Austria’s biggest linked ski area
In the last decade, Lech’s ski area has more than doubled in size. As part of this transformation, it has been linked by new lifts to Warth to the north and St Anton and Stuben to the south. Together they now form Austria’s biggest lift-linked ski area – the Arlberg – and Lech is in the midst of it.
The 185 miles of pistes and 125 miles of off-piste ski routes and itineraries keep skiers and snowboarders of all standards happy for a week. Many of Lech’s most popular off-piste descents are routinely groomed and closed if conditions are poor or if there’s avalanche danger – in my view they should be classified as pistes.
The local slopes of Lech and neighbouring Zürs are great for intermediate cruising and the 13-mile-White Ring circuit shows you the best route around. But my favourite runs are off the circuit: the lovely away-from-all-the-lifts red from Muggengrat down to Zürs (750m vertical) and the north-facing runs from Saloberkopf down towards Warth, which often have the best dry powdery snow.
Experts can enjoy wonderful off-piste and the only heliskiing allowed in Austria. Neighbouring St Anton and Stuben are famous for their steep off-piste terrain too. Beginners have good areas both at valley level and up at Oberlech.
Excellent snow and much-improved lift system
This is a famously snowy area – on average Lech gets almost twice as much snow in a season as St Anton, and three times as much as Kitzbühel. And normally it falls as lovely dry powder. The downside of this is that the access road (the Flexen Pass) can be closed for days after exceptional snowfalls – but Lech’s not a bad place to be marooned.
The lift system has improved beyond recognition since the 1980s. Most recently, two notorious bottlenecks on the local Lech-Zürs circuit have been eliminated: three seasons ago, two long, slow, 50-year-old, two-person chairlifts were replaced by a fast six-seater chairlift and a 10-person gondola.
That followed three new gondolas in the last decade, linking Lech’s ski area to St Anton’s (which used to be linked only by road) and to Warth (the road to there is closed in winter).