We all love ski resorts in the Austrian Tirol. They’re famous for their cosy chalets, friendly locals, substantial meals and always being only a short transfer from the airport.
But these days, just having an unspoilt village, family-friendly attitude and high-value ski holiday may not be enough. You may want one of those XL-sized ski areas too, where you can ski for miles every day and never take the same piste twice (unless you liked it and want to) during your whole week on the slopes.
For that you need to sacrifice all those good things, pay a lot more and go elsewhere right? Well, thankfully, no. Investment in some very swish new gondolas and comfy chairlifts (those giant six- or eight-seat comfy-armchair-style ones with heated leather seats and pull-down windscreen covers) has led to ski areas in the Tirol merging and expanding so that today they have not only the biggest ski areas in Austria, but also some of the largest in the world.
The great thing is, though, you can still stay in one of those friendly, cosy villages at the base and access the huge ski areas above.
And making the most of technology does not just mean installing the fastest, most comfortable queue-gobbling lifts, but also creating lift pass networks that include many neighbouring ski areas on one pass. This means you can often use your ticket at other areas a short bus ride away without needing to pay out for a new pass.
The biggest of these, the Kitzbüheler Alpen AllStarCard, covers more than 1000km of piste above dozens of ski areas surrounding the famous resort of Kitzbühel.
Here are five of our favourite big ski areas in the Tirol :
SkiWelt Wilder Kaiser – Brixental
The name may be a bit of a mouthful, but the long title underlines the fact that “the SkiWelt”, as you are allowed to call it for short, is the biggest ski area in the Tirol, in Austria and indeed one of the biggest in the world with 280km of runs.
Linking together the skiing above nine villages – some of the best known including Ellmau and Söll – with state-of-the-art lifts and wide sunny pistes, the SkiWelt also has Austria’s biggest snowmaking operation, covering 95% of the slopes, so it can cover its vast expanse very quickly when temperatures drop, even when mother nature is playing hard to get with the white stuff.
Although perhaps best known for being big and with lots of snowmaking capability, the SkiWelt also has a strong reputation for being plain, simple fun with loads of terrain parks and more than 70 jolly mountain huts in which to make new friends when you take a breather from all that piste.
Ski Juwel Alpbachtal Wildschönau
One of the newest big ski areas in Tirol was created when two picturesque valleys – Alpbachtal and Wildschönau – decided that after 50 years of carving out their own unique identities, the future lay in getting it together and creating Ski Juwel. By joining their ski areas together, they created a ski domain with 140km of runs and moved into the Tirolean top ten for size in the process. The Ski Juwel’s longest top-to-bottom run is the 7km-long Schatzberg–Auffach piste.
Credit – Alpbachtal Seenland Tourismus
Thankfully, even though they can together now offer skiing for every taste, there’s been no compromise on those individual identities, and off the slopes the Alpbach Valley and the Wildschönau will welcome you with friendly local hospitality.
Serfaus-Fiss-Ladis Ski Resort
One of the least well-known in the UK is big Tirolean ski areas, Serfaus-Fiss-Ladis, which has 160km of linked runs, keeps winning awards for the quality of its slopes and its services in public votes of “Favourite ski areas”, so perhaps we ought to get to know it better.
Credit – Serfaus-Fiss-Ladis Tirol
It’s success as a family-friendly destination is in part due to it investing in some almost theme-park-like on-snow rides that teenagers and young adults love, rather than just focusing on younger children as so many ‘family resorts’ do (although they are top rated for youngsters too with Berta’s Kids Land in Fiss, and Children’s Snow Pasture and Murmli Park in Serfaus).
Credit – Serfaus-Fiss-Ladis Tirol
Adrenaline-packed attractions include the “Skyswing” – a giant swing – and the “Fisser Flieger”, a kind of hang glider suspended below a zip wire which you “fly” down strapped beneath with up to three friends.
Zillertal Arena
The Zillertal Arena interconnect offers skiers more than 140km of diverse terrain to explore above the villages of Zell, Gerlos and Königsleiten on one lift ticket.
What’s more, the area is located in one of the Tirol’s most stunningly beautiful locations, the Ziller Valley, and if you’re staying for four days or more your lift pass automatically upgrades to cover all the lifts in the valley – the other areas a short drive away – tripling your piste count on the pass.
Credit – Zillertal Tourismus_andreschoenherr
But you may never feel the need to move on, as the Zillertal Arena provides skiers and riders of all ability levels a choice of wide-open groomed cruisers, narrow classic runs, moguls, steeps and trees, all serviced by an expansive state-of-the-art lift network, consistently earning awards and praise in international reviews.
Tirols
And a final mention must be made to what will become one of Austria’s three biggest ski areas this coming season – the all new TirolS area, which will be the first cross-provincial border ski area linking the ski area above Tirol’s Fieberbrunn with that of Saalbach Hinterglemm Leogang in neighbouring Salzburgerland to create an area of 240km (150 miles) of piste. This is such big news you’ll find a separate news story about it in this magazine, and we’re sure it’s going to be great.
Credit TVB Paznaun-Ischg
Tirol Info : www.visittirol.co.uk
Tirol’s 10 Biggest Areas : tyrol.com/the-10-largest-ski-resorts
Kitzbüheler Alpen AllStarCard : allstarcard.at
Serfaus-Fiss-Ladis : www.serfaus-fiss-ladis.at/en
SkiJuwel : skijuwel.com
SkiWelt : wilderkaiser.info – skiwelt.at/en
Zillertal Arena : zillertalarena.com
