The Austrian Arlberg ski region will be the country’s first to offer more than 300km of lift linked runs when a huge project to physically join the two largest sectors of the region around Lech and St Anton by installing four new gondola lifts this summer is completed next winter.
The lift-linked part of the Arlberg will then total around 305km of runs, although the pass will also include another 36m of runs at the smaller not-linked nearby areas of Sonnenkopf or Pettneu to give a total of 340km. The area also says it has an additional 200km of marked but ungroomed ‘ski routes’ which it does not include in its 305m/340km totals.
The 305km figure ends last season’s debate over which was bigger between long-standing largest area the Skiwelt with 280km and the newly merged Saalbach Hinterglemm-Fieberbrunn area which had an independently confirmed 270km of runs but claimed it actually had more lift-linked runs than the Skiwelt as the Skiwelt figure included a small non-linked sector.
With 305km of linked runs the Arlberg also moves in to the world top 5 in terms of claimed size overtaking the long-time claimed 300km of the Espace Killy shared by Tignes and Val d’Isere.
How long the Arlberg will remain Austria’s largest after 16-17 remains uncertain as a few of the other big areas are reported to be considering mergers that could potentially take them up to 350-400km linked-area size.