St. Jakob im Defereggental - Brunnalm

The praise is for its status as a quiet secret: the skiing sits well away from the tourist flows, and the skiresort.de test once placed Brunnalm first among small areas in its insider-tip category. The pistes carry the Tyrolean grooming quality seal. Beginners and families are the happiest: a practice area at the valley station, gentle drag lifts, a ski kindergarten and forgiving descents. Nearly the whole area has snowmaking, and the snow park is a magnet for East Tyrolean riders.

Quiet evenings draw the criticism: apres-ski amounts to cosy huts and nothing louder. The area is small and a confident skier covers it in a couple of days. The approach is mentioned too, since St. Jakob lies a long way up the valley. A further theme in reviews is the pause in operations: the lifts stood idle for several seasons and regulars wrote about it with regret.