Kitzsteinhorn 40 years on: Glacier skiing area proves to be a crowd-puller / New dimensions: Innovation for skiing fans, sun worshippers, and mountain lovers

An eldorado for all snow-seeking sportsmen in winter, the ideal terrain for hiking or climbing in summer: Kitzsteinhorn right in the middle of the 'Europa-Sportregion Zell am See-Kaprun' is a synonym of an active, but relaxing holiday in the mountains. The skiing area on the glacier is now celebrating its birthday. For 40 long years the 'Gletscherbahnen Kaprun AG' has been taking skiing fans, sun worshippers, and mountain lovers up to the top of the mountain, up to a height of 3.029 metres.

Impressive and mighty Kitzsteinhorn towers above Salzburg's Pinzgau. Austria's very first glacier skiing area was developed here in 1965. At the time the world marvelled at the remarkable technical feat and acclaimed it as 'the new dimension of winter sports'. Initially there were 200,000 guests per year who wanted to see the new attraction with their own eyes and to get up to the mountain top without exerting themselves. 30 years later the figure of one million visitors was reached for the first time. This story of achievement is crowned by another world record even today: at 113.6 metres, the world's tallest cable railway pillar sparkles down from Kitzsteinhorn painted in red and white.

The merger of Kaprun and Zell am See to form the 'Europa-Sportregion' did one more thing to make the region a crowd-puller. Tourists soon stood in long queues to get up onto the glacier. As early as in 1972 more transport was needed, capacity had to be increased. Another milestone in tourism was set by building the first weather-independent gallery railway in the Alps. This innovation, which was suited to the extreme weather conditions of the skiing areas, became general standard. It was copied many times, e.g. at Saas-Fee, Zermatt, Mölltal, Tignes, and Pitztal.

From the beginning with just two lifts, Kitzsteinhorn shaped up nicely to become not only the most renowned holiday destination with more than 20 of the most modern lifts and cable cars and a total of 40 kilometres of pistes, but also an internationally accepted training ground for top athletes. Austrian world and Olympic champions no longer had to go abroad in order to train in ideal conditions. On the contrary, national teams from the four corners of the earth now came to the 'Europa-Sportregion' to prepare for their competitions. Since then nothing has changed in this respect: only recently the Polish national team of ski jumpers and the fans' favourite Adam Malysz came to train on Kitzsteinhorn.

Kitzsteinhorn - being 3,000 metres above it all
Clemens M. Hutter
November 2005
ISBN 3-200-00502-5


Contact Europa-Sportregion
Europa Sportregion Marketing GmbH
Guest Service
Phone +43 (0)6542 - 770 0
welcome(at)europasportregion.info
http://www.europasportregion.info

Press contact
knoefler-journalist | media and communications
Mr. Benjamin Knöfler
Phone +49 (0)6028 - 80729 0
esr(at)knoefler.de
http://www.knoefler-journalist.de


General Information:
With 13,500 beds and two million overnight stays per year, the 'Europa-Sportregion Zell am See - Kaprun' is one of the most important tourism centres in Austria. In winter as in summer, guests find all kinds of leisure activities to choose from. For ski fans there are 130 kilometres of finest pistes in thick powder snow. In the summer months Zell am See and Kaprun captivate with ideal conditions for more than 40 different kinds of sports - from hiking and golfing, cycling and all water sports to extreme sports like canyoning and, last not least, summer skiing on the glacier of Kitzsteinhorn. In recent years the region has also hosted many races of the Mountain Bike World Cup. In 2002 it was the venue of the UCI World Championships of Mountain Biking.

This release was published on openPR.