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Kleinarl / Flachauwinkel ☆☆☆

8th January 2009 permanent link

Times visited:	once
Last visited:	today (January 2009)
Rating:	Good

Small but charming ski area in between the larger resorts of Wagrain, Flachau and Zauchensee, with a lift connection to Zauchensee. We visited it as the start and end of a multi-mountain family ski adventure, Kleinarl-Flachauwinkel-Zauchensee and back, so were more concerned with making progress than taking our time and looking around, but were charmed and impressed nevertheless.

Also impressed that my five year old son, at the end of his second ever week of ski school, finished a day out, there and back over three mountains, crying because the lifts were closed, complaining that his parents ski/snowboard like lahme Schnecken (lame snails: true), and clamouring to do more.

Very pretty forested mountain scenery, good on-piste snow at the moment. Off-piste (as everywhere else in the area currently) old, hard and tracked out; but it looks like there would be loads to play with after a decent snowfall. Not many pisted runs, but certainly enough to be interested for a couple of days, and it’s on the same lift pass as the surrounding bigger resorts. The Flachauwinkel side is east-facing and Kleinarl is west-facing, so it’s possible to ski in the sun morning and afternoon. The Flachauwinkel side is quite easy-angled, which means the family-friendly blue runs are wide open slopes, a lot more pleasant and interesting than the narrow and boring Skiwege that tend to dominate the blue runs on the bigger and steeper mountains hereabouts.

Highly recommended area for beginner and family skiers. Looks like it would be great fun for snowboarding given decent off-piste snow conditions. Probably not much here for advanced skiers (despite Flachauwinkel being the home of downhill legend Hermann Maier) but I don’t care about that.

related entries: Snowboarding

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