The latter are much more exotic than in the U.S., with gondolas, cable cars, funiculars, cog trains and platter lifts thrown liberally into the mix. A single mountain can have lifts owned by several different groups or families, but all covered by one ticket. And conditions in Austria are also diverse. These days there is a proliferation of high tech grooming along with increased snowmaking. So you can be assured a fully rounded skiing experience at almost any Austrian resort - one that will reward the expert and adventurer without penalizing those who prefer the sport a bit more pasteurized.
Most resorts have several.
This keeps things interesting and provides enough possibilities to satisfy the most diverse tastes. Many Austrian resorts are also near a glacier area, that great guarantor of the Alps that you will have snow to ski, no matter what. Even snowmaking requires the right kind of weather to work, and at that it can never cover the amount of terrain that nature can. Because the Alps are so far north, compared to the U.S., they're strewn with huge, permanent snowfields that provide year around skiing. It is the above timberline regions of wide slopes, blue ice seracs and dark stone canyons that are often the most exciting places for Americans, unused to worrying about vertigo or skiing off into another country.