Wagrain Group
Hotel Wagrainerhof
Wagrain (Salzburger Land) - Ski Amadé
8th - 15th March 2025
The Accommodation
The 4-star Hotel Wagrainerhof is a Sport and Wellness Hotel in Wagrain in Salzburger Land.
The Rötzer family and their entire team are there to take care of your every wish and comfort during your holiday.
The central location of the hotel means you are just a few minutes’ walk from the bus stops, shops ski lifts, restaurants, and all that Wagrain has to offer.
The restaurant and facilities should live up to your expectations of 4-star quality an provide an ideal home-from-home whilst enjoying hiking, skiing, shopping and wellness in the mountains of Salzburg.
The Setting
In one word, awesome. Ski Amadé is a region of Austria that is actually a network of 28 ski areas and towns, that when combined, make up the largest ski area in Europe.
It is named after guess who? Right: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart who was born in the city of Salzburg. There are 860 km of downhill slopes, 278 modern ski lifts, more snow cannons than you can count and even a glacier, this region will captivate you with its wealth of options, hospitality and charisma.
A little Ski Safari
The Ski Amadé ski pass covers one of the most varied winter sports destinations in Europe, 760 kms of slopes and hundreds of signposted hiking trails, all on one ski pass.
The five ski regions that make up the Ski Amadé are close together but not linked together. They are Salzburger Sportwelt, Schladming-Dachstein, Bad Hofgastein, Hochkönig and Grossarltal.
Salzburger Sportwelt - 300m from our hotel, this system has over 350 kms of slopes with 90+ lifts. To put this in perspective, if you joined us last year in Pinzolo / Madonna di Campiglio you had 150 kms of slopes.
This is more than enough skiing for most normal people BUT on a couple of the days during your stay I would like you to visit two other regions that also have spectacular skiing, Schladming-Dachstein and Bad Hofgastein. Transfer times by coach to each of these destinations is around 30 minutes by coach.
Schladming-Dachstein - otherwise known as 4- Peaks, the north-facing terrain has a solid skiable vertical of over 1,250m, served by 46 super-modern lifts & around 127km of world-class piste trails (including ski routes). Schladming rates highly as one of the best on-piste ski areas in Austria, Europe & the world. It is also worth skiing here just to go to the toilet - the Sky Toilet on the Planai is well worth a visit, check it out for youself!
Bad Hofgastein - the motto is NON STOP TO THE TOP - in this valley you can use cable cars on 5 different mountains, conquer over 1000 meters of altitude and enjoy long descents. Just one ascent takes you directly to the highest mountain station, Kreuzkogel at 2686m, sadly no exciting toilets to look forward too here!
Snow reliability
The Ski Amadé ski resort normally receives a lot of natural snow. The natural fluctuations can be compensated with the very modern snow-making equipment, covering 100% of the slopes.
Wagrain Historical Snowfall
Snowmaking, piste preparation and management of the ski slopes
Snowmaking procedure
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Technically produced snow, so-called “artificial snow”, consists exclusively of water and air. According to the Salzburg Purity Law, the water must be of drinking water quality. We produce this by irradiating the water with UVB light.
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The water for this procedure comes from the storage ponds, which store the run-off meltwater from the previous year. The necessary residual amounts come from the Enns and the Kleinarler Ache. The Pongau is a water-abundant region, i.e. there is more water available than is used.
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The water is pumped from the storage ponds into cooling towers. A water pump blows the water up these, and then it drips down the other side in the form of small particles. This cools the water.
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The cooled water is transported through underground pipes to the snow gun or snow lance.
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There, the snow machine mixes the water with compressed air and ejects it. The snow crystals are formed during the ejection process.
Piste preparation procedure
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The snow groomers distribute the technically produced snow and mix it with the existing snow layer. They are equipped with a digital snow height measurement system. A built-in GPS measures the position of the snow groomer, compares it with a stored topographic map and can thus determine the height of the snow cover.
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The piste machine reports the data obtained back to the control centre of the snowmaking machine, so that it can in turn determine how much snow is still needed for a sufficiently thick snow cover. Unnecessary overproduction is thus avoided.
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Based on the data, the piste machine operator knows where snow is missing on the piste and where there is already enough snow. This ensures efficient snowmaking, and the resources of water and energy are used carefully.
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All these processes are controlled by a complex snow-making system.
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A sufficiently thick snow cover also protects the underlying ground from damage caused by skiing, e.g. ski edges.