Woman (on skis) behaving badly

Hoo-pa! They know how to party in Austria, says Julia Stuart

It is just after 4pm and hastily abandoned skis stand in the snow outside a wooden hut on an Austrian piste. The hut's owner, Rudi, who bears a passing resemblance to Oliver Hardy, has swapped his lederhosen for rock-god attire: a black T-shirt and jeans.

He, on electric guitar, and his chum, on accordion, are belting out "Rocky Mountain High" with a curious disregard for the correct vowels and consonants. The audience, pumped up on gluhwein, are dancing on the tables in their ski boots. Rudi and pal launch into "The Wedding March".

Never having had so much fun in a thermal vest, I grab the nearest sweater-glad gentleman and embark on a polka with such vigour that I almost vomit pear schnapps over the loudspeakers. At the start of the chorus, couples start stampeding down the centre of the hut crying out 'hoo-pa' at each prance. Terrifyingly, they are going in opposing directions. On my left, coming towards me with missile-like precision, is an unstoppable herd of wild-eyed grinning revellers, each with one arm extended in front of them. A glance to the right reveals the same animal. After the first chorus I have been crushed to a smaller bra cup. By the last, I'm wondering what the precise wording on my death certificate will be.

It is with much reluctance that I bring you this report from Obergurgl. Frankly, I'd rather you didn't come here. Obergurgl's USP is that it is virtually free of lift queues. It is also Austria's highest parish, with guaranteed snow from mid-November to early May.

The pistes of Obergurgl and neighbouring Hochgurgl are linked by a nine-minute cable car ride and offer 110 kilometres of slopes, most above the tree line, which are best suited to the intermediate skier as they lack the variety and range of the bigger resorts. The village of Obergurgl is small, pleasant-looking and noticeably quiet in the evenings as the nightlife is centred around just two or three venues.

Indeed, life is civilised here. Ski-school doesn't begin until 9.45am, when most people appear, gliding down from their hotels, which offer door-to-door skiing. The lifts open at 8.30am, giving the more enthusiastic an opportunity to have the snow, at its squeaky perfection, all to themselves. Despite its good reputation, I managed precisely a day and 40 minutes at ski-school and bunked off for the rest of the week, having got fed up with having to balance poles on the backs of my wrists while winding my way down the piste very slowly in the intermediate class. (Skiing just isn't the same unless one feels perilously close to death at all times.) On my tragic lonesome (the hopelessly unhitched shouldn't fear coming here – one is never without company for long), I spent most of my time on the slopes with members of the Ski Club of Great Britain, who defied their reputation for stuffiness.

My difficulty came at 4pm, when the lifts closed and I had to decide how I was going to spend the rest of the day. Would I ski back to the door of my hotel, the comfortable Gotthard, and partake of the complimentary cakes served in the lounge? Would I then slope off to the hotel spa and hang out for a while in the sauna, Jacuzzi and various steam rooms, then change into something divine for the artery-furring five-course dinner, which was consistently very good? Or, come 4pm, would I ski down to one of the outside umbrella bars and start on the gluhwein while jigging along to the Europop which suddenly sounded fantastically good?

Partial asphyxiation by unidentified German stomachs at Rudi's Netherhutte thrice-weekly knees-up was always my first calling. The ski down to the village in the dark along a semi-illuminated track was ever eventful. A word of advice: if, say, you happen to crash-land just 50 metres from the door of your luxury hotel and manage to lose a ski, do your utmost to find it. Trying to slip into your four-star establishment reeking of schnapps with only one ski while your fellow guests are filing, showered and suited, into dinner, is not a good look, frankly. (Nor is returning at 12.45am, covered in snow and hoarse with laughter, after descending from a fondue night at the Netherhutte standing on the back of a Ski Club of Great Britain rep's skis.)

Inghams (020-8780 4433; www.inghams.co.uk) offers seven nights' half-board at the four-star Hotel Gotthard from £562 per person, based on two sharing, including direct return flights from Gatwick to Innsbruck and transfer to the resort. Six-day adult lift passes start at £119.