Kitzbühel skiing opens this weekend

10th October 2018, by Dave Watts

One of the pistes that will be open this weekend for early season skiing

Kitzbühel in Austria will begin the winter season this weekend, Saturday 13 and Sunday 14 October and will be the first non-glacier ski area in the Alps to open for the 2018/19 season.

It will be opening pistes served by the Resterkogel fast quad chair in the Resterhöhe sector, reached by using the Panoramabahn Kitzbüheler Alpen II gondola.

Kitzbühel is able to open this early because of ‘snow farming’. The resort stored snow from last winter over the summer in huge piles under cover to protect it from melting.

One of the piles of snow kept from last winter

Now they have spread it over the pistes using piste grooming machines and it makes a great surface on which to find your ski legs again.

Piste bashers have been hard at work spreading the farmed snow

In fact the farmed snow makes such a good surface that the pistes will be closed to the public again from 15 to 19 October and used by the Austrian and other international ski teams for training. They will re-open again for public skiing on 20 October and stay open for the rest of the season.

The Hahnenkamm gondola will open to take skiers to the Walde piste later this month

On 26 October, Kitzbühel’s Hahnenkamm/Walde area will open for skiing, too, reached by the Hahnenkamm gondola followed by the fast six-seater Walde chair.  Pistes here will be open daily from 26 October to 4 November, then at the weekends only until 24 November, when they will open daily for the rest of the season.

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