Ski safari in Austria – Zugspitz Arena

on a tour through Austria. Discover with him Austria’s hidden gems. After some days in Schladming he is on his way to the Zugspitz Arena in Tirol.

“Our fourth Austrian ski area and fourth Austrian province in just over a week was the Zugspitz Arena where we stayed at the Sporthotel Loisach in Lermoos.
The hotel is a friendly ‘home from home’ run by the Rieder family. The 79 year old father Josl Rieder was World Slalom Champion in 1958 and the hotel’s bar areas are crammed with his many national & international trophies (as well as a signed, framed photograph for his daughter-in-law Hillo from Lady Di). Josl also won races in Kitzbuehel and Wengen and lit the Olympic flame at the 1964 Innsbruck Winter Games so he was the ‘Klammer’ of his day. We skied with him for a few runs on Grubigstein and he clearly still has the magic! If he was a champion with the old planks – Kaestle were his weapons of choice way back then- he has no problems with today’s carvers.

Lermoos coincidentally produced a string of 1960s ski champions like Walter Schuster & Berni Rauter and even today, nearby Bichlbach is the home of current Austrian darling Nicole Hosp. There’s clearly something in the water around here. You’ll also not go hungry at the Sporthotel Loisach either. A legendary breakfast selection, excellent evening cuisine and the most knowledgeable Belgian wine man Luc to walk you through a wide range of Austria’s high quality wines. Many guests particularly English, Irish and Dutch, return year after year and relax into the calm pace of life and endless quality food. One couple from Cheshire were on their 20th year!

If you can tear yourself away from the breakfast buffet, the best skiing is on the Grubigstein above Lermoos, affording majestic views  of the Mieminger mountains and the Wetterstein range and the 2962m Zugspitze. Initial impressions of the Zugspitz Arena is of a really traditional group of villages, framed by some incredible mountains and 7 distinct ‘old style’ ski hills on the same pass. There’s plenty of tree skiing on blues and reds for the intermediates; enough blacks, ski routes and ‘free ride’ if you need something more testing. A total of 149km of pistes in the Arena (only 13km are black/ski routes) but if you have the ‘Top Snow card’, you can also nip over to nearby Germany and ski in Garmisch-Partenkirchen and Mittenwald. The area is worth a long weekend at least. And it is less than 2hrs transfer from Munich or Memmingen airports but it can get crowded out by the Southern Germans.

To round the trip off, we took the single gondola to the summit of the Zugspitze from Ehrwald on Wednesday morning. The views, looking over the Hohe Munde and down towards the Inn valley, were simply breathtaking. We hopped back and forth between Bavaria and Tirol on the summit, enjoying the excellent cafe and gazing agog at the entire Eastern Alps. You can also ski on Zugspitze on the Zugspitzplatt but you first need to take a gondola down from the summit. A bit convoluted with 5 drag lifts and one chair lift… but you’ve got to be able to say you’ve skied it!

Finally, our last two hours skiing awaited us on the Ehwalder Alm, a dozen fun reds and blues on the Gaistal flanks of the Zugspitze. A relaxed way to finish the trip and after one last snack(!) at the Hotel Loisach, we packed the car and headed for the autobahns, the Rhein valley, the Polders and eventually Calais.

It has been quite an incredible week and a bit. Four Austrian provinces, four great resorts, variable and sometimes severe weather and plenty of new discoveries. Austria for me is the only place in the world to ski. Rich culture, diverse ski areas, a real, genuine personal welcome and total pride and excellence in everything to do with their national winter sport.

I now know Austria that much better but it makes me want to get to know it even better still. The ‘hidden gems’ list for next season is already taking shape! 




original on treasures.austria.info