Area: | Kronplatz |
Base: | 850m |
Summit: | 2280m |
Skiable vertical: | 1430m |
Lifts: | 16+ |
Total lift vert: | unknown |
Slope orientation: | mainly north- and east-facing |
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Kronplatz is a pleasant resort with sizeable vertical drop, which sits mainly atop a rounded, bare-topped summit. It's located near Brunico in Südtirol, northern Italy, although it doesn't really seem like Italy because German is by far the dominant language. The runs are open and well-prepared, and not too steep for beginners. The base is fairly low at under 900m, but the artificial snow-making capacity is high, giving reliable coverage even early in the season.
For a zoomable, scrollable map of the areas, see this online map using Openstreetmap or Opencyclemap.
The main base station is at Reischach, near Brunico/Bruneck. Road connections to the rest of Südtirol and to Austria to the north are very good. Access by car is easy and there's plenty of free parking right by the base of the main gondola.
A day ticket for just the Kronplatz resort costs EUR 36 and a half-day pass (from 12:00) EUR 29. The tickets are hands-free with no deposit.
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showing the runs and lifts |
Most of the runs at Kronplatz are fairly gentle blues and reds, radiating out in various directions from the broad summit. Notable is that most of the runs and most of the lifts are relatively long, making for sizeable descents unbroken by awkward lift changes.
Pistes are on the whole broad and well-prepared. The snow conditions weren't favouring off-piste on this visit, although on the whole it looks limited. There's an icy half-pipe but no jump park.
The home run from the summit down to the main base (marked "Bruneck/Brunico") is a steep black, which in sparse snow conditions can get badly scraped. It's a long way down too, so watch out for failing light in the short winter afternoons.
Refreshingly, there's a complete lack of both scooting and evil drag lifts. All the lifts are either gondolas or chairlifts, and the tickets are all hands-free (and deposit-free!). There are also no flat bits in the main Kronplatz area apart from the very summit.
Christmas 2006 - everything's open but only with the help of artificial snow. Since then, fresh snow has fallen, which should have improved things even further.
Resort information is at kronplatz.it, which has lots of useful info including a piste plan as pdf. Or an alternative, somewhat clearer, map can be found at alpineskimaps.com.