BACKGROUND
About three and a half years ago, I was partying with all of my friends at the infamous Charlie’s Mountain View in Government Camp, Oregon. It was a going away party–I was moving to Germany with my partner and our dog in 4 days. I had lived in Govy every winter for 10 years and this place was like my living room.
A grizzled old Charlie's regular was sitting in the corner of the bar. He motioned for me to come talk to him and he asked me what the party was for. I told him about my future plans. He listened intently and then immediately said one thing:
“As soon as you get there, go to Sölden.”
SOLDEN OVERVIEW
In general, I always listen to grizzled old-timey ski town people. So, I arrived in Europe in November of 2019 with big plans to head to Sölden in March of 2020. I booked a hotel and had my sights set on this magical mountain valley. But, we all know what happened in winter of 2020 and long story short my trip was cancelled and it took me 3.5 years to finally get there. But I made it! And dang it was everything I hoped it would be.
Over the long Easter weekend, my partner, my dog and I drove the 5 hours south from our place in Erlangen, Germany to Sölden, Austria. The standard route on the A12 through Innsbruck is lined with distant glacier-topped mountains that welcome you to the Alps. It’s so impressive! Eventually you hit the exit for the Ötztal Valley, and this is where you head into those mountains. The road to Sölden is lined with tiny villages and places to stop for lunch. If you keep going past Sölden, you end up in the Obergurgl/Gurgl area, which is the last of the Austrian ski resort areas on this route before you enter Italy. You also have the option to train/bus into Sölden from larger cities like Munich or Innsbruck!
The red point is Sölden. The gold star is my favorite place in Switzerland.
Sölden itself is really interesting. It sits within a super narrow mountain valley, surrounded by huge rock formations at the foot of each mountain. My partner estimated he could run across the entire valley in 3 minutes. He also estimated he could throw a football over them mountains. In all seriousness, it’s that narrow! Massive vertical mountains rise out of each side of the valley like natural walls.
Sölden as seen from the Gaislachkogelbahn gondola
Really cool rock formations everywhere!
A green-colored glacial river called the Ötztaler Ache runs straight through the center of town. There are about 7 small bridges connecting each side of town to the other that are sprinkled along the river. I walked my dog along the gravel trail on this river each morning and evening and it was a dream! There’s also easily accessible giant fields along the river walk for you to play fetch with your furry best friend.
Ötztaler Ache
Fetch time!
I will admit that we didn’t spend a lot of time in downtown Sölden. I had heard stories about this little valley village turning it up late at night with a wild Après scene! Like, bars-with-no-closing-time wild. Someone gave us a heads up that the south end of town was a bit more chill, and with an anxious / sound sensitive dog in tow we went that route. We scored a discount rate at The Secret Sölden and HOLY MOLY it was the nicest hotel I’ve ever stayed at in my life. It’s brand new and includes an indoor/outdoor pool, sauna, amazing breakfast, snacks and drinks from 2-5pm, and it’s dog friendly! The rooms had full kitchens so we did a lot of cooking at our place to save some money.
Pro tip: when staying overnight in European ski towns, email the hotel directly with your travel dates to get “offers” on their rooms. They’ll usually work with your budget or price match if you’re friendly about it and know how to make a fair deal.
This week was our hotel's last week of being open so we got really lucky. We didn't realize it until this trip, but a lot of mountain village hotels close for the shoulder season to go on vacation and regroup for the summer season. We talked to a bunch of the staff at our hotel and they were all going on to other jobs on cruise ships, hotels in Switzerland and Spain! What a life!
I purchased our lift tickets in advance online since they are a bit cheaper that way. They scan your QR code at the ticket desk and give you your passes, or you can use the automated machines outside the ticket office. Save your passes if you plan to ride more than one day because they will reload them and give you a discount the next day! For two adults to ride all day, it was $136 total. That's not a typo. Just $68 each for an entire day in the Alps.
The rideable area in Sölden ski area is insane. HERE IS A MAP so you can follow along! This area has 144km of rideable ski slopes, connected by 31 lifts. Three of those lifts give you access to mountains over 3000m: the Gaislachkogl (3,058 m), the Tiefenbachkogl (3,250 m) and the Schwarze Schneid (3,340 m) otherwise known as the BIG3. The scale is just crazy. There’s cool viewing platforms at these three lifts, and one of them is devoted to the newest James Bond film Spectre, which was filmed here.
There are two huge skiable glaciers within this area, called the Rettenbach and Tiefenbach. The FIS Ski World Cup Opening traditionally takes place on the Rettenbach, since the slope conditions in autumn are ideal. Year round skiing at its best!
Our first night in Sölden was simply walks along the river and carb loading and a good nights sleep for our big day in the mountains the next day.
DAY 1
Finally, we are going to ride Sölden! We checked out the snow report and saw that it was snowing pretty hard up there, so we opted for our low light lenses and snowboards in case we found any powder stashes. After an awesome Tyrolean breakfast and a huge session of fetch, we gathered our gear and walked west across the river bridge closest to our place. There are two gondolas from the west side of the valley up to the mountains. On the south end of town there’s the Gaislachkogelbahn, and on the north end of town there’s the Giggijochbahn. Our hotel is a 3 minute walk from the Gaislachkogelbahn gondola, just across the river, so we always started and ended our days here.
