Tue, 04/27/2010 - 11:34amResort Check: Kaunertal, Austria

We visited in the summer, read on for a first hand account of the trip or skip down to see the resort stats >>

A glacial resort about an hour and a half drive from Innsbruck, Kaunertal is often an off-season base for racers – you can often see guys in Lycra bodysuits milling about in the car park throwing some lunges. When we visit it’s not (entirely) for that…

Each May Kaunertal is the venue for The Snowboard Test; an end of season get together where the UK snowboard fraternity meet up to put in a few turns on next year’s hardware. Although there is often a decidedly end-of-season atmosphere floating around the test centre up on the hill, we’ve actually been blessed, on more than a couple of occasions, with genuinely wintery weather.

 

Fresh pow in May

In fact in May 2009, we even got a proper day of fresh powder riding. It’s handy that the good folk at Kaunteral thought it a good idea to swap out a nasty, overly-long glacier drag-lift with the Karlesjochbahn gondola too. So now, instead of a groin-tearing tow to the top, there’s the plush surroundings of a new gondola. And from the top there are plenty of easily accessed lines back to the base, with only a small traverse involved. We hear there are also plans to further open the terrain up with another lift. This time stretching to the top of the Weissseespitze peak, stretching the vertical limit of the resort another couple of hundred metres to 3518 metres.

A freestyle resort at heart

Although the easily accessed powder potential is a definite draw, Kaunertal is probably best known as a freestyle resort. Each year the mountain opens in October with a bit of a do and competition that kind of kicks off the whole Euro season. The park is always well put together with a couple of kicker lines and a few rails, as well as a well-shaped pipe for those that fancy it too.

 

Stay in Feichten

Being stuck on a glacier means that, although snow is guaranteed virtually year round, there aren’t any real facilities for sleeping. For that luxury you’ll have to head down the access road for about 45 minutes to the town of Feichten where there are plenty of hotels and apartments for rent.

The town itself isn’t exactly a thriving metropolis, although there are a couple of decent bars and few restaurants, ranging from those attached to hotels to pizzarias and the like. Actually, every time we’ve been to town, it’s been part of The Snowboard Test, and party activity is attacked with as much gusto as the riding, with a kind of competition between the various elements of British snowboarding keen to put on a better party than the night before’s effort.

We’ve never been to Kaunertal outside of the end of season constraints of the Snowboard Test and haven’t managed to get to the region’s second (unconnected) area at Fendels. As a glacial place, tucked away off the radar it rates pretty highly with a fairly wide variety of terrain on offer, from some cracking easy access powder through to the super well-maintained park.

 

Resort info: Kaunertal, Austria

Air

The nearest airport is Innnsbruck, about a 90 minute (100km away). EasyJet offer a good winter service to Innsbruck.

 

Transfers

Landeck train station at the bottom of the valley is a 30-minute bus ride away. It’s well served by trains from the direction of both Innsbruck and Friedrichshafen.
 

Accomodation

Your best bet for any accommodation is to get in touch with the Tourist Office (see below). They can sort you out with a range of places to stay from self-catering apartments to half board packages.

 

Eating and Drinking

Most hotels in town run half-board packages and have restaurants. Pizza Rustica on the outskirts of Feichten does a decent pizza. Prices start from about €8.

The Pfiff Alm pub is probably your best bet of an evening. The Zappa Dello is the liveliest place, with DJs at the weekends (and a mirror-ball).
 

Lift Tickets

1 day €40 (approx.)
6 day €150 (approx.)
 

Tourist Office

Phone Number +43 (0)5475 2920
Website: www.kaunertal.com
www.kaunertaler-gletscher.at

Resort Stats

Pistes: 36km
Lifts:     8
Terrain Parks: 1
Highest Altitude: 3160m
Lowest Altitude: 2150m
Beginner pistes: 55%
Intermediate pistes: 28%
Advanced pistes: 17%
 

Words by Andy Cremin | Photography by James Bryant.

The above article was originally printed in Document Snowboard Magazine issue 62

 

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