Austria's "Highest" Ski Resort

Sometime in early April after a day of skiing I discovered that both of my ski boots had developed cracks more than 1 cm in length in their upper cuff.  Not good.  It's the end of the season and I went around town looking for replacement boots, to no avail.  Then I walked into Sport Wolf, a little outside of the main core of Innsbruck. 

The owner, Hansjörg, took great interest in my situation.  He contacted Salomon, who provided me a 40% discount on a new pair (my old boots were at least 6 seasons old and well outside of warranty).  A couple days later they arrived and after an initial fitting at Sport Wolf I'm back in business.  Much thanks to Hansjörg for outstanding service.  

I decided that I should get a couple of hours of skiing in the boots and decided to go to Kuhtai for a few laps on Friday.  It was the closest resort to Innsbruck that is still open and can be reached by bus in about an hour.  

Kuhtai markets itself as Austria's highest ski resort at 2,020 meters elevation.  

There are, however, three caveats to that claim.  First, their highest lift elevation is 2,520 meters, and there are many Austrian ski areas that exceed that.  Second, they actually have lifts that go below 2,020 meters, including one, the Kaiserbahn, which starts at 1,938 meters.  Finally, there are Austrian resorts with base elevations above 2,020 meters (Pitztal Glacier, Kaunertal Glacier, and Mölltal Glacier).  I guess the distinction is that the village of Kühtai sits at 2,020 meters and perhaps that is what is meant by resort.  

Kühtai sits in an east-west oriented mountain pass between the Sellrain Valley to the east and the Neder Valley to the west.  Given it's altitude, it is essentially treeless.  It has south facing terrain on the north side of the pass and north facing terrain on the south side.  

Coverage on Friday was good on for the north-facing terrain, but the south-facing terrain was nearly snow free below about 2200 meters except along trails with snowmaking.  

Looking north to the south-facing side of Kühtai

Looking south to the north-facing side of Kütai

I was told Eileen Gu was was skiing here a couple of weeks ago, but on this day, there were only a few diehards and one Utahn who was testing his ski boots, which fit well.  Hopefully I have a few more days of skiing before this season is over.