Early season ski touring in the Tyrol region of Austria, based in the beautiful Wipptal, near the mountain city of Innsbruck.  This is one of the best locations in the Alps for accessing a wide variety of ski tours and major resorts within a short daily drive.  Regular flights, easy transfers, varied touring, and the option of high altitude glacier skiing all make for a straight forward and reliable trip.

Trip Info

The Tyrol region of Austria is home to many internationally famous resorts and several classic multi day ski tours.  However, it’s less well known that there’s also a huge variety of excellent early season day touring in the region.  Using the mountain village of Matrei am Brenner as a central base allows quick access to hundreds of great day tours across the region, as well as several high altitude glacier resorts nearby, which provide snow sure conditions throughout the winter. During the week, we will reach the touring venues via the local uplift and a group minibus.

Suitability

This is an intermediate level trip. To take part you should be at Fitness Level 2-3 and Tech Level 3 (this is equivalent to Ski Club of GB Purple/Gold off piste ski standard – see our Fitness/Experience guidelines) and have some alpine day touring experience.  You must be able to handle all off piste conditions whilst carrying a day touring pack.  The trip includes 5-6 hour days with typically 700-1000m of ascent a day, at ~300m per hour ascent rate – so you can expect to be skinning for 3-4 hours a day. Type of ascent: 70-100% skinning on this tour – approx. 6000m of skinning up 6-9000m of skiing down.

Guiding ratio

One IFMGA guide skiing with 6 clients.

Included in price

• 6 days of guiding
• All guides expenses
• 7 nights hotel accommodation, including breakfast and evening meal.
• Transport during the trip

Excluded from price (see course factsheet for extra cost estimates)

• Lunch and Drinks
• Flights to Innsbruck
• Airport transfer (a short bus journey to your hotel, and a short return train/bus journey to the airport)
• Insurance
• Equipment hire

Accommodation

Our base for this week is the comfortable Parkhotel Matrei, in the mountain village of Matrei am Brenner. The hotel is a friendly place and well set up for ski touring, with a generous breakfast, 4 course evening meal, access to a ski service and boot drying room, and a sauna and steam room.

Hotel rooms are provided on a twin sharing basis, but if you wish to book a single room please let us know and we will confirm availability. Hotel details can be found on our Accommodation page.

ABTOT Protected

This trip is protected by ABTOT – Alpine Guides Ltd, Membership Number 5394.  For further information, please visit our Financial Protection page.

Subject to weather and snow conditions, the plan is as follows. Please note that this is a sample itinerary only – on trips like this, itineraries are always subject to change as the current snow, weather and avalanche conditions need to be taken into account. This is an essential part of safety planning for all backcountry skiing, so please be ready for changes as part of your trip.

Saturday

Fly from UK to Innsbruck, transfer to the hotel.  Evening Briefing – your guide will run through kit checks and safety routines, before going on to discuss the current weather and mountain conditions and how these affect our plans.

Sunday – Friday

Ski Touring in Tyrol

A great variety of day touring and off piste skiing is available within an hours drive of our hotel.  We’ll choose tours and locations to made best use of the current conditions – typical venues include:

• Nordkette and Axmar – lying right next to the city, these two local ski stations both have great off piste terrain.  Axmar in particular is north facing and a great powder venue after fresh snow.
• Stubai Tal – the Stubai valley offers reliable day tours, as well as extensive glacier skiing and lift assisted touring at the well known Stubai glacier resort.
• Wipptal – a diverse area with a huge range of ski touring options of all standards, on the doorstep.
• Kuhtai – a real hidden gem, Kuhtai has excellent off piste terrain and lift assisted tours, plus some lovely day touring nearby with extensive tree skiing.
• Lusens Tal – this high north facing valley boasts varied and reliable touring throughout the season, with an excellent cafe to finish the day!
• Obernberg Tal – this local ski touring mecca lies up near the Brenner Pass and often has different snow conditions to the valleys further north, making it a useful venue for varied conditions.

Friday PM

Final night in Matrei am Brenner.

Saturday

The Parkhotel Matrei is located  a few  minutes walk from a train station, giving direct access to Innsbruck in 20 mins. At the end of the trip you can depart after breakfast and make your way to Innsbruck for homeward travel.

Your trip is based in Matrei am Brenner, within easy reach of Innsbruck. The most convenient way to reach Innsbruck in winter is fly directly to the city airport, then take a bus/train to our hotel. Alternatively fly into Salzburg or Zurich and catch the train to Innsbruck.

Flights 

• Fly to Innsbruck: check Sky Scanner website for best options.
• Or, fly to Salzburg or Zurich.
• Train from there to Innsbruck: www.oebb.at/en/ (excellent Austrian integrated train/bus timetable)
• Alternatively hire a car at any airport: www.arguscarhire.com / www.holidayautos.co.uk

Transfers

• Outward travel. From the airport, take the shuttle bus to the train station, and then the train to Matrei am Brenner, leaving every 30 mins. Our hotel is a few mins walk from the train station. See timetables here: https://www.oebb.at/en/.
• Homeward travel. From Parkhotel Matrei reverse your outward route: train to Innsbruck then shuttle bus to the airport.

If rental skis/boots have to be collected in Innsbruck, the city centre and a range of rental shops are located a short distance from the airport/train station.

For flights and other travel options, including train, coach and driving, visit our Travel Planning page.

