I stayed for 8 days in HochGurgl and its not cheap. There are several issues with the Gurgl area, particularly Hochgurgl. The skiing hours are short. I went at the end of Jan with daylight between 8am and 5:30pm. Lifts run from 9-4. To me a ski holiday is getting the most out of the time allowed. I think the Gondola ran slightly longer to get people back across the valley but mainly the opened late and shut early. Mostly the annoyance of this area is the lack of planning. Apparently they had to shut the lifts for 3 days of my trip in the Gurgl area due to a 'storm'. This 'storm' was roughly 40cm of snow over the 3 days and 20-30mph wind. Which shut all of Obergurgl and Hochgurgl. Incredible. I've skied all round the world and never known a resort shut for such average conditions. What is unforgivable is that when the 'storm' finished at 5pm on the third day, no piste groomers could be seen preparing the mountain for the next day, instead they waited until the morning to start work, adding further delay to getting some slope time. Now Gurgl will say the piste staff don't live locally and the road was shut, well, planning multimillion pound construction works for a living i can't accept that with prior knowledge to the storm finishing, they could not put the correct resources in place for the right time. The road was shut for one day only. The real issue is that Gurgl do not care about people who ski there, or if they ski there or not. Hochgurgl specifically, do not stay there. The area is completely remote which no connecting bus service so if it does snow (and they ain't great at keeping the roads open) you will be completely cut off. They have no shops apart from hire shops. They have no pubs (only hotel bars which were only allowing in their residents). No ability to get people from Hochgurgl to Solden to ski. If you ski down to gurgl to get the bus to Solden you cannot get back up without the Gondolas, unless you walk. No restaurants apart from the hotels. Basically if it snows in Hochgurgl and you have no car with snow chains you will be trapped with nothing to do. We did wonder down into Obergurgl and it had a few shops / bars / restaurants and seems ok. I wouldnt ever consider staying there though given if theres a breeze you can't ski. The communication from Gurgl to the hotel was atrocious. No one at the hotel knew anything apart from the times that the update would be given. When you're trapped in a hotel for days on end, communication is key. Reinforcing my opinion that Gurgl don't care enough to keep their patrons in the loop. No compensation has been offered from the resort for closing it and on our final day when we tried to eek out a final few runs in, there was no offer of a lift pass for the morning. 120 euros was asked for by the Gurgl staff. No reasoning, no compassion. Plenty of places to ski in Europe, i implore you, please, ski elsewhere guys.

My second trip here was even better than the first. The area is large, mostly it is sunny, the runs are long and wide. The people are friendly. Although we lacked ski clothes when we arrived, we find a great deal in a local store. They cost less some some large cities in Germany. Fantastic.