Hintertux, Austria

* Super snow-sure glacier open 365 days a year...

* Surprisingly varied (and in places challenging) terrain...

* Lively tea-time après-ski...

There are few safer bets for snow than Hintertux, whose glacier is still one of the few to offer skiing 365 days a year. Unlike many glaciers, the terrain is anything but flat and offers plenty to interest most levels of skier. And just in case you do fancy a change of scene, there are countless other resorts nearby, Mayrhofen best known among them.

Hintertux at a glance...

Resort height:	1500m
Slopes:	1500-3250m
Pistes:	86km
Snow rating:	☆☆☆☆☆

Suitability		Skiing
Beginners	☆☆☆☆☆	Blue runs	●	44%
Intermediate	☆☆☆☆☆	Red runs	●	26%
Advanced	☆☆☆☆☆	Black runs	●	5%
		Ski routes		25%

Resort		Transfer time
Charm	☆☆☆☆☆	Innsbruck	1hr30
Convenience	☆☆☆☆☆
Après-ski	☆☆☆☆☆
Family	☆☆☆☆☆
Non-skiers	☆☆☆☆☆

Snow reliability

General snow cover	5/5
Snow quality – upper	5/5
Snow quality – lower	4/5
Resort level snow	4/5
Powder potential	4/5

The skiing

Given that most of the terrain is on the glacier, Hintertux offers a surprisingly extensive and varied area of skiing with long runs of over 1000m vertical and plenty of off-piste.

Confident skiers will particularly enjoy the ski routes on the lower half of the mountain, but there are challenges higher up too, including a genuinely steep black. The glacier is also home to plenty of gentler terrain, and for complete beginners there is a nursery area at resort level.

The resort

The main village is traditional, but very small and set back a few hundred metres from the lifts. A further collection of hotels and guest houses are clustered around the gondola station. There is some surprisingly lively tea-time après-ski both here and up the mountain, but after dark the resort is very quiet and life revolves around the hotels.

This is predominantly a resort for serious skiers (in winter at least), but there are a few non-skiing activities (mostly involving the glacier) such as ice-climbing.