The ski season in the Alps started a month earlier than in 2023. The last of Austria’s high-altitude glacier ski areas has now started winter operations.
Kaprun/Innsbruck – In recent years, the start of the season in Austria’s ski areas has usually been a rather dreary affair. Images of white bands of artificial and deposited snow in green meadows went around the world. The Climate change is affecting winter tourism. But at least in the high-altitude ski areas of Austria this year the ski lifts are already running with great piste conditions.
Last year, skiing on the Kitzsteinhorn only started in November
The ski season on the Kitzsteinhorn (3203 meters) started in Kaprun on Saturday (October 5th). The original plan was to start a week later. But the heavy snowfall ensured that things started sooner. Compared to last year, the highest ski area in the Salzburg region is even a month earlier.
“Last year we started the ski season on November 3rd – due to the warm temperatures and lack of precipitation in autumn,” reports Christian Hörl, spokesman for Gletscherbahnen Kaprun AG IPPEN.MEDIA. Hörl can’t remember the last time the lifts started on the Kitzsteinhorn at the beginning of October.
There is more than enough snow at an altitude of 2,900 meters: “The fact is that around 1.8 meters of natural snow has fallen on the Kitzsteinhorn in the last few weeks,” Hörl continued. “While there were heavy floods elsewhere in Austria after cloudbursts, the precipitation fell as snow on our mountain.” But deposited snow from last year was also reused. Hörl: “This meant that between 20 and 30 percent of artificial snow production could be saved.” Six of 24 lifts were put into operation in Kaprun on Saturday. Of the 61 kilometers of pistes on the Kitzsteinhorn, around a dozen are already skiable. And the season got off to a good start: around 2,000 ski tickets were sold on Sunday.
In Tyrol, the first ski lifts started this year even before Oktoberfest
The competition in Tyrol was even quicker: On the Stubai Glacier, the ski season even started on September 20th at four lifts – one day before the Oktoberfest began Munich. Eight more systems have now been added. “Thanks to the heavy snowfall quite early, with around 50 centimeters of fresh snow, the skiing experience was possible on selected slopes,” said Michael Gstrein from the Stubai Tourism Association IPPEN.MEDIA.
On the same day we started in the Sölden glacier ski area on the Rettenbachferner. The neighbors in Hintertux (Zillertal) followed suit on September 28th. Last weekend, twelve lifts were open here and 24 kilometers of slopes were available. Skiing started on the Kaunertal Glacier (also in Tyrol) on German Unity Day, and the Pitztal Glacier, also in Tyrol, started at the same time as Kaprun last Saturday.
A small ski area in Salzburger Land even started its first lift in mid-September. The snowfall in late summer caused severe problems in the region. The Hotel Alpenland in Obertauern (Salzburger Land) literally sank into the snow. Austria sank in floods elsewhere. In Tyrol, the end of the local discount on the ski lifts recently caused a stir.
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