A ski area on the green wave. In Tyrol they have dealt with the shortage of snow in their own way.
Pleasantly within reach, and therefore without the never-ending questions from the children on the back seat of the car:
“Are we there yet?” is the SkiWelt Wilder Kaiser – Brixental ski resort.
It lies in eastern Tyrol near the well-known Kitzbühel, and from Prague you can drive there in under five hours, even with breaks.
Probably nobody then minds spending only a long weekend there, when they do not lose a large part of their free time on the journey.
The story of the area, the shared one, began forty years ago. The area around the Tyrolean peaks, the highest of which, Hohe Salve, exceeds 1800 metres above sea level, was almost unknown to lovers of winter sports. Today the linked valleys, nine municipalities forming what is essentially a closed circuit, are often an example to others.
It holds wide pistes of every difficulty – comfortable runs for calm turns alternate with steep drops and slopes with moguls, fun parks for snowboarders or free ride.
From Hohe Salve to Itter there are nine kilometres of runs with a vertical drop of 1123 metres. In any case, skiers can descend to the valley by 21 routes and choose their own each day so that they never take the same lift or piste twice. Unless they want to.
The first cable car in the Brixental was in fact built as early as 1947, and in the same year the longest chairlift in the world went up in neighbouring Hopfgarten.
Brixen im Thale holds a first in the 21st century as well, because in 2008 they put into operation the first cable car
in the world to run on solar power. Building the joint resort began very modestly in the seventies.
It was pushed forward only by the idea of linking all the separate organisations and families that owned the cable cars and issuing the first joint ski passes. Today SkiWelt is among the largest and most modern ski areas in the world.
But it came at a cost: since 1977 more than half a billion euros has been invested here.
The winter resort runs mainly on the green wave.
Ecology is talked about here in every possible way. When several winters in the nineties brought little snow, the operators started working on the first snowmaking systems. Today they have fifteen retention reservoirs placed almost invisibly in the landscape, into which melting snow “returns” in summer and which ordinary rainfall helps to fill.
One hundred percent of the electricity needed to run the ski area and to make artificial snow comes from green hydropower.
The solar-powered Sonnenlift has already been mentioned; solar panels can be seen on many buildings. Heating is often handled with pellets, and a biomass power plant or waste heat from the snowmaking equipment is used.
The snow groomers, about sixty-five of which go out every night onto 284 kilometres of pistes, work here with a GPS system for measuring snow and groom only what is needed, which again saves a lot of energy. The investment in the system swallowed half a million euros. The resort spends millions of euros a year on improving services and facilities for skiers.
In season up to 50 thousand people pass through the area a day, and besides skiing the operators try to attract them with the “ice kingdom” at Hochbrixen. Every year around twenty igloos are created by inflating a balloon, placing a snow cannon in front of it and making snow.
That is, if it is cold enough. Artificial snow is more suitable for building than natural snow, but warm nights do not favour snow cannons.
Hardy visitors can spend the night in the smaller ice Eskimo houses, and a “bridal suite” in a romantic ice version with champagne and heart-shaped pillows is also available.
“There is no risk of cold or chill, the igloo is equipped with thick mattresses, extra warm sleeping bags, blankets, furs, in short everything to make the night pleasant,” says guide Anita. For the toilet, however, the overnight guests have to go elsewhere.
The large central igloo, whose walls are 2.5 metres thick, serves as a bar and restaurant with freezing tables formed by a giant block of ice weighing up to 120 kilos, and with benches. In another, forest and farm animals are carved from ice, a little ice zoo on the theme of a Tyrolean village.
The forty-year-old Czech sculptor Jiří Kašpar, who returns to SkiWelt every winter, also takes part in all the ice-carving work.
A chapel is then created from the mass of ice with a chisel and a saw, coloured blue. As Anita confirms, three weddings are already planned for this winter. Besides that, tired skiers or non-skiers can use two floodlit toboggan runs with artificial snow.
Other attractions are not missing either, such as a ride on a horse-drawn sleigh,
snowshoe walks, paragliding, snowtubing, an ice rink and much more.
But the concentration of eastern Tyrolean experiences does not have to take place only in winter. The summer alpine world has long ceased to be an outsider among holidays. So many different superlatives can be experienced here: for example the oldest mountain adventure world in the Alps – the Hexenwasser.
It consists of sixty stations revolving around mountain water, and the longest barefoot trail in Austria leads to them.
On the highest summit, Hohe Salve, the highest chapel or little church with a viewpoint and the highest revolving restaurant with a panoramic rotating terrace will charm you. The village of Ellmau is one of the most frequently filmed in Austria at all. And there is also the most beautiful viewpoint in Tyrol, looking out over seventy-three three-thousanders. Besides that, the Wilder Kaiser is one of the largest areas in the world for e-bikes and for cycling in general.
Rental shops are everywhere, 275 e-bikes are available and, almost everywhere as well, about seventy-five charging stations.
Author of the text: Hana Filipová
Source: E15