Geschmack: Après Ski

A month or so ago, my boyfriend and I made the trek to a Bavarian ski resort in search of snow and après-ski.  Co-workers had been talking about their ski vacations all winter, gloating not so much about the slopes at Zell or Kitzenbühl but about what comes after – schnapps, strobe lights, and moonboots. In other words, the distinctly European pleasure of après ski.

When it comes to skiing, I'm more inclined towards the before activities rather than the after.  To me, the pleasure is the time spent on the runs. Après ski means hustling into the car after the last lift closes in order to beat all the pickups onto the icy hairpin turns that lead down the mountain.  The ski experience in Canada is a little more - shall we say - rustic than your standard ski-in resort here in Europe.  Skiing we have; resorts we lack.

That being said, I've seen my share of glamorous seventies-vintage Vogue editorials of ski bunnies in fairisle sweaters and fur-trimmed loungewear languorously sharing fondue, so I was pretty excited to make it to Oberstdorf – above mentioned Bavarian ski resort – to sample this most Euro of pastimes. Of course, because skiing at a European ski resort is way out of my price range, as are, to be honest, both fairisle sweaters and fondue,  I wasn't there to ski.  It turned out I wasn't even there to take the gondola up to the peak and then hike around on the walking trails like I thought I was, because a ticket to walk cost more than my return train fare to Stuttgart.  I settled for hiking about 100 metres up the mountain in my sneakers along an access road before painfully picking my way down the steep slope in order to work up my après ski appetite.  

To say I was disappointed is an understatement.  The first signs of après ski culture were not auspicious.  We saw a self-identified hot spot with laminated menus hanging half off its windows where the red packing tape used to stick them up had become unglued.  We saw a heated patio with garage-like rolling doors blaring pop music, totally empty.  Our final resting place was little more fulfilling:  a white vinyl tent erected above some jerry-rigged wooden benches playing Top 40 to clients sipping pastel coloured drinks and well representing faux fur manufacturers from Chengdou to Bratislava.  There was a disco ball.

I could only imagine the turn the scene would take as twilight actually fell – as I said, I’m an early-to-bed kind of girl.  It wouldn’t be pretty, I was sure.  There were no stone fireplaces or  smooth jazz or laughing turtlenecked co-eds.  The atmosphere was more basement bar than mountaintop chalet.  We settled for some cake and took the early train home in the friendly company of an East German train conductor, probably the last German to still be happy to meet people who are happy to speak only English.

Come Monday, however, the colleagues were not impressed by our après ski quest.  Cakes, one of them said dismissively.  This is not après ski.  But we kept our winter jackets on, I said, while we ate our cake.  They gave me that one.