Schladming is a wonderful old Austrian town; in fact it was made a town in 1322! Some 672 years after this the authorities pedestrianised its town square, a wonderful place to stroll round at night after your days skiing. Schladming was the home of a World Downhill here in 1973 and the Alpine Skiing World Championships in 1982. The ski area now links four mountains in the ‘Schladming-4-Mountain-Swing’ and the larger area includes nine mountains.
Schladming’s mountains have been linked by lifts since the 1998/99 season and with 170km of linked runs round the ski resort and 88 lifts Schladming is one of the biggest ski centres in Austria. The vast majority of ski trails on the two main mountains are intermediate level red runs down through the thick forests. It is good recreational skiing with some excellent mountain restaurants a favourite being the popular Onkel Willy’s near the top of the Planai gondola where you can relax and contemplate the day’s achievements.
Beginners start off on the lifts from day one taking the Planai gondola up the mountain to the nursery area. Intermediates have the entire area to themselves with three quarter of all the runs above Schladming graded red, and two thirds of all in the Ski Paradise Area. However, experts are more limited to the two World Cup runs and the year round ski area of the Dachstein glacier, about 20 minutes away.
An increasingly popular destination for ‘boarders, the snowboard park on the Planai is one of three in the area, and the dedicated Snowboard Schule Dachstein Tauern, based at the Planai gondola middle station organises Snowboard camps, winter and summer on the glacier and runs a shop, supplies demo material and handles rentals and repairs.
Austria is not renowned for chalet ski holidays, these tend to be found in Swiss and French ski resorts, but there are plenty of two, three and four star apartments and hotel accommodation to be found in and near the ski resort. The nearest airport to the ski resorts is Salzburg about 70 minutes away on clear roads.