitude of skiers out of control, and already bumped & icy pistes, making great material for a plethora of TikTok & Instagram reels.

Heading up the gondola over the World Cup piste on the Rettenbach Glacier, it appeared the inclement weather had dissuaded the horde from descending. So exiting at the middle-station I found not only a perfect groomed piste with a delicious layer of fresh on top, but also to the left untouched 20 to 30cm of powder. Yippee! Repeated the dose for four times and then the cloud lifted a touch inviting others along! And so the day went. Except normally there were multitudes of skiers wrecking the piste whilst next to it, or on terrain that varied slightly from it, was untouched powder.

Exiting the glacier tunnel (one of the better graded tunnels in the Alps too btw) the descent to skier’s left was a succession of perfect turns all the way to an easy traverse, ending on the piste just above the restaurant. You get the idea! Pristine powder skiing with very little real effort and a little imagination was the order of the day.

After a final fantastic deep powder run of around 850m vertical down into the Wasserkar valley off the Gaislachkogel and knowing that the snow down low in the valley was sketchy, my old knees thanked me with a download on the gondola back to the village. What a wonderful, relaxed way to end a day's skiing. And of course never mind the sketchy snow down at 1,370m elevation, my greatest relief was to be able to comfortably avoid the horde of out of control skiers heading down the final trail on the narrow white strip of death.....

Worth taking a few moments doing is the viewing platform that extends out from the cliff at the top of the Tiefenbachferner gondola. The views out to Pitztal Glacier ski area (one of our favourites) and Wildspitze are grand. Allows one to scope out potential backcountry journeys as well. A group could be seen descending Karleskogl(?) in the distance. Wished I was with them!

Dining on the mountain at Sölden is quite the surprise. Where one expects over-priced dross, one instead usually gets well-priced (even dare I say it, affordable) food and beverage offerings. The Tiefenbachgletscher restaurant is a huge self-serve affair that is both comfortable and with tasty, well-priced food. Elsewhere, the most interesting collection of restaurants are the independents dotted around the base of the often-forgotten Heidebahn chairlift. Several of them have their own ski routes for access, so keep an eye out and go exploring for some true Austrian mountain cuisine.

Whilst others enjoy the food, services, shopping and entertainment that Sölden village can provide (each to their own I say!), I intensely dislike it. So much so that I refuse to stay there. Instead I stayed in the lower valley town of Oetz at an incredible guesthouse called Gasthof zum Stern. Built in 1573AD (yes .... 1573), the fresco clad building oozes old world charm inside and out. And the generous hosts just make a great experience even better. Sadly there was no snow in Oetz (and not much on Sölden either), but that is something we are all going to have to get used to into the future. Looking to help POW (Protect Our Winters) I took the public bus to the Giggajoch base from Oetz. Travel time was about 45min, but I had a seat and enjoyed the ride! The return journey was better, with fewer people on board.

The key to skiing great powder at Sölden is like just about anywhere else in the world, but it is worth repeating here:
1. Start at first lifts. The main feeder gondolas from the valley open at 8am – be there! 2. Ski here midweek and out of peak season, so you avoid the worst of the tourist crowds and the powder hungry locals that are mostly working during the week.
3. If it is your first time in the region, get a guide for a day and be quite specific with them about what you expect out of the day. If they want to start at 9am, tell them ‘No’. Meet them at 7.45am and get on those early lifts. Day will end earlier, but so what.
4. Watch the weather and ski the margins of the storms. Use the bluebird powder day to ski tour away from the resort. The options are huge in this valley and the adjacent Pitztal.
5.Remember that your multi-day lift pass (3-days or more) includes Gurgl & Kühtai-Hochoetz. They deliver a lovely change from Sölden.

Sölden has a big reputation and is hugely popular for good reason. Just don’t go here if interested in skiing perfect groomers. Journey elsewhere for that.

So on this journey my love-hate relationship with Sölden was actually just ....... love!

See our video here

Our second visit to Soelden was during a massive blizzard in mid March 2019. Visibility wasn't great (i.e. it was non-existant). It was certainly helpful to have visited previously, so we had a sense of where to ski.

The snow was deep & the skiing sublime from mid mountain into the tree line. Crowds were lower than normal (i.e every other day!) & most were staying very close to the marked pistes. Huge winds meant limited lift openings but it didn't matter. The freeride skiing was awesome.

Snow quality during & after the storm was better than at nearby Obergurgl Hochgurgl, simply due to the terrain aspect - Soelden is oriented more to the east & Obergurgl to the west. The views across to Soelden the next day when skiing Obergurgl were phenomenal.

Despite some closures due to wind, the lift system is superb on low crowd days. So much more pleasant than our previous visit when the numbers of humans drove us to despair.

Stayed overnight away from Soelden in the town of Oetz - cheaper & better. Day parking in Soelden is excellent (& free) so staying out of town is a great option & a sure way to avoid the worst of Soelden's excesses.

Worth visiting on a mid-week snowy day if you know where to go!
See our video here

Solden-I am still undecided about it.
It is huge, the infrastructure is overwhelming, the possibilities unending.
The reason I am undecided is that at Solden this equals large amounts of humanity.
Some areas handle it well and other areas not so well.
I found going through the 'not so well' parts to get to the other parts unpleasant.
There are sections of the town that have great food and drink diversity but there is also an element that caters to a market that I find distasteful.
See our video here

So you have saved your euros and are ready to explore the Austrian Alps. Which valley? Which resort? 

If you have a hankering for a ginormous monster with terrific lifts, diverse terrain and a worlds supply of humans. Soelden is for you.

We were here a few days after any snow and the resort was tracked out and a bit sun affected. One thing we found was lots of people both on piste and in all the restaurants.

Chose wisely when traveling to this resort. Mid week. After or during snow. Good luck.
See our video here

Soelden is big, perhaps too big. Sometimes (often actually) bigger is NOT better. There are those that would have a different view, and they are possibly in the majority. Each to their own.

There is alot to like about Sölden. The super modern lift system & facilities, high elevation terrain, huge skiable vertical, length and breadth of piste trails, range of easy access off piste freeride and gorgeous views.

But all this seems to come at a price. In order to make the mountain more accessible to the masses, many of the piste trails are totally manufactured and unnatural. With that improved accessibility, overcrowding, long lift lines and piste trails turned into skied off mogul fields by lunch are the norm in particular high traffic areas. Restaurants are flooded with humanity at lunchtime and certain pistes are bordering on dangerous, particularly ones on the 'Big 3 Rallye'. The town of Soelden has its own issues. Lots of bars, shops restaurants etc, but also loads of tawdry strip clubs. All of which leaves a decidedly bitter taste in one's mouth.

We visited a few days after the last decent snowfall and the off piste was either sun affected or in the shaded areas, cruddy and tracked out. Some patches of powder remained, but there was not great reward for effort. Soelden could be awesome on its day, but then again, so are most ski resorts!

So in our view, for what it is worth, come to Soelden with your eyes wide open. Ski it midweek during quieter times pre Christmas or the last 3 weeks of January and then in March. And do it on a powder day to make the most the monstrous off piste terrain. Any other time, prepare to tackle a ski resort that has reached its full capacity and is perhaps too BIG. Enjoy!
See our video here