When you’re a freerider, you know that best lines aren’t always found in the biggest resorts. Sometimes, the little gems offer the best freeride experience. But there might be an exception where bigger might be better. It was announced this week that Fieberbrunn will be connected with Saalbach-Hinterglemm. This connection will open a huge potential of north facing slopes.
Fieberbrunn is marketing itself as a freeriders destination for years now, whereas Saalbach-Hinterglemm is one of the après-ski capitals of the world. They’ve been talking about the connection for years and this will be realized before the start of winter 2015/2016. A new gondola will connect the Reiterkogel in Hinterglemm with the Reckmoos-Süd lift in Fieberbrunn. As far as we know this expansion isn’t critized by local preservers of nature or other locals (but hey, that kind of news isn’t released of course).
The gondola will be connected with the base of the existing Reckmoos-Süd lift. The new gondola will get an own mid-station in the valley of the Hörndlinger Graben. It will take you directly to the top of the Reiterkogel from there. It won’t come as a surprise that a new slope is going to be build from the Reiterkogel down to the valley. That bowl is pretty awesome for freeriding right now, but we’ll have to see how this new slope will effect the riding. The total investment is around 18 million euros. We’re wondering if this connected area will be part of the Salzburger Superski Card AND the Tiroler Snowcard, since Fieberbrunn is Tirol and Saalbach-Hinterglemm is Salzburg.
Huge freeride potential
There will be much more freeride terrain that can be accessed more easily with the opening of this new lift. The mostly mellow southern facing slopes above the twin villages of Saalbach and Hinterglemm offered a couple of days of powder before the sun did its dirty work. We can probably add some interesting terrain. Steep, north facing slopes that will be accessible from the ridge between the Reiterkogel, HochalmSpitze and Spieleckkogel. This will expand the freeride potential of both areas with around 20-25%.
Advantages of the new lift
In the first place there is the advantage of not having to hike back to the base of the Reckmoos-Süd lift when you descended on the southern slopes of the Hohen Madstein. You can ride down to the base and the new lift will bring you back. The other advantage might be the easy access to the north faces mentioned above. The ridge is around six kilometers long and offer runs with 850 vertical meters between 1150 and 2000 meters altitude. So, eventually, the opening of this new lift just might turn out to be a good thing for freeriders. What do you think?