Ski Area Count 2023-2026 Updates

[jamesdeluxe]

I guess my point is that once you go down this road of counting each individual part of a huge multi-sector resort -- often with lifts operated by different companies -- it's a deep rabbit hole (mixing metaphors, I know). Take Austria's Skiwelt, see the history below pulled from its webpage. Am I really going to add all nine individual sectors, each based on its own originally independent footprint, to the subject line of my trip report or my ski-areas-visited list?

SkiWelt was not created all at once; it was formed by joining several previously independent ski areas. Over decades, visionary operators from different alpine villages in the Kitzbühel Alps connected their separate lifts and slopes. The evolution and integration of the resort unfolded through several major stages:

• Early Individual Development (1947–1970s): The various villages developed their own ski infrastructure independently. For instance, Hopfgarten opened the longest chairlift in Europe in 1947, and Westendorf installed Austria's largest ski lift in 1948. Ellmau, Going, Söll, Scheffau, and Brixen im Thale also built their own localized lift systems and slopes.
• Initial Cooperation (1973–1974): The operators recognized that joining forces would ensure regional survival and tourism growth. They took the first step toward integration by introducing a joint ski pass.
• The Official Merger (1977): The cable car operators of six villages (Brixen, Ellmau, Going, Hopfgarten, Scheffau, and Söll) formally joined forces to create the Skigroßraum Wilder Kaiser – Brixental (later rebranded as SkiWelt). Overnight, it became the largest interconnected ski area in Austria.
• Continuous Expansion: Villages like Westendorf were physically connected and integrated into the network later, and the area has continuously modernized with new gondolas and lifts ever since. Today, it comprises nine interconnected villages (Brixen im Thale, Ellmau, Going, Hopfgarten, Itter, Kelchsau, Scheffau, Söll, and Westendorf) offering roughly 275 km of pistes.

How is this different from the 3V or Paradiski, Austria's 4-Mountain Ski Area (Hauser Kaibling, Planai, Hochwurzen, Reiteralm), the Portes du Mont-Blanc (4: Combloux, Megève/Jaillet, La Giettaz, and Cordon), Ski Arlberg (5), Espace Diamant (6), Gstaad (7), or the Portes du Soleil and Dolomiti Superski (each with 12)?

Needless to say, all of this falls under "to each his/her own" and "much ado about nothing" that we discuss during off-season. Of course, Patrick has no off-season.

 

[Tony Crocker]

Jimmy probably counts all of those SkiWelt villages, for sure any of them that started as stand alone ski areas. In fairness he has been living in Austria since the 1970’s and may have skied some with defined boundaries.

The most clear cut reason and means to divide big complexes is when there are separate discounted lift tickets for partial sectors (3V, Paradiski, Portes du Soleil, Dolomites).

The other common reason is when there is no connection even if there is a common lift ticket. Everyone separates the Aspen areas AFAIK and Chamonix and Gstaad are direct analogies there.

My interest in counting vertical per ski area fits easily with the above definitions and also the lift but no piste examples like Arosa - Lenzerheide. It does not fit at all at SkiWelt aside from geographically isolated Westendorf.

All of the above are common sense, and we have mostly been using them here before we ever heard about WST or the Euro Skitistics people who independently arrived at similar criteria.

As noted earlier this is primarily an Alps issue and rarely comes up in North America.