At the start of the ski season, I’m always very keen to keep all breaks to the minimum. Towards the end of the season my balance of time between skiing and huts becomes increasingly in favour of the huts! If the sun is shining, it can easily tip fully the other way so that the hut visits can exceed the skiing time! Certainly this is often the case during the Indulgent.Times in the mountain. The hut owners in Altenmarkt-Zauchensee offer their guests a very special entertainment programme with some events running from the 10th to the 17th March, others until the 24th of March, so the skis become just a means to an end, to get from one hut to the next. Naturally this is always an option in Altenmarkt-Zauchensee!

Win with the Indulgence.Pass

I am on the hunt for stamps for my Indulgence.Pass. You can either get it directly from your host, at the lift cash desk or you can get it – like me – at one of the participating Indulgence.Pass huts. When you consume a meal in an Indulgence.Pass hut, you get one stamp per hut in the passport. When you have three entries, you can put in your entry to the prize draw, whose main prize is a fantastic stay in one of the Holiday Pearl hotels in Zauchensee. Although I am rarely considered to be lucky from past experiences, my competitive spirit is still awakened. I have already picked up my first stamp at the Gloneralm and am still thinking about where to make the next stamp stop. Garnhofhütte or Unterbergalm or Felseralm or … ???

Highest Farmers’ Market in the Alps

My excuse is that I’m going to go shopping anyway! The huts taking part in the “Highest Farmer’s Market of the Alps” in Ski amadé help me to combine my passions!  They have real farmers’ market stalls with delicacies from the region at different huts for just a week. I have already tasted cheese at the Sonnalm, bought bread at the Burgstall hut and I certainly can’t pass by the alpaca socks at the Adlerhorst hut. I collected my treasures in my free-of-charge farmer’s carrier bag, which can be worn like a rucksack for skiing. Of course, the products can also be bought directly from the producers in town, but I love my rucksack, it gives me that satisfying retail therapy feeling and lets everyone know it!

Indulgent Hut.Days

Indulgence.Time in the mountains offers a varied programme in addition to Farmers’ Markets in the huts and the Indulgence.Pass. This ranges from wine tastings at Reitlehen Alm or the Habersatter Sportalm in Altenmarkt, a doughnut day at the Bliembauer guesthouse to a lava-grill with live music on the Rosskopf hut in Zauchensee. You can also watch over the shoulder of  the driftwood artist Sauschneid Sepp at the Rauchkopf hut as he works at his beautiful craft, at an altitude of almost 2,000m.

So with the great range of possibilities, it is easy to see why I lean towards indulgence rather than sporting challenges during Indulgence.Time in the mountains. Of course, you can easily combine both. Maybe I’ll do that in the next few days while I continue stamp collecting in the Radstadt-Altenmarkt ski resort. At the moment I’m still thinking about how to put on the Indulgence.Rally. Bifei’s hut, then Hochnössler or …… ??

Photo credits: Antia Ellmer, TVB Altenmarkt, Ski amadé