To enjoy this trip you should be comfortable operating at Fitness Level 2/3, and Ski Tech Level 3:

Fitness Level 2
You do 2-3 hours cv training/sport per week. At this level you should be happy doing either a 3-4 hr hillwalk, cycling 30-40 miles or mountain biking 2-3 hours without being exhausted. On foot: you should be able to walk from Ogwen Cottage in North Wales up Glyder Fach – Glyder Fawr – Y Garn – Ogwen in ~5hrs. Or in the Lake District Langdale – Bowfell – Esk Pike – Angle Tarn – Langdale in ~ 6hrs. On skis: you are capable of off piste skiing all day or doing a couple of hours skinning with out finishing up exhausted – ie you can do this for a number of days without taking a rest day.

Fitness Level 3
You do 3-4 hours cv training/sport per week. At this level you are happy doing a 5-6 hr hillwalk, 40-50ml cycle or 3-4hr mountain bike ride without being totally exhausted. If you are into challenges – then the thought of doing a road sportive, or training to do a 1/2 (or maybe even a full) marathon, wouldn’t seem too ridiculous. On foot: you should be able to do the full Langdale Horseshoe: Langdale – Pike of Stickle – Angle Tarn – Bow Fell – Crinkle Crags – Pike of Blisco – Langdale in a day without finishing up exhausted. On skis: you can skin uphill at 300-400m/hr for 3-4 hrs a day (ie 8-1200m of ascent each day)

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Tech Level 3
Confirmed Off Piste Skier. You can put down a reasonable set of tracks in powder, but difficult snow types – eg heavy wet snow, crusts, poor visibility or 40dg slopes – can all cause problems (though you can cope with them safely, if not elegantly!) *Equivalent to Ski Club of GB Off Piste Level: Purple – Advanced*
Likely to say: ‘I’d like to handle difficult snow/steep slopes more confidently in better style’
Our Advice: Off piste coaching still useful. Intermediate off piste weeks are at your level too. If you want to get into ski touring, try a touring course or intro level ski tour. If you’re an established ski mountaineer, then intermediate level tours are generally suitable.

To view all of our Ski Fitness Levels and Off Piste Technical Levels, please visit our Ski Ability page.

If you need to top up your fitness for this trip, please see our Ski Touring Training Advice page.

Off Piste Ski Ability Levels

To join this trip, you need to be skiing at Tech Level 3 or higher on our 5 point scale. Use the descriptions above and the following video to help work out your current off piste ski ability level.

Day Touring Equipment List

Just remember, every extra kilo on your back knocks 10% off your enjoyment on the descents – so try and keep the weight down!

Technical Clothing

• Waterproof Jacket – preferably lightweight and breathable
• Overtrousers/ski pants – preferably with side zips
• Fleece mid layer or equivalent
• Spare fleece or lightweight insulated duvet jacket
• Socks – specialist ski socks or a warm loop lined pair of mountain socks
• Wicking thermal top – not cotton please…
• Thermal leggings or ski pants
• Thin inner gloves
• Warm ski gloves or mittens, if you suffer from cold hands
• Warm hat

Personal Items

• Water container – at least 1 litre
• Personal medications and blister kit – regular meds, zinc oxide tape, compeed and painkillers etc
• Ski goggles
• Sun glasses – CE rated 3 or 4 with side protection
• Sun and lip cream – factor 30+
• Wallet, passport and insurance docs

Technical Equipment

• Rucsac 25/35l – try and avoid ones covered in too many features, just ski and ice axe attachments required
• Ski mountaineering boots
• Skis with touring bindings – lightweight pin binding setup required. Heavy freeride setups not suitable. Older style bar/rail bindings (Fritschi Freeride, Marker Duke etc) not allowed – please update your kit!
• Ski strap – to keep skis together on your rucksack if we need to carry them
• Ski poles – with good size 5cm+ baskets (telescopic poles are not needed)
• Climbing skins – they come with the skis if you hire your kit
• Harscheisen (ski crampons) – they come with the skis if you hire your kit
• Metal snow shovel – must be a full metal shovel (plastic blades don’t work in real avalanche debris!)
• Avalanche probe
• Avalanche transceiver – must be a modern digital model (older analogue models are now obsolete)
• Harness, with 120cm sling and locking karabiner
• Crampons – bring them if you have them
• Ice Axe – bring if you have one
• Ski Helmet – lightweight ski touring or backcountry model preferred.  Wearing a helmet is compulsory on descents and may be needed on other parts of the route depending on conditions

Your guide will have all other safety kit, first aid and survival equipment.

Recommendations and Advice
Visit the Knowledge Base section of our website, where we publish an annual review of the years best new skis, boots and touring equipment, plus a range of other interesting tips and recommendations. If you can’t find what you’re looking for, please get in touch!

Purchasing Equipment
Backcountry UK in Otley offer an excellent ski touring boot fitting service, one of the best ranges of ski mountaineering equipment in the UK and top notch advice.

Hiring Equipment
Please visit our Equipment Hire page for recommended hire shops in your resort, and Alpine Guides hire equipment price list.

For this trip you must have specialist travel insurance providing medical, emergency search/rescue and repatriation cover for off piste skiing and ski touring, as outlined in the trip itinerary. We also strongly recommend that you purchase cancellation cover, in case you’re unable to attend your trip due to personal circumstances or injury. Please arrange your insurance as soon as your trip is confirmed to run.

Further details can be found on our insurance info page.