Stubai
It was 12 years ago that I first visited Stubai Glacier in the to Tyrol region of Austria. I made a further visit in 2007, at which point there had been little change from my earlier visit. Since then however the ski resort has turned from an alternative location for at weekend ski, out of season location or when snow conditions did not suit at lower level ski resorts to a fantastic 10 months of the year ski and snowboard location now offering to facilities for children, freestyle park and enjoyable and some challenging skiing.
It is with that in mind that SnowResort are visiting stood by next week on a tour of glaciers in Austria and also to do a feature on a young family spring skiing for the first time at a glacier.
The new development therefore came as something of a concern initially, but having established it will not disrupt the visit, it looks a development that will enhance the glacier, into a truly 21st-century ski resort for all the snow heads who can’t bear the limitations of the short winter in Europe. The new development which is costing €58 million started in the summer of 2015. However the existing Eisgrat gondola lift continued to service the resort until the end of the winter schedule.
From the beginning of the Stubai spring season the old Eisgrat lift is decommissioned as the next phase of the Eisgrat 3S Gondola which begins its major phase through to completion by 29 October 2016, which is the intended reopening subject to weather and any other issues.
The building work also sees the existing mid station building extended with the development that is seeing the use of 5000 m³ of concrete and a huge 50 fixed pillars with diameters of up to 1 metre, due to the difficult to terrain they are building on.
For people like ourselves travelling for spring skiing the Gamsgartenbahn left will be running as normal and the extent of skiing will remain through until the end of May. The link below takes you to the schedule of skiing through to 29 October 2016