About the resort
Mayrhofen is a cosy town situated in the Zillertal Valey in Central Tirol, Austria, at 630 meters altitude. As many popular skiresorts, Mayrhofen is actually a junction of a number of smaller villages. However, Mayrhofen managed to keep it's authenticity and is more then just a bunch of streets with concrete blocks. Many people say that Mayrhofen is what a Tiroler-village should be like.
Ski area
Mayrhofen is situated in between the "Ahorn" and "Penken" mountain, which assure close-by ski opportunity for beginner to intermediate skiers/boarders. Ski passes are sold for the "Ski Zillertal 3000" area, which covers a lot more then just those 2 mountains. As it should be in a decent ski-resort, there are free skibusses throughout the entire valley.
Because of it's low altitude, skiing to the resort is only possible when there's real good coverage. Most slopes are equiped with snow canons, so if Mother Earth doesn't feel like it, these will supply you with the needed powder. Note nevertheless that even then, things can turn out bad: last season (2002/2003), there was virtually no snow until mid-January.
Wide ski area
If you're planning to stay for more then 4 days, it's better to buy a "Superskipass". This will give you access to all lifts in the Zillertal Valey. It comes in 2 flavors: with or without access to the glacier. Acces to the glacier means that you have a place to go when the lower slopes close, but of course you wown't be the only one! Generally, it's worth the extra cost.
Ski maps
High-quality skimaps are available for both the Zillertal 3000 area (local copy here, 1.46 Megabyte) and an the entire Zillertal Valley (local copy here, alternative map here). If you're looking for a map of one of the other smaller area (the Hintertuxer glacier, for example), look here. I also found some old maps, which learned me that the area has evolved quite a lot compared to back then (lots of new runs, etc.)
Webcams & fotos
There are plenty of webcams in the Zillertal Valley. Here's a pick of the best ones:
- The Austrian company Feratel has got Webcams all over Austria. 3 of them are in the Zillertal Valley: one on the Ahorn run, one on the Penkenbahn run, one close to the Hintertux-glacier and finally one on the Finkenberg. All those can also be viewed as a Realvideo stream.
- There's a very good webcam downtown Mayrhofen, which can be operated by visitors (it's a Java Applet). Sometimes the website gets overcrowded, but most of the time it serves beautiful fast-streaming video. You can use it to check if there's fresh powder in the village...
- There's a nice webcam on the Eggalm run. Fresh picture every 15 minutes.
- Some webcams on the Gerlos-ski area: this one, this one
- This page gives a nice geographical overview of all webcams in the area.
- Here's an un-ordered list of other webcams in the area.
- Other webcams for Central Tirol.
- Here are some (cloudy) pictures of the Zillertal area. Do you recognise something?
Resort reviews
Apparantly most people are too lazy to describe their holiday. It is hard to find a recent quality review - most of the reviews are either out of date ("I visited the resort in 98, great snow, large queues"), either very sort ("Great resort - no queues - cheap restaurants"). As I read most of them, my impression is that Mayrhofen tends to be a default ski resort: great ski & snowboard fun, good lift system, good après-ski.
- Few usefull reviews here
- Long review here
- Old review here
- Hintertux old reviews here, mayrhofen review here
- Good review here
- Zillertal review here
- old Mayrhofen review here, Zillertal here
- Small boarder-review here
Links
- The official homepage..
- The official homepages of resorts in the neighbourhood: Hintertux, Finkenberg, Gerlos, Hippach
- Snowheights for Mayrhofen
- This and this website have lots of information (lift rates, skimaps, panoramas...) for skiers in the Zillertal valley
- A website a good description of the area (lots of text here!)
- A website with some information about the resorts in the Zillertal valley (nothing special really)