Naomi Bodensteiner takes a close look: Do your guests have everything with them – skis, poles, helmet, goggles? Does the material fit, are your feet nice and warm? The young ski instructor in the Schladming-Dachstein area in Styria has the task of giving her guests a perfect day on the slopes.
“Made my day” is the name of the offer that the Ski amadé association has put under various mottos. There is ski yoga on the Hochwurzen or a day of skiing just for women. Also included: the extremely sporty “Dachstein Experience”. The focus varies depending on the package, but always included: the guides – all trained ski instructors, says Christoph Eisinger, Managing Director of Ski amadé.
In any case, Naomi accompanies the “Guiding Package Schladming-Dachstein” and shows her guests the most beautiful slopes of the four-mountain ski area for half a day. Hauser Kaibling, Planai, Hochwurzen and Reiteralm are the names of the areas in which a total of 123 kilometers of slopes are groomed. There are lots of lifts and opportunities to get lost – but that’s why the 22-year-old ski instructor from Ramsau is there.
The “Dachstein experience” requires strong nerves
Naomi doesn’t just know about skiing and the slopes. She can also tell a lot of stories from the region. For example over the 2995 meter high Dachstein, the highest peak in the federal states of Styria and Upper Austria, which is the scene of an even more adrenaline-packed package: the “Dachstein Experience”.
The suspension bridge that leads to the Ice Palace on the Dachstein is a good 100 meters long
Source: dpa-tmn
The name of the day trip is simple, but behind it is a program for experts. It includes a freeride descent that has it all – adventurous and steep. Even the beginning of the day is not for people with a fear of heights. Because when they arrive at the top of the glacier, the participants have to overcome themselves in order to be able to enjoy the attractions.
A suspension bridge leads towards the Ice Palace with its life-size ice figures: it is 100 meters long and one meter wide, built from 63 tons of steel. Below: 400 meters of nothing. “The bridge can withstand wind speeds of up to 250 kilometers per hour,” says Sandra Danklmaier from the Schladming-Dachstein Tourist Association.
There are many life-size ice sculptures in the Dachstein Ice Palace
Source: dpa-tmn
That sounds utopian, but if you stand on it at ten degrees below freezing and in a strong wind and notice how the bridge moves with every step, you will be quite happy about the built-in safety.
Stop off at a hut after skiing
But before the daredevils get on their skis, there is refreshment in the panorama restaurant. In the luggage for this adventure: probe, shovel, avalanche transceiver and the required via ferrata set. Around 1,600 meters in altitude are conquered over around eight kilometers when the freeriders jet across the southern massif of the Dachstein down to Ramsau.
What to do in the event of an avalanche accident
In the Alps alone, around 100 people die in avalanches every year. WELT reporter Christina Lewinsky from the German Alpine Association found out which equipment helps in an emergency and how experts proceed in the event of danger.
But not everyone “Made my day” starts on a glacier or requires expert knowledge on the slopes. On the contrary: “Many offers are for pleasure skiers,” says Eisinger. So for those who want to enjoy perfectly groomed slopes and the view. Or for those who like to stop off at the huts along the slopes. There are plenty of them, 260 huts and mountain restaurants throughout the Ski amadé area.
Reinhard Schütter is one of the operators. His “Schafalm” on the Planai enjoys a booming business. Not least because of its Valais black noses, a special breed of sheep that primarily drives the next generation of skiers to the barn on the alpine pasture. If you stop here on your tour, you already have a glacier breakfast on the „Schnepf‘n Alm“ behind and a Lumumba on the Hochwurzenalm drunk. And that’s why we hardly spent any time on the slopes.
In Ramsau it’s cross-country skiing instead of alpine skiing
Guide Naomi, however, keeps an eye on space and time – she knows how to get from one mountain to the other without any major detours, where the World Cup downhill runs take place and what the maximum speeds are for the women. “There’s a long jump here,” she explains at one point to the group, which is taking a short breather on the slope. And on another that the downhill skiers drive down there at a good 100 kilometers per hour. Good, the normal skier thinks, it’s also possible to go slower.
Mountain panorama and alpine landscape: In the Ski amadé ski area, everyone gets their money’s worth
Source: dpa-tmn
Or completely different, like over there in Ramsau. There it says: cross-country skiing instead of alpine skiing. In Ramsau there is a Nordic ski center with a total of more than a dozen circular trails on 130 kilometers of classic and around 70 kilometers of skating trails. And there’s Michael Stix with his fat bike rental.
He offers winter tours that have nothing to do with smooth boards – but with more familiar e-bikes whose thick tires are pumped up for snow. Every winter fan can really get their money’s worth in the region – without getting lost.
Tips and information for the Ski amadé ski area
Getting there: From Munich you can get to the Ennstal junction via Autobahn 8 on the German side and then the Austrian Tauernautobahn. From there it is about 30 kilometers to the region via the Ennstal federal road (B 320).
Entry and Corona situation: The Federal Foreign Office provides up-to-date information on his home page.
Position: Schladming, Ramsau and the Dachstein Glacier are in Styria, but belong to the Ski amadé ski association, whose 760 kilometers of pistes are mainly in the Salzburg region. While Nordic skiing is more dominant in Ramsau, Schladming is the starting point for the alpine four-mountain ski area.
Information desk: schladming-dachstein.at; Dachstein Ice Palace: derdachstein.at/de/; Ski amadé ski area: skiamade.com/de; Fat bike rental Ramsau: alpinefatbike.com
This attraction is not for people with a fear of heights: the stairway to nothingness on the Dachstein
Source: dpa-tmn