My wife and I landed early Tuesday morning yesterday in Munich, picked up our rental car, drove 90 minutes south, and were on the lifts by 10 am at the SkiWelt to start our Indy Pass visit of Tirol. The car rental joint at the airport reminded us that we had to buy a ten-day digital pass (a "vignette") to drive Austrian highways for €12 at gas stations near the border, similar to an EZ-Pass. It's allegedly enforced by cameras that scan license plates and the fine is €200 -- charged to the rental car company who then put the charge on your credit card -- so not worth the headache not to purchase one.
I mentioned before that we were at the SkiWelt in March of 2003. It was our first ski trip to the Alps and we were overwhelmed by how much bigger and dramatic the mountains were than the Rockies, but given how new we were to the sport (it was the end of our third season) we weren't aware at the time that the SkiWelt was at low elevation for the range:
Once on-mountain, we were reminded how big it is: seven miles by eight miles as the crow flies with 165 miles of marked runs trails linking nine villages. Apparently, Ski Arlberg has a bit more piste miles (along with piles of offpiste acres) so the SkiWelt is now #2 in the country but still very big, which they call out in their branding. They use the Austrian-German word "irrsinnig" as an adjective and adverb (insane and insanely) to make taglines that you'll see on various surfaces like here: insanely big, insanely fast, insanely fun, etc.
The SkiWelt's bread and butter is casual skiers, families, and retirees rather hard-charging experts, as you can see on the trail map:
Most of the terrain consists of wide intermediate cruising trails that roll through below-treeline slopes. Here are a few shots of my wife doing what the SkiWelt is built for: travelling big distances between villages connected by high-speed lifts:
It’s all about "piste-bashing":
Snowmaking obviously does a lot of the heavy lifting here. especially in a season where Austria got the short end of the frozen precipitation stick. Conditions were all over the map -- usually a mixture of sugar and corn covering rock-hard boilerplate, and by early afternoon brutal mashed potatoes.
Here's Hohe Salve, the highest point in the circuit at a modest 1,800 meters:
While conditions were good, bad, and ugly depending on where and when you were in a particular place, the one thing that SkiWelt delivers in spades no matter the surface is F&B, with more than 80 atmospheric mountain restaurants, cafes, and bars scattered throughout the circuit. It's typical at so many places in the Alps but the Austrians have it down to a science.
We decided not to gorge and split a lunch of boiled spinach dumplings (Knödel), salad, apple strudel, and she had a macchiato: $22
The day becomes a series of hut stops mixed in with skiing. Here's one of the places we had a beer:
There's lots of signage around the circuit but a few times we ended up taking a wrong turn, ended up somewhere we hadn't planned, and had to take two or three lifts to get back to where we intended:
It's always interesting to observe ski fashion at a resort with a mainstream demographic. You'll still see a fair number of body bags on non-powder days:
But even more prevalent are matching coats and pants. I'd guestimate than more than a third of the skiers had something like these two guys in the middle:
And this:
Mid-afternoon:
Given the above, it's odd that SkiWelt has become part of the Indy Pass portfolio, which is mainly smaller independent mountains with local character. The resort sits at the opposite end of the spectrum: huge and efficient in moving large numbers of casual skiers across vast distances. If you want to check out a French variant, the equally extensive Portes du Soleil is also part of the pass.
I mentioned before that we were at the SkiWelt in March of 2003. It was our first ski trip to the Alps and we were overwhelmed by how much bigger and dramatic the mountains were than the Rockies, but given how new we were to the sport (it was the end of our third season) we weren't aware at the time that the SkiWelt was at low elevation for the range:
Once on-mountain, we were reminded how big it is: seven miles by eight miles as the crow flies with 165 miles of marked runs trails linking nine villages. Apparently, Ski Arlberg has a bit more piste miles (along with piles of offpiste acres) so the SkiWelt is now #2 in the country but still very big, which they call out in their branding. They use the Austrian-German word "irrsinnig" as an adjective and adverb (insane and insanely) to make taglines that you'll see on various surfaces like here: insanely big, insanely fast, insanely fun, etc.
The SkiWelt's bread and butter is casual skiers, families, and retirees rather hard-charging experts, as you can see on the trail map:
Most of the terrain consists of wide intermediate cruising trails that roll through below-treeline slopes. Here are a few shots of my wife doing what the SkiWelt is built for: travelling big distances between villages connected by high-speed lifts:
It’s all about "piste-bashing":
Snowmaking obviously does a lot of the heavy lifting here. especially in a season where Austria got the short end of the frozen precipitation stick. Conditions were all over the map -- usually a mixture of sugar and corn covering rock-hard boilerplate, and by early afternoon brutal mashed potatoes.
Here's Hohe Salve, the highest point in the circuit at a modest 1,800 meters:
While conditions were good, bad, and ugly depending on where and when you were in a particular place, the one thing that SkiWelt delivers in spades no matter the surface is F&B, with more than 80 atmospheric mountain restaurants, cafes, and bars scattered throughout the circuit. It's typical at so many places in the Alps but the Austrians have it down to a science.
We decided not to gorge and split a lunch of boiled spinach dumplings (Knödel), salad, apple strudel, and she had a macchiato: $22
The day becomes a series of hut stops mixed in with skiing. Here's one of the places we had a beer:
There's lots of signage around the circuit but a few times we ended up taking a wrong turn, ended up somewhere we hadn't planned, and had to take two or three lifts to get back to where we intended:
It's always interesting to observe ski fashion at a resort with a mainstream demographic. You'll still see a fair number of body bags on non-powder days:
But even more prevalent are matching coats and pants. I'd guestimate than more than a third of the skiers had something like these two guys in the middle:
And this:
Mid-afternoon:
Given the above, it's odd that SkiWelt has become part of the Indy Pass portfolio, which is mainly smaller independent mountains with local character. The resort sits at the opposite end of the spectrum: huge and efficient in moving large numbers of casual skiers across vast distances. If you want to check out a French variant, the equally extensive Portes du Soleil is also part of the pass.
We were staying in Kitzbühel at the time. Since my companion had back issues that day, we didn’t ski much, so I’m still missing more than 70 lifts from that ski area.
?)
