When the skis learned to wander

In Innsbruck, the 1964 Olympic Winter Games were planned, and Seefeld was chosen due to its perfect geographical conditions to host the Nordic competitions. Cross-country skiing, biathlon, ski jumping. The plateau needed preparation. This challenge inevitably led the then director of the Seefeld Tourist Office to Northern Europe, where Nordic sports were revered as Alpine sports are in this country. "At that time, it was already clear that we had limited options for Alpine skiing on the plateau, and we saw a chance in ski touring," explains Frenes, describing the fascination that gripped him when he saw the large number of Scandinavians, for whom it was a popular sport to spend their leisure time on cross-country skis.

The cult manifested itself in the passionate Seefeld local, who took over the management of the tourism association in 1955, and increasingly transformed into an obsession bordering on a vision. His extreme stance was quite necessary, as it had been shown even at the Olympic Winter Games of 1964 that cross-country skiing was perceived as more than just a tourist gimmick, but as a means to give the plateau the decisive boost.

On the noble Olympic podium, back then, men with some rather difficult to pronounce names landed – like Eero Mäntyranta or Klawdija Bojarskich, with nearly all medalists in the ten Nordic disciplines hailing from Scandinavia or the Soviet Union. However, the winner of the Nordic combination – the German Georg Thoma – is indeed seen in retrospect as a good omen for the future of the plateau.

"The audience of 50,000 people at the ski jumping events remains particularly memorable to me. They stood from the jumping ramp to the Sportalm, and right in the middle was the Shah of Persia and his wife Farah Diba," Frenes recalls vividly the images that delighted not only him but the whole world at that time. These Olympic Games attracted celebrities like a magnet. Kings, queens, crown princes, and princesses traveled to Tyrol; nationwide in Austria, there was a rush in the sale of television sets, Tyrolean schools were generally closed, and in Vienna schools, students were allowed to watch not only the opening ceremony but also other Olympic events via television due to a special ministerial decree.

The Olympic fever was fueled by the fire ignited for the first time in ancient Olympia. "It was a highlight," says Frenes. A highlight that became the impetus for cross-country skiing on the Seefeld plateau.

"Like no other village in the Alpine region, this spot has managed, within a few years, to turn cross-country skiing – on the Seefeld high plateau, they refer to it with unmistakable vacation-friendly understatement as ski hiking – into a cult and a good business," noted sports journalist Karl Morgenstern in the German weekly newspaper "Die Zeit" on January 17, 1975.

1975. In Seefeld and Innsbruck, preparations were being made for the 1976 Winter Olympic Games, and in the eleven years since the first Games, a lot had changed. "We started with ski hiking. It was laborious, but it worked. It took almost until the second Olympic Games for it to take off," says Walter Frenes. Like a preacher, he traveled around after the first Games, inquiring how others were doing it, and practically begged the local sports shops to offer cross-country skis. The reaction was one of rejection and a narrow-minded adherence to pure alpine sports, forcing the tourism association to resort to clever tricks. Cross-country skis were imported from Norway, and an enthusiastic employee encouraged guests in front of the Seekirchl, the landmark of the place, to try them out for free.

Piece by piece, sometimes offensively, sometimes subversively, a sport was crafted that would soon compete with the Seekirchl as a dynamic and significant landmark. The obsessive vision moved mountains and also stirred creative ingenuity. Since there were initially no equipment available for grooming the trails, they were invented by the people of Seefeld, and when the first Austrian ski company got wind of it and began producing cross-country skis, the sport, which was increasingly diversifying, took off at the Seefeld plateau.

In many ways, the Olympic Winter Games shaped the town. "In 1964, the bypass around Seefeld was built to the east. Previously, all traffic went through Seefeld," says Frenes. And in 1976? "For example, the bypass for the pedestrian zone was built. That year, we became the second place in the Alps with a pedestrian zone – after Zermatt. All of this also encouraged us to build the sports and congress center. All infrastructure facilities built for the Nordic competitions have been and will continue to be used." Sustainability, the guiding principle for the Nordic Ski World Championships 2019, has a long tradition on the plateau.

If the 1964 Winter Olympics are considered the catalyst for the best cross-country ski center in the world, then the games of 1976 marked the breakthrough. The spirit of pioneering that Walter Frenes embodies fills the time in between. Just like later with the development of the plateau as a golf destination, he had the right intuition at the right time—recognizing the opportunities presented by the mountain landscape of the high plateau situated at 1,200 meters elevation. And just as he managed to bring together the many different minds during the property negotiations for the golf course, he understood how to plan and implement the trails as well. "That has always been fun for me. Thinking long-term was always the most important category," recounts the 1937-born athlete.

With this approach and the tireless, all-encompassing effort that is certainly reminiscent of a Nordic athlete, the region was able to develop like no other. By the mid-1970s, a well-prepared network of trails with a length of around 80 kilometers was already available in good snow conditions. Today, with the current 256 kilometers of trails, one can measure how the history of cross-country skiing has progressed.

All levels of difficulty can be enjoyed in Nordic skiing, with or without a dog, at night or in sunlight, at a world-class level or in a more relaxed atmosphere. Major events have repeatedly served as highlights that advanced the development. In 1985, Seefeld was the host of the FIS Nordic Ski World Championship, and since 2004, the "Nordic Combined Triple" World Cup has been held annually in the Olympic region of Seefeld. In 2012, it once again shone in the colors of the Olympic rings when the Nordic events of the Youth Winter Games took place here, and with the Nordic Ski World Championship in 2019, the next big event is on the agenda.

Over 50 years, more than 245 kilometers of trails, and the prospect of yet another Nordic championship filled with world-class athletes later, the picture has completely changed. The snowy Seefeld plateau without cross-country skiers is as inconceivable as it is quirky. And also a little crazy.