Where to Ski And Snowboard -

Trying Carinthia

4th January 2012, by Rob Rees

Nassfeld-Hermagor [TVB Nassfeld-Hermagor]

WTSS reader Rob Rees reports back on an interesting pre-Christmas road trip to ski in Austria’s eastern Carinthia region – a good way to keep the costs down and to explore a handful of resorts.

Before Christmas we chose to avoid the so-called budget airline fees by driving to the Austrian Alps. It can work out cheaper if there are at least three paying passengers in your car, and you have your own equipment. And if you split the driving, that’s two 2-hour stints each, or so, and you’ll be dropping down the Fernpass into the Inn Valley quicker than you can say ‘Auf Wiedersehen’.

By doing our own multi resort trip, we skied in uncrowded areas and genuinely felt like we were in our very own secret parts of Austria. We created a different winter holiday, staying by the side of a sunny lake in Austria’s beautiful Kärnten (Carinthia region near the Austro-Slovenian borders) and driving no more than 45 minutes to access a different resort each morning.

We based ourselves by the Millstättersee, a popular summer destination, and skied in Bad Kleinkircheim, Katschberg, Gerlitzen and Turracher Höhe. With the Top Ski Pass Kärnten Osttirol you can include Nassfeld-Hermagor and the Mölltaller glacier too, about 90 minutes away. It covers 32 ski resorts and over 1000km of pistes in and around the lakes. A ‘Ski Carousel’ offer including ski pass is run by the local tourist office www.millstaettersee.at and there are good package deals available through www.region-villach.at.

Turracher Höhe was one of the most fun ‘day resorts’ I’ve experienced. It has steep runs that take you over into nearby Styria from the top of the eastern mountain, a tractor taxi which tows you by rope across the frozen lake and a brilliant toboggan track called the ‘Nocky Flitzer’ from the top of the Panoramabahn. A very enjoyable 38km of skiing, with good views of Austria’s highest peak, the Grossglockner. The skiing reaches almost 3000m.

Head further south-west to Carinthia’s biggest resort of Nassfeld, with 110km of high runs on the border with Italy. Cruising wooded runs such as the 7.6 km Carnia red piste to Gailtal, make this great for intermediates for at least three days. And the area is liberally dotted with huts.

For a shorter day, we spent an afternoon at Gerlitzen which is the home hill of Villach – a delightful town surrounded by three ski areas. Goldeck, on the edge of Spittal an der Drau, may only have 30km slopes but it has the longest black run in the Alps, with 1600m vertical descent on a 8.5km piste. They’ve had 25cm new snow this week too, so the slopes have decent cover.

But don’t miss Katschberg, a glorious drive up the Salzburg motorway. Here you’ll find another gem close to Obertauern and other areas such as Lungau and Grosseck-Speiereck. Katschberg has undergone significant development since the first lift was built on the pass in 1959, proudly adding some unusual architecture in the shape of two award-winning apartment blocks, the Edel:Weiss Residences designed by the Italian architect Matteo Thun. The two towers are covered in a structure made from local larch wood and the shape chosen is a round bodied, diamond rhombus.

We found that much of the skiing was on wide and uncrowded blue and red runs, but there are a couple of good expert must-dos: the off piste trip off the back of the Tschaneck to the Pritzhütte in Gontal, where a warming glass of Zirben schnapps is followed by a rope tow by horse and sleigh back to the main pistes. And, secondly, the fast 6km A1 piste on the opposite Aineck side of the valley, goes all the way down to the village of Sankt Margarethen.

The region has not received as much snow as the west yet, but Nassfeld has a snow base of 20cm at valley level and a metre on the mountain, so is doing fine. And it is cloudy with light snow at present.

Ski safari travel tips:

Crossing the channel – Dover-Calais is the norm, but try the Norfolk Ferry Line via Dunkirk. It’s easy to pick up the Belgian and German motorways from there. It’s a little longer, but avoids the crowds. For good prices try: www.ferrysavers.com

Route to Austria – Satnavs with European maps preloaded make this a doddle now (although beware their tendency to take you down paying autoroutes!). One option: Go via Ghent, Brussels, Aachen, briefly into Holland; then aim for Kerpen, Koblenz, Frankfurt, Stuggart and Ulm, finally towards the Fernpass by Imst.

Distances from Calais to various Austrian resorts and cities:

Innsbruck: 1065km (10hr30)
Salzburg: 1130km (10hr40)
Saalbach: 1175km (11hr35)
Schladming: 1205km (11hr25)
Bad Kleinkircheim: 1285km (12hr)
Nassfeld-Hermagor: 1330km (12hr30)

We have Bad Kleinkircheim on our site here at wheretoskiandsnowboard.com, but for details on the other resorts check out our book’s directory entries and the resort TO links here:

www.gerlitzen.com
www.nassfeld.at
www.katschberg-rennweg.at
www.turracherhoehe.at

Villach, Austria

---

---

Back to all blogs