Austria > Ski area Skiwelt

Today I’m going skiing with Ron in the Skiwelt ski area near Ellmau and Scheffau. We leave at half past eight. It’s about a half-hour drive to Scheffau. We’re lucky — we get one of the last parking spots in the main parking lot. When buying a day pass for the ski area, we find out we get a discount. We get a “manner” discount. Tuesday during Carnival is Women’s Day in Austria, hence the discount. This saves us fifteen euros. We’re not complaining. With the gondola, we enter the ski area. There are over ninety ski lifts and more than 280 kilometers of ski slopes. We decide to ski to Hopfgarten, one of the farthest points on the ski map. To get there, we have to take several lifts

Austria - View of the slopes of the Wilden Kaiser ski area

. Along the way, we also take a few extra slopes. At Söll, we reach the top of the 1,829-meter-high Hohe Salve. There’s a church at the summit. From this highest point in the ski area, we can also see the ski villages Kirchberg, Westendorf, and Brixen. On the other side of the mountain, we descend towards Hopfgarten. This is clearly the sunny side of the ski area. The snow here is much worse. We come across a section of the slope full of snow piles.

Austria - A healthy lunch during skiing

Everyone struggles through it — us too. At the start of the descent to Hopfgarten, the snow is already poor. This is at 1,100 meters altitude. Hopfgarten lies at 600 meters. We don’t expect good snow conditions there. We decide not to go down. Instead of having lunch in Hopfgarten, we take a chairlift up. There’s a restaurant here. On the spacious terrace, I eat a currywurst with fries. In the afternoon, we ski back to Scheffau via slopes on the other side. We end the ski day in the Skiwelt area with a downhill run to Scheffau. We return our ski passes.

Austria - A beer at the bottom of the slope after skiing

From the two-euro deposit per card, we order a beer at an outdoor bar. It turns out to be not enough for two beers, so we add some cash. In the afternoon, we drive back to Kössen. We’re back in time for dinner. Fred has reserved a table at Gasthof Rainer, a restaurant in the center of Kössen. During dinner, we hear about the others’ experiences. The girls are making progress during ski lessons.