The bridge from our hotel to the Gaislachkogelbahn gondola
Today there are zero crowds. No lift lines. Hardly anyone around. On Easter weekend! Pretty crazy. The weather isn’t the best, so maybe that’s why. It’s unseasonably cold (19F up top, 35F at base) and low visibility due to snow, but we are prepared for these conditions.
Our goal for the first day was to make it to the top of the Schwarze Schneid, which seems like it would be easy since our Gaislachkoglbahn starting point is due south. What we discovered was that the way the lifts are arranged, combined with the distance between each mountain, meant it took nearly 2 hours get up there! The lift-accessed runs in Sölden are NO JOKE LONG which is awesome. You get tons of riding in between lifts. Like, riding for 45 minutes straight on a single run! There are lots of huts along the way for quick snacks and espresso stops. We made our way to the 6-person Langegg lift and this ride got us over to where we could start traversing to the Schwarze Schneid. This journey is beautiful, and it follows the Rettenbach glacier valley (Rettenbach Tal) between the mountains. Visibility is not great, but we’re still going for it.
This 3D map in town does a much better job at showing how the mountains are arranged! This was our journey to Schwarze Schneid. Pink lines are lifts up, blue lines are our ski runs down. Green line is the long run out we did to the base at the end of our day.
We finally see our gondola: the Schwarze Schneid! We can’t see much. Maybe it’s clear at the top? We head up and it’s snowing and blowing but we are stoked! No views due to visibility, so we headed down.
Our chariot to the top!
Low vis on the gondola
Follow me into the snow globe!
Right away you’re faced with a choice: go through the ski tunnel to the backside of the Schwarze Schneid OR continue down toward the Rettenbach glacier. We stood at the tunnel for a while; it was impossible to see to the end, and we were concerned about visibility on that side of the peak. It was literally a choose your own adventure!
We decided to bail on danger tunnel and made our way towards the glacier. Suddenly, a break in the snowy haze showed us what we were looking for…a glorious untouched powder stash!! It was the Karleskogl rope tow lift, and it had been closed for what looked like days. About 7” of fresh had piled up under it, and when you've had the low snow year we've had here in Europe, you get very very excited for 7" of new snow! We followed that line down to the start of the Schwarze Scheid gondola, and did this circuit 3 more times until our legs were completely toast. By the last time down, a few others had joined us and we shared a lot of whoops together!
Side country powder
Our legs are on fire, and we know what awaits us: A looooooong runout into the village, on snowboards. We took lots and lots of stops and slowly made our way to the Gaislachkoglbahn base area, which was covered with snow the entire way down despite it being a super low snow year in the valley. The Austrians are excellent at snow moving / creation!
DAY 2
Today we are on skis! After a night of light snow / wind in the valley and moderate snow /wind in the mountains, we woke up to a blue sky day! We started this day the same as Day 1, and this time made a bee line for the top of Schwarze Scheid. We had to get back to danger tunnel and see what the backside of this mountain was all about! The trail conditions were not great early on. We had wind blown dry powder on hardpack, and really weird low contrast visibility due to a combo of shade and high clouds. Once we got over to the Rettenbach area though, things had started to soften and brighter sun added some much needed shadows to the snow! There are definitely more people here today, but still no lift lines to talk about.
The view looking up the Rettenbach Tal toward Schwarze Schneide. This was taken while riding the Gletscherexpress Gondola. You can see the runout / people skiing along the left side of the valley.
Riding up the Schwarze Schneid gondola we got a chance to really see our powder stash from the day before. The views today were astounding! If we had only known what was around us yesterday! The stash had been ripped to shreds by the lucky people who found it today.
The top of our secret powder stash from the day before
We descended from the top and this time went through danger tunnel aka the longest skier tunnel I’ve ever skied through and finally got a chance to see the backside, with views of Wildspitze (the second highest mountain in Austria at 3,768 m / 12,362 ft) and the Tiefenbach glacier!
Tiefenbach glacier
The runs were a bit steeper and a bit softer over here in the sun and it was a LOT of fun. There were a lot more people in this area compared to other parts of the mountain. Visability was good and snow conditions were ideal over here though so it made sense.
The rest of the day was spent making our way back over to the Giggijochbahn area and took it easy cruising around in that region before making our way back to the Gaislachkoglbahn mid station, where we hopped a ride back down to the village to skip out on the super slushy narrow runout to town. You can see the end of the runout in the first image!
BOTTOM LINE
Sölden is a really special place that I will certainly come back to again. At $68 for a full day lift pass and access to an insane amount of terrain and elevation, your options are endless at a really reasonable price point. My dream trip back would be with a guide to take me up onto the Tiefenbach glacier on a tour.
OTHER BITS OF INFO:
Check out the BIG3 Rally, a 4ish hr 50km ski circuit with incredible views and LOTS of elevation gain/loss.
Sölden is also home to the Electric Mountain Festival. It started up the day we left. If you’re into multiple days of dance music and enjoy watching DJ’s with mountainous backdrops, this is the event for you! In all honesty if I had known about it previously I would have bought tickets but I also have a job so you know…gotta get back to real life!