Zillertal Valley, Austria

A snowHead

Zillertal Valley, Austria

This is based on a week’s visit in Jan 2008 with own car.

The valley entrance is about 25 miles from Innsbruck at the Weising Juction on A12, which is the trunk road linking Innsbruck with Munich.

Zillertal Valley claims to have 167 chairlifts and 639km piste. I would describe it to have 7 unlinked areas as follow

(1) Fugen – 5 miles from Weising junction from A12. A small resort in Spieljoch area.

It has 7 lifts. Max piste number is 5 but it does have 1a and 1b runs too. Length of piste not known as its piste map is integrated with Hochzillertal at Kaltenbach, which is 5 miles away.

(2) Kaltenbach - 10 miles from Weising junction. Claims to have 155km piste. Made up by the main area call Hochzillertal facing the main Zillertal Valley, Hochfugen, which is a hidden valley at the back of Hochzillertal and the Spieljoch of Fugen which is separate and not linked.

Kaltenbach has the biggest car parking facilities (7 car parks one being a purposely built 4-storey car park accessible from the main road) in the Zillertal Valley. Obviously it must attract more visitors than the rest of the valley.

Kaltenbach is very modern and has been set out as an ambitious resort to attract visitors. An excellent skiing resort in its own right. It does not appear to have plenty accommodations for international skiers wanting to stay for a week although 155km piste is a good size and the resort has adequate facilities for the beginners and early intermediates. We found the back slopes at the Hochfugen end rather tame. As typical for Austrain resorts the domain is mainly formed by red slopes well linked together.

(3) Zillertal Arena – 15 miles from the Weising motorway junction. The starting point is Zell which has 4 large car parks. Should be the biggest resort in Zillertal Valley according to the claimed 163km piste. It is a long side branch of the Zillertal Valley. The skiing starts from Zell to Gerlos, then Konigsleiten and finally reaches Krimml. For many skiers it is a full day job just to ski to the far end, grab a lunch and return. immediately.

Very enjoyable resort with excellent facilities. My reservation is the link to the far end requires skiing over a long black slope which is the only link between Gerlos and Knoigsleiten. While this black isn’t difficult it can deter some less experienced visitors trying to explore the full length of the resort.

The Gerlos area has been laid out as a beginner-friendly area and can be relatively crowded.

The Zell area also has adequate facilities for the beginners but the attraction of the Zillertal Arena to me is to ski its full length.

The distance by road from Zell to Konigsleiten is 12 miles, with some hairpin bends, and my estimate of the distance for a full round trip must be in the order of 40 to 45 km, including distances in the chairlifts.

(4) Gerlossteinwand – This is a tiny resort off the mountain road between Zell and Konigsleiten. I went there when it was snowing heavily. One can access it either by the Gerlossteinwand gondola on the main road near Hainzenberg or by a quiet single-person chairlift available at Ramsau.

Gerlossteinwand is more famous for its sledge run than skiing. On the day I visited there I was the only one parking the car at Ramsau. When I finished for the morning 5 more cars joined. When I skied down to the Gerlossteinwand and took the gondola up it was the first time I had to wait at the station just for more passengers to turn up. There were about 10 people with sledges and I was the only one with skis going up the gondola.

(5) Mayrhofen area – I refer this to a fully linked area between Horberg, Penken, Finkenberg, Rastkogel and Eggalm because the area can be accessed by a gondola from any of the above mentioned locations. This area is about 20 miles from Reising.

This is a main skiing area of Zillertal Valley with 157km piste fully linked. Penken gondola station situated at the heart of Mayrhofen and so I take it when people say skiing in Mayrhofen they go to this area.

Many information on this area single out two black slopes. The No. 17 “Devil’s run” and No. 18 “Harakiri”. The latter is ranked the steepest in Austria and there are signs at the top of the run to reinforce this fact.

Harakiri is groomed and I saw a photo showing a snow bashing machine on a cable tow to prepare the piste. Thus in substance Harakiri should be at the limit of a groomed black piste.

The wife and I tried it. She fell and I just managed it. During our brief time at the slope we witnessed about 6 skiers lose control and fell. I would estimate this representing about of 15% of the skiers trying Harakiri at the time we were there. There is no doubt in our mind that there are more skiers falling at this black slope than the others we have seen.

