Obergurgl, Hochgurgl and Solden Ski Photo Trip 2019

Sunday 13th January to Friday 18th January 2019 Obergurgl, Hochgurgl and Solden Skiing

We flew with Austrian Air from Manchester Airport to Innsbruck Airport in Austria, Inghams then took us by coach to Obergurgl, and then by minibus the last little bit to our hotel. It was -2ºC in the village. The Saturday’s at either end were travel days.

There was lots of snow at Innsbruck Airport and even more in the mountains. There are 3 ski areas within easy reach of Obergurgl. It is linked by ski lift to Hochgurgl and there is a regular bus service to Solden, about 40 minutes away. It should have been 6 days skiing but heavy snowfall reduced this to 4.5 days. Still plenty of time to ski and take lots of photos.

Obergurgl Skiing

We spent more time skiing around Obergurgl than the other 2 areas because it was a new area to us, close to the hotel with quite extensive good skiing and the slopes were quiet with no lift queues.

Ordering Black and White Fine Art Prints

If you would like a black and white print as a memento of your trip, all of the black and white images are available. They were taken with a Mamiya 7 camera on Ilford 120 film and are available as high quality hand made darkroom prints in a range of sizes from 40x30cm to 70x70cm (size refers to mount and frame, image is a few cm smaller).

They all have a 6 digit number at the end of the title to uniquely identify the negative to help ordering – just type this number into the search box in the World Landscapes Gallery and it will show the image and ordering information. Not all images are included so if you can’t find the ones that interest you just send me an email using the Contact page form on this website and we’ll sort out the details between us.

Hochgurgl Skiing

Obergurgl was linked to Hochgurgl by a gondola lift, as well as bus service. We skied around parts of the Hochgurgl ski area a couple of times but needed a bit longer to ski around it all. I guess this was where our lost 1.5 days would have been useful. There were some excellent slopes.

Solden Skiing

We caught the ski bus to the nearby ski village of Solden, about 20 minutes away. We had skied here before in 1993 so we were interested to see what we could remember. I also skied here for a couple of days in 1994 to get my ski legs before a 6 day ski mountaineering trip around the Otztal mountains. We remembered most of the Solden ski area but didn’t venture over to the glacier areas because we could see big queues for the lifts. A lot of the easier runs are over there and the lifts obviously can’t cope with the numbers.

It was another blue sky day, all day. Very modern lifts quickly took us from the road to over 3000m. Lots of runs, some wide, some just cart tracks, lots of lifts. We remembered some of the runs quite well, surprisingly. We also had an excellent view from the top of Gaislachkogl. I could even see the Wildspitze, the highest mountain at 3774m in the Otztal area and one which I skied and climbed in 1994, it’s also the 2nd highest mountain in Austria. Great views as we skied down from Gaislachkogl and eventually we made our way to the Roßkirpl lift. Good views from the top here too. Then down black run 14 on near perfect snow. We did this run several times just to make sure it was as good as we thought!  The snow was fantastic here but no people. To finish we skied down to the road in Solden at the Giggijoch lift end so that we could walk along the main street. We expected to see the familiar bars that we frequented last time. Unfortunately we didn’t recognise anything, it all looked new to us, as if we hadn’t been there before. We caught the bus back to Obergurgl at the other end of the village, just by the Gaislachkogl lift.