Mountain Sports

Mountain Sports

Hiking & Climbing

Tirol has a good share of the more than 50,000 km (35,000 mi) of well-maintained mountain paths that thread the country. Hiking is one of the best ways to experience the truly awesome Alpine scenery, whether you just want to take a leisurely stroll around one of the crystalline lakes mirroring the towering mountains or trek your way to the top of one of the mighty peaks. Mountain-climbing is a highly organized sport in Tirol, a province that contains some of the greatest challenges to lovers of the sport. The instructors at the Alpine School Innsbruck are the best people to contact if you want to make arrangements for a mountain-climbing holiday or if you wish to attend a mountain-climbing school.

Skiing

Downhill was practically invented in Tirol. Legendary skiing master Hannes Schneider took the Norwegian art of cross-country skiing and adapted it to downhill running. No matter where your trip takes you, world-class -- and often gut-scrambling -- skiing is available, from the glamour of Kitzbühel in the east to the imposing peaks of St. Anton am Arlberg in the west.

Close to the Arlberg Pass is St. Anton, which, at 4,300 feet, proudly claims one of the finest ski schools in the world. The specialty at St. Anton is piste skiing -- enormously long runs studded with moguls (and few trees), some so steep and challenging that the sport is almost the equal of mountain climbing. In fact, this is the only place in Austria where you can heli-ski. It was here in the 1920s that Hannes Schneider started the school that was to become the model for all others. A short bus ride to the top of the pass brings you to St. Christoph, at 5,800 feet. Many excellent tours, served by the Galzip cable railway, start here, but the Skihaserl, or ski bunny, would do well to stay down at St. Anton where there are gentler -- and kinder -- nursery-level slopes. If you care to mingle with royalty on the lifts, then the close-by, posh winter-only villages of Zürs and Lech, on the Vorarlberg side of the Pass, are for you.

Farther along the Inn is the Ötz Valley. From the Ötztal station you can go by bus to Sölden, a resort at 4,500 feet that has become as well known for its party scene as for its superb skiing. The up-and-comer of Austrian ski resorts is Ischgl, in the Paznaun Valley bordering on Switzerland, where good snow is assured by more than 120 mi of runs above 2,000 feet, and where young snowboarders are as numerous as skiers. Long, wide runs resembling those in Colorado go as far as the Swiss border. Not far from Innsbruck is Seefeld, at 3,870 feet, long popular with cross-country skiers for its miles of meticulously groomed tracks. At the farther end of Tirol lies Kitzbühel, chic and charmant, perhaps most famous for its "Ski Safari," a system of ski lifts and trails, some floodlighted at night, that allows skiers to ski for weeks without retracing their steps. The best time for skiing around Innsbruck is January to April.