Birthday skiing in Katschberg

Finally, winter showed its true face, and in Austria the first serious snowfalls arrived already at the end of November. By early December, there was a solid snow cover across the country.

That inspired me to gift Miška a few days of active relaxation. I found a place called Löckerwirt in St. Margarethen im Lungau, offering beautiful rooms, excellent food, and a wellness area. From there, it’s only a 20-minute walk to the Katschberg ski lifts.

On December 5th, when we checked into our room—conveniently located right next to the wellness area—the Katschberg ski resort officially opened the season.

Honestly, we were very pleasantly surprised by the resort. It offers gondolas all the way from the valley to the summit and down into the neighboring valley, some of them brand new, as we learned later. The 80 km of slopes are more than sufficient for a week-long stay—wide, perfectly pitched, and never boring. We had a great time.

On Saturday, December 6th, we covered 33.67 km on the slopes. In the evening, we visited Mautendorf to enjoy the Christmas atmosphere at the castle markets and the popular Krampuslauf. Sunday followed a similar pattern, with 33.22 km skied during the day and an evening visit to Sankt Michael im Lungau.

Monday was Miška’s birthday, which was nicely reflected during breakfast. We managed to ski even more that day, setting a new record of 39.94 km on the slopes.

Alta Badia – Dolomiti Superski

Visiting Cortina last year, we somehow fall in love with the Dolimiti mountains. And as we’re living in Graz, it’s pretty convenient to take an advantage of it’s proximity to Italy.

For this year’s skiing vacation from 22nd of February to 1st of March we decided for Dolomiti Superski resort of Alta Badia  and reserved an apartment called La Varela at the Maso Ranch, just above the Badia Abtai village. At that time, we didn’t know, we are coming just into the middle of the great mountain people culture, named Ladin.

There are 2 long slopes in Alta Badia with new modern lifts reaching to Unesco site Sas dla Crusc (2907m) with Santa Croce on its foot. Wonderful rocky massive, stretching wide just opposite of our apartment.

In few minutes’ drive, you soon arrive to Corvara, Colfosco, La Villa or San Cassiano places forming the spectacular  Alta Badia ski resort offering more than 150 beautiful ski slopes. Also very well known for Sella Ronda – a 44km long skiing circuit (covering 23km of slopes) around Piz Boe (3150m) peak family. Sella Ronda also joins Alta Badia resort with Arabba – Marmolada, Val Di Fassa, Cortina D’Ampezzo and Gardena.    

Obviously in this stunning Dolomiti nature, having just perfect conditions, we did not hesitate and ride as much as we could. Starting on Sunday by 34km, MO 36km, TU 37km, resting on Wednesday then TH 34km, FR 28km and 42km on Saturday we recorded and ultimate all time record within 1 week of 211 slope kms! What a performance, absolutely amazing!