How Do You Say “Deep Powder” in German? Winter sports in the Alps and other snowy parts of Germany
For another six days, all eyes will be on Vancouver and Whistler for the 2010 Winter Games. A year from now, though, ski fans at least will turn their focus to the German resort of Garmisch-Partenkirchen as it plays host to the Skiing World Championships 2011. This will be the third time for this competition to take place in this Alpine town at the foot of Germany’s highest mountains.
Winter sporting events in Bavaria attract leading athletes from all over the world and reach a television audience of millions. Every year, the international ski-jumping elite meets in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, and in Oberstdorf for the Four Jumps Tournament. The Bavarian World Cup Competitions in alpine and cross-country skiing and biathlon are celebrated highlights in the winter sports calendar. Ruhpolding is known for its biathlon facilities and events, K̦nigssee for its ice track for luge, bobsled and skeleton speedsters. Nearby Berchtesgaden Рoften hyphenated with K̦nigssee, as if they were one Рboasts five ski areas, three of them with night skiing. Also 75 km of cross-country trails medium and high ski jumps, and facilities for curling, snowboarding, tobogganing, sleigh rides, winter ballooning, and more.
The gateway to all of this is, of course, Munich, itself just 60 km from some first-rate downhill runs. With its welcoming new airport and easy ground connections to all the resorts, the Bavarian capital is the perfect place to start a winter sports holiday.
Germans from all parts of the country play outdoors in winter, from the relatively flat terrain of western Germany’s Rhineland at Düsseldorf, where cross-country is the game, and the Black Forest, in the south-west, where Germany’s first ski club was founded (in Todtnau, in 1891) to the former east German states of Saxony and Thuringia. The Ore Mountains in Saxony, for example, have been a snow destination for more than 100 years. Cross-country skiers can count on 1,000 kilometres of groomed trails in the regions 28 towns, safe to provide snow from December to April. The area offers all manner of winter fun, from downhill skiing to toboggan and bobsled runs. The Saxon town of Oberwiesenthal this month hosts the World Championship in dog sledding, with 250 competitors and more than 1,000 dogs racing for the title.
Thuringia boasts snow tubing, snow shoeing and dinghy ice rafting on a luge run in addition to traditional cross-country and downhill skiing, with cross-country the region’s clear favourite among all. Winter daredevils, though, can test their true mettle and learn to ski jump from scratch, in the town of Lauscha. And as of September 2009, those who can’t do without the white stuff in summer can now enter what’s been coined ‘Germany’s biggest fridge”, the country’s first indoor ski centre for Nordic winter sports, offering – at a constant minus 4° Celsius — 1.9 kilometres of cross-country trails, ascents, bends and slopes along with a ski school, equipment rentals, a bistro and for all armchair ski aficionados, a viewing platform.
For more details on winter activities and general information on Germany, please visit www.germany.travel
February 23, 2010
Posted in: Germany