PLANETSKI MOVES TO INNSBRUCK

The city is the capital of the Tirol in Austria and is steeped in alpine and skiing traditions.

We view it as the heart and soul of the Alps.

The city alone is part of a group of nine ski areas – between them they have 90 lifts and 300km of slopes.

The resorts – Nordkette, Patscherkofel, Axamer Lizum, Muttereralm, Rangger Köpfl, Glungezer, Schlick 2000, the Stubai Glacier and Kühtai – are all within easy reach: see here for more details.

And then there is the city itself.

Innsbruck, Tirol, Austria. Image © PlanetSKI

We’re living and working from one of the buildings on the left.

Innsbruck, Tirol, Austria. Image © PlanetSKI

At the end of last winter we went on a ‘fact finding mission’ to see if it suited our requirements.

It did.

And more.

Take a look here and you’ll see our reasoning:

• Innsbruck and beyond: City and Ski

And as well as the nine resorts mentioned there are all the rest in the Tirol.

Over 90 of them and they are some of the best resorts in Alps: St Anton, Ischgl, Obergurgl, Hintertux and Mayrhofen to name a few.

And then there are dozens in the Tirol that we’ve never even heard off.

The little ones that are off the radar of British skiers and snowboarders.

Well, we going to bring them to your attention.

They are all available on one ski pass: The Tirol Snowcard, 4,000km of skiing and 1,100 lifts.

And did we mention the other resorts in Austria?

And how about the rest of the Alps?

There are some fabulous resorts just over the border in neighbouring Italy and Switzerland.

“Now I love ski resorts but I’m not sure I could stay in a single resort all winter as I’d get cabin fever,” said the PlanetSKI editor, James Cove.

“I like to roam around and there is no better place to access the Alps than Innsbruck.”

Our team of PlanetSKI reporters will, of course, continue to cover the rest of the Alps.

PlanetSKI’s chief reporter, Jane Peel, will be criss-crossing the Alps and the Pyrenees.

She’s hoping to head up to Scandinavia too

Our senior news reporter, Katie Bamber, will make her annual pilgrimage to North America and will be there for February and beyond.

But what most people don’t know is that Innsbruck is actually a ski resort in its own right with direct links to the slopes of Nordkette.

The start of the lift is in the centre of town.

It is like having a ski lift in Trafalgar Square with the mountains across the Thames on the South Bank.

• Wake up in the UK and be skiing by lunch

Nordkette and Innsbruck

With stunning views over the city, the Hafelekar has a 70% gradient.

It also has the Cloud 9 igloo bar (January – April) and DJs every Friday night.

The city has hosted two Winter Olympics and is steeped in alpine history.

We could go on… we likely will…

Oh, and here is when I got the confirmation e-mail on the apartment while in a bar last week in Les Arcs 

For the Spirit of the Mountains – PlanetSKI: Number One for ski news