Kirchberg 2026

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Kirchberg/Kitzbuhl 2026

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Today is a travel day from Munich to the small Tyrolean town of Kirchberg in Austria. Ron and I connected at the Coffee Fellows shop in the Ostbahnhof train station where our train departed. The train quickly covered the distance to the town of Worgl, Austria where we transferred to a second train. The layover in Worgl was for 38 minutes. Standing - as there aren't any seats - waiting in the warmth of the station, Ron noticed a white flashing dot next to our scheduled train. We debated what it meant and then decided to just head to the platform/track/gleiss. The train was parked there allowing people to board so we did. I guessed wrong as the the departure direction for the train so a little musical chairs took place to allow for preferences on facing direction when moving. The train made a couple of big switchbacks as the train headed up the valley. Stops were short and I was a tad anxious if we weren't standing at the train door ready to exit when the train pulled into the station. In the end, the travel today went quick and easily.

We boarded a local bus to the housing management office about 1 mile across town. It was lunch and the office was closed so we chilled eating some food we'd brought until Nina welcomed us inside. With paperwork done, Nina was consternated we didn't know about the BIG event taking place this weekend in Kitzbuhl. Big event? What big event? Nina say, "You don't know about the BIG event!?". No, what big event? Nina says, "I can't believe you don't know about the BIG event!!" Really, I'm ignorant, what is this big event? Nina replies, "The downhill Worldcup ski race this weekend! There are free trains between Kirchberg and Kitzbuhl to help people." Oh, that explains why it was so hard to find reasonably priced accomodations for our visit. Nina says we can't check in until closer to 3PM so we plan accordingly.

We jump on a bus to the lodge, dump our stuff there then walk the 3/4 mile back into town. Along the way Ron collects ski rental prices at several outfits and then we buy a little food for dinners and breakfasts. Upon our return we settle into the chic place with beautiful wood flooring, fancy lighting, beautifully finished bathroom, upscale appliances, and nice views of the valley. The next couple of days here will be nice.

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The purpose for lugging my skis all the way to Europe started today. I pulled them out of the travel bag, donned by gear and walked down the driveway to the bus stop. The distination reached about 10 minutes later wasn't the gondola and base area I'd originally thought to go to, but I got off anyway. The representative at the ticket office waved his hands and pointed toward the lift as I showed him the IKON pass; I took that to mean it would scan just fine. There was no queue for the gondola and jet I found myself sharing the car with a late middle life German couple. Of course, they spoke excellent English and were happy to give me some information about the skiing. The lady pointed to a south facing mountainside just north of Kirchberg bare of snow and informed me that ski area hadn't opened yet this season. The couple lives in Munich, but are fortunate enough to have a family ski in/out place near the lift.

From the gondola the mountain looked .... I find myself at a loss for words .... sadly lacking. In those years when the snow is so deep that the city can't find places to store it all and they have to clear it away from the chairlifts this place would be epic. The amount of terrain to ski then would be stupendous. Some of the hillsides have those avalanche release mechanisms every 100 meters. But today, only manmade strips of snow were available. The coverage where the snow was made was good - no obstacles, but you couldn't venture 20 meters from the marked ski run and tufts of grass protruded or whole sections would be bare of snow. The runs were hard packed with places of soft scrapped snow 1-3 inches deep. As typical the edges of the runs tended to be the best because skiers throw the loose stuff there. So I tried to stick to the sides. Still the edge of the run had this strange stubby wall of snow as if the run had been cut 6 inches to 2 feet into the snow giving the ski run a sense of being in a trough. This made skiing on the sides challenging because the ski tails would often hit this 'wall'. The scrapped soft snow also had sticky heavy quality to it sometimes making turns difficult. I'm not painting a nice picture and frankly the ski conditions were bad.

The lifts are laid out so that one can move about, but knowing how to do it is a different story. Fortunately the runs are well signposted. The runs are numbered and colored. The color indicates the difficulty. There are also signs leading one to either Kirchberg or Kitzbuhl.

I made my way toward Kitzbuhl and eventually found myself with hundreds of other people stopped on the edges of runs overlooking the World Cup Downhill Race course. I watched for a little while in two different spots. A silly endeavor given the racers fly by at such speed that I was lucky to see them for more than 2 seconds.

I eventually discovered at bar with stadium seating and a big screen for watching the race. An adjacent restaurant looked enticing until I glanced at the menu in German with the prices. All I saw where the prices. That's all I needed to see. Numbers like €80, €125, and €249 stood out. I hoped those were for bottles of wine, but I don't think so.... I ordered a cup of coffee and a bottle of water for €14 ($18) and sat and watched the race for a spell.

Following the signs posted on the runs directing skiers to Kirchberg, I skied down to the bottom of the Maierlbahn gondola. There are two bus stops. Hmm, I wonder which one I need to be at. A bus pulled up to one of them with the banner 'Aschau Dor'. I had a vague recollection that is a place further south down the valley in the direction I need to go. So I jumped on with my fingers crossed. The telling moment would be once it reached the main road; would the bus turn right or left? Perfect! It turned left in the direction I need and within 200 meters I was off the bus and walking up the driveway.

Ron and I decided to dine in town. Our host had recommended a mexican restaurant; uh, I don't think so. We found the Restaurant Daxer that listed 'classic' meals. The food hit the spot with schnitzel and Witte Beer - a fine way to end our first full day in the Tyrolean Alps.

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Today Ron and I both caught the bus and exited at the Pengelstein I base. There was nobody boarding the gondola except us. Ron started out leading which meant I got to experience a chairlift I hadn't planned on riding. Once back to the top we rode the 3S-Bahn across a valley toward the town of Jochberg. It's about a 10 minute ride suspended hundreds of feet above the valley. The sun peaked through clouds at times today adding to the beauty of the rugged surrounding mountains.

We skied down to the town of Jochberg. That run had the flavor of a Colorado one being wide, nicely groomed, and with a steady pitch the many hundreds of meters to the valley floor. It also had the best snow I'd experienced on the mountain. We made a second run here before doing the Kitzski hopscotch skiing down to another lift to go up to ski down to the 3S-Bahn tram.

We encountered a number of Americans today. The first one we rode a chair with has been living in Munich the last seven years working as a software engineer. We didn't talk with any others.

I was already feeling a bit tired by this time, but wanted to let Ron see the section of the ski area closer to Kitzbuhl. We skied a number of runs doing the Kitzski hopscotch. We stopped to have lunch at one of the mountain restaurants. We'd brought our own food but I purchased some drinks to reduce the quilty feeling of occupying what was a very nice booth.

The next two runs were long ones down two separate ridges to the town of Kirchberg. The one on trail number 25 had the worst hardpacked snow conditions of the day. I believe we both crashed once. It didn't help that a supposed approaching storm made created a flat light situation. The runs are skillet flat - no moguls! - but on this one occassion the trail made a sharp right turn and everybody was carving the corner building up a snowbank on the corner that lay at the bottom of a hardpack steep pitch leading into the turn. I avoided making a turn on the hardpack, but didn't see the size of the snowbank. Of course with my free heel telemark bindings when I hit that snowbank at a perpendicular angle I executed a 7 out of 10 point faceplant in the softer snow just beyond the turn. There was one of those fences the ski areas set up to keep people from going off the piste and I thought I might be into the netting. However, the soft snow stopped me faster. I had a little chuckle over that whole business.

Once back at our lodge, we walked back into Kirchberg to return Ron's skis also with the idea of picking up additional food at the grocer for dinner. All the grocery stores in town are closed on Sundays. We managed to pull together enough food to satisfy our good appetites after a fun day of skiing.