On a chairlift years ago, a stranger told me the secret to family ski holidays. Everyone knows that Christmas, Easter and February half-term — the obvious times for a family trip — are marred by massive price hikes, while airports and pistes are mobbed. Fly British Airways from Heathrow to Geneva on the first Saturday of this coming February half-term, returning a week later, and you are looking at £1,207 for the cheapest seat, in economy, with only hand luggage. When you get there, given the February holidays of London, Paris and Amsterdam schools align in 2025, the tranquillity of the mountains could be hard to find.
The solution, my chairlift buddy insisted, was simple: go instead in October half-term. On the surface, this is a stupid idea. Almost every northern hemisphere ski resort is closed then. But there are exceptions, the few glacier ski areas in the Alps that are frequented by professional teams engaged in pre-season training. The man said he took his kids every year and had never looked back.
I dismissed the suggestion but over the years, as peak-time pistes grew busier and my kids grew harder to entertain for a rainy October week in Britain, it kept coming back to me. Finally, this time last year, with half-term rapidly approaching, nothing planned and my partner committed to working all week, I decided to give it a go.
We flew to Innsbruck (only £526 for all three of us), the plane descending below the mountain ridges as it circled down into the valley, rust-coloured rocks and tussocks of golden grass seemingly in touching distance — impossible not to think of the opening sequence of The Sound of Music. Austria is the obvious choice for October skiing, with more glacier resorts than anywhere else, five in the western state of Tyrol alone. I’d picked the Stubai glacier, the self-styled “Kingdom of Snow”, which, with 26 lifts and 63km of pistes, claims to be the country’s largest glacier ski area.
As a lone parent with kids aged 10 and seven, I was thinking more about convenience than the lift stats. Neustift, the village on the floor of the Stubai valley where we’d be staying, is just 26km by road from Innsbruck airport. We landed at 3.20pm, were through the deserted terminal and into the minibus by 3.45pm and eating apple strudel in the hotel lounge by 4.15pm, the kids going crazy with the whipped cream.
We were staying at the Hotel Jagdhof, whose style, a sort of baroque maximalism, seemed a joyous rebuff to the bland internationalism that has subsumed so much of the luxury hospitality world. Here, every room was wood-panelled and filled with antiques, the ceilings elaborately carved. Staff wore dirndls or dark green Tyrolean jackets; flamboyant statues of saints and angels stood in alcoves and looked down from light fittings; the walls of the snug were covered in hunting trophies and topped with a stuffed black grouse. Even the lift doors had been hand-painted with rococo scrolls, flowers and shells (and dated 1783).
The 70 bedrooms are more restrained, though still traditional, many warmed by tiled Kachelofen stoves. Best of all was the view from our small balcony — the flat valley floor bordered by steeply rising flanks covered in dark forest and dotted with the occasional fire-burst of a deciduous larch.
Down here, summer seemed to be lingering, the air smelled warm and grassy. There was the sound of the rushing river just beyond the hotel tennis court, and the chime of bells from the sheep and goats in the field next door. And high above, at the far end of the dead-end valley, we could see the slopes of the glacier, shining white in the last of the sun. It couldn’t have felt further from the London drizzle we’d left behind. I oohed and aahed; the kids happily reported strong WiFi and ample charging points.
But there was a problem. At dinner we discovered the summer really was lingering. The snow had been late coming and tomorrow, the first of our three potential ski days, the glacier would be closed. “In the last 50 years, it’s never been like this,” the hotel owner Armin Pfurtscheller told me in the bar afterwards, shaking his head.
The hotel’s daily newsletter, left propped on the breakfast table the next morning, had a “quote of the day” from Marcus Aurelius: “Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking.” True, but given the vast effort involved in a family ski holiday, as we pulled on walking instead of ski boots, stoicism was in short supply.
As well as the main glacier ski resort, Stubai has three small, family-friendly ski areas lower down the valley, one at Neustift itself. The skiing doesn’t start here until later in winter but the (free) cable car was running, so we bought supplies from the village bakery and jumped in, gliding up to 1,800m on the shoulder of a mountain called the Elfer.
In my experience, kids will moan within minutes of being asked to walk uphill, but will skip downhill for hours on end. And so it proved: we merrily walked through the forest of larch, spruce and stone pine, trunks covered in moss, branches draped in silver tassels of beard-like lichen. Mist swirled through the trees but was gradually burnt off, and shafts of sun broke through the canopy. A chamois darted ahead, bouncing down the slope. I’ve walked a lot in the Alps in summer but never in the cool bright of an autumn morning, and I found my angst about missing ski time slipping away.
After two hours, we stopped for sandwiches, and I saw my son had his boots on the wrong feet — I’d done up the laces without noticing and, clearly more stoic than me, he hadn’t complained once. Eventually we made it down to a little restaurant, the Weber Lois, on the edge of the forest, where we were the only customers and the owners seemed surprised and delighted to see us. So much so, they later ran down the path after us with the anorak we’d left behind. You wouldn’t get that in the February half-term bunfight in Val d’Isère.
The next morning, relief. The glacier would be opening. Given the highest slopes open first, October skiing is rarely “ski-in, ski-out”. From the hotel we’d need to travel 17km along the valley and 2km vertically by cable car to make our first turns. Thankfully, the hotel runs a free shuttle, and the lifts are fast and modern. From hotel boot room to piste took about an hour.