The “Devil’s run” is different in that it is slightly terraced. The gradient increases with each terrace and the last one is the steepest, although there is a blue slope crossing it providing an escape route.

The Mayrhofen skiing area is enjoyable because the bowl formed between Penken and Horberg is well shielded from the wind. With brilliant sunshine, well prepared and extensive piste plus not many skiers competing for space make this area particularly attractive.

(6) Ahorn – This is a very small area with 5 lifts and 5 runs accessible from Mayrhofen but at the opposite site of Penken/Hoiberg/Finkenberg area. It claims its 160 persons cable car being the largest in the world.

We spent only the morning in Ahorn to warm up for the first day and enjoyed the area very much. We could ski all the way back to the bottom cable car station and piste was in excellent condition, which we found to be typical in Zillertal Valley. \the valley is big enough and have so many areas to dissipate the visiting skiers. The run down to the cable car station appears very steep if viewing from the Mayrhofen town centre but it is only a typical Austrian red slope.

(7) Hintertux – This is at the dead end of the Zillertal Valley with a glacier. It consistently claimed to have the deepest snow in Austria. Hintertux is about 32 miles from the Reising junction of A12 motorway. Thus the total length of the Zillertal Valley is about 32 miles deep.

As with any skiing in a glacier it is always a very windy, cold and icy at the top. Hintertux is no different but even more windy. I couldn’t point my finger at its root it but the valley must be channelling the wind upward at Hintertux as nowhere in the valley the wind could be that strong and persistent.

I still think a skier should visit Hintertux at least once for the experience. It is surreal to see the snow being blown continuously at your feet like sand. We particularly like the back of the glacier which seemed to a lot calmer and facing the sun. Any skiing opportunity above 3200m level is not to be missed.

Hintertux has 86 km piste and skiing is a lot more enjoyable once a skier comes away from the summit.

The wife and I spent a week there sampling each area. We enjoyed it totally and have fond memory of its back runs. We found the skiing facilities first class everywhere we go. The number of skiers is a lot less than those found in France and Italy making skiing much more relax and free. The queues were non existent to us because by staying in Mayrhofen we could get to each resort early, park close to the chairlift, board the gondola quickly and disappear into the mountain before seeing any crowd. Accommodation wise we paid 22 Euro per head for B&B in an en-suite room for two and within short walking distance to two Gondola stations. We didn’t drink much but the loud music and dancing seemed to be the norm at the bottom of every gondola station in the valley.

As the distance between the first resort Fugen and the last one at Hintertux is 27 miles. Visiting various areas by ski bus is possible but lengthy. The valley is a lot easier to explore with a car. To go round the whole valley one needs the Zillertal superskipass which is 176 Euro for 6 days or less than 30 Euro per day. It appears passes longer than 3.5 days have to be the superskipass type. Thus any skier staying at any one area for over 3.5 days would be paying for the privilege of skiing 639km piste of the whole valley regardless.

A snowHead

Good report Toofy Grin

Just a couple of minor additions - It is possible to get to the far end of the Zillertal arena without skiing the black, as the chair back up it can be used to go down as well. There were quiet a few people coming down the chair as we were going up it returning on that route.

And if you want to be able to ski most of the areas from a fixed base without a car, you will find it easiest if you stay in either Zell or Hippach, reasonably close to the train stations. From Zell, I was able to reach Kaltenbach in 15 minutes from my hotel, and the Horbergbahn gondola into the Mayrhofen area in less than 25 minutes. It would still have been a fair trek to reach Hintertux though.

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alex_heney,

Fair points.

Not many skiers like Hintertux. There were two German skiing couple staying in the same Mayrhofen pension with us. We met unexpectedly in Hintertux one day. The next day we went to a different area but the German couple returned back to Hintertux. The husband broke a bone and they had to cut short of the holiday.

My wife was blown down once we skied there. She was just standing.

Zillertal Valley seems to have different resort owners as each of the above resorts issue its own piste map. Thus a skier staying in one area is not fully aware of what the rest of the valley can offer, even he/she may have paid for the superskipass entitling unlimited visits to the entire valley.

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

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Zillertal Valley, Austria

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