And after all that, the skiing was . . . surprisingly good. I’d feared there would be hard ice beneath our edges, but in fact there was a decent base of snow on the glacier and even a few inches of fresh powder on top of that. We took a T-bar lift, then a long blue run, 3km and a 600m descent, back to the lift station and restaurant, where the kids demanded hot chocolate.
To be honest, that run, and a couple of variations, was about all that was on offer. Only four of the 26 lifts were open. But still, it was proper skiing, plenty enough for the kids, with stupendous views of the white peaks all around, plus a decent schnitzel and jam for lunch. By 3pm it was snowing hard and we called it a day, coming back down in the cable cars from winter back to autumn, if not summer.
At the hotel, the sun was out, we swapped salopettes for swimming costumes and jumped into the outdoor pool. I tried to get the kids to look back up at the glacier and marvel at the feeling of temporal discombobulation, but they just wanted to dive bomb me.
After four hours’ skiing and two hours’ swimming we’d earned our six-course dinner. The hotel opened in 1977, mainly to capitalise on the creation of the glacier ski area in the mid-1970s, but it also has its own hunting grounds, some 3,500 hectares in remote side valleys (Jagdhof means “hunters’ home”). About 30-40 hunters come each year, the shoot producing all the venison served in the hotel. In autumn, special game dishes appear on menus throughout the valley, and that night I ate a memorable venison fillet with forest mushrooms and a dark red wine sauce.
The Jagdhof’s catering is as ebullient as its decor. There are cake trolleys, cheese trolleys and schnapps trolleys, a cellar with 20,000 bottles and some nights a chocolate fountain and ice-cream buffet. It’s the only five-star in the valley but isn’t show-offy like smart hotels in Courchevel or Verbier. And though not cheap, it’s definitely decent value.
So was the chairlift advice true? Possibly, but an October holiday is never going to be a straight swap for a Christmas or February one. On our second ski day, the interactive map at the bottom of the cable car showed a meagre 6km of open slopes. Mileage-hungry adult skiers should obviously look elsewhere. To be fair, we were unlucky (this year the snow has come early and Stubai opened on September 20) but conditions will always be a bit of a gamble.
And yet, we loved it. The limitations of the skiing removed the rush to be on the slopes as long as possible, and instead it became one part of a more rounded, more laid-back mountain holiday. Combined with the lack of other people — in the ski hire shop, in the restaurants, on the slopes — I think I relaxed more than I ever have on a ski trip. There’s just one problem: get it right, and come Christmas the kids will be desperate to go again.
Tom Robbins was a guest of the Austrian (austria.info), Tyrol (tirol.at) and Stubai (stubai.at) tourist boards, and Hotel Jagdhof (hotel-jagdhof.at). A four-night stay this October half-term would cost £1,465 for a parent and two children, including half-board and afternoon tea, or £1,869 for two adults and two kids.
Where to go skiing right now
Hintertux, Austria
21 lifts*; max elevation: 3,250m
At the far end of the Ziller valley, about 90 minutes’ drive from Innsbruck, Hintertux is one of only two European resorts to offer skiing all year round (though it can still close in extreme weather). There are hotels right at the base of the lifts, but you’re essentially in a car park. Better stay further down the road in Mayrhofen where there’s a big choice of accommodation and alternative activities. hintertuxergletscher.at
Zermatt, Switzerland
9 lifts; max elevation: 3,899m
Europe’s highest and most snow-secure skiing, Zermatt’s glacier is the other destination offering 365 days of skiing. The pistes sit in the shadow of the Matterhorn and on the Italian border. You can break for coffee and cake at the Italian-owned Rifugio Guide del Cervino, then ski down for rösti at Trockener Steg. It’s also a fabulous spot for hiking, with a network of lifts and mountain railways to help tackle the uphill. zermatt.ch
Sölden, Austria
9 lifts; max elevation: 3,250m
Better known for its après-ski (and as a location for the Bond movie Spectre), Sölden has two glaciers with reliable early snow. A free shuttle bus takes about 30 minutes to climb the dramatic road that rises from the resort at 1,350m to the base of the glacier lifts at 2,675m. The first races of the Ski World Cup season take place on October 26 and 27, so it’ll be buzzing. soelden.com
Passo Stelvio, Italy
6 lifts; max elevation: 3,450m
Stelvio is famous as a classic climb for cyclists. A snaking road loops up to the pass at 2,757m, but there’s also a ski area at the top. It’s an oddity because its season runs from May to the start of November and it closes for winter, when the road becomes impassable. There’s a wide expanse of glacier and skiing for all abilities but little else to do, so it’s probably best as a day-trip destination from Bormio, half an hour away. passostelvio.eu
Saas-Fee, Switzerland
6 lifts; max elevation: 3,573m
In the shadow of its more famous neighbour Zermatt, Saas-Fee’s glacier ski area isn’t the largest but would be ideal for an October break. There’s a pretty, historic village, lots of walking, mountain restaurants, marked trail running routes and a swimming pool with multiple saunas. saas-fee.ch
*Lift numbers relate just to the glacier ski area. In winter, at many of the resorts, this will be part of a much bigger area
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