Bike park, adventure playground, archery range, Alpine coaster: The piston has developed into a top attraction.
It all started ten years ago.
Oberammergau - It's a success story.
One that started almost exactly ten years ago.
With ambition, negotiating skills and a firm belief in the matter, the area on the Kolbensattel has become a popular excursion destination - thanks to the commitment of a handful of locals.
The first rumors began to haunt the town as early as 2010.
A local community of interests is well in the running to win the contract for lifts, mountain huts and snow cannons.
The change of ownership finally took place in November 2011.
The municipality of Oberammergau sold the "purchase mass" to a private GmbH under the managing director and former mayor Klement Fend together with a group of Ober- and Unterammergau residents and the Ettal monastery.
Since then, Unterammergau's former mayor Michael Gansler, Konrad Gerold senior, Markus Gerold, Josef Köpf, Ernst Maderspacher junior, Hannelore Maderspacher and Anton Mangold have also been involved in equal shares.
Leisure activities in a concentrated form
They bought the double chairlift on the Kolben including the Kolbensattelhütte.
A daring act, because so far the outdated, unattractive system had mostly only been in the red.
A block on the leg of the commune.
But the shareholders recognized the great potential.
They invested diligently from the start.
“It was always our plan to create a wide range of tourist attractions, mainly for families, on the Kolben,” says Fend.
They succeeded.
One searches in vain for leisure activities in such a concentrated form.
Today, ten years later, the piston has grown into a highly frequented, popular cult mountain.
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At the inauguration in 2013, Anton Speer, then vice district administrator, tested the coaster.
© Very
First of all, the shareholders renovated and rebuilt the Kolbensattelhütte. Since then, it has offered over 110 seats in two rooms. The biggest attraction came about a year and a half after the takeover. With the year-round Alpine Coaster toboggan run, Fend and his colleagues have created a unique selling point. The 2600 meter long track with magnetic brake fits into the landscape and attracts thousands of visitors every year to the piston. In 2016, the shareholders put money into a bike park. A small drag lift takes mountain bikers up. Hundreds of cyclists from all over Europe use numerous routes with different degrees of difficulty and wooden ramps. In the same year, those responsible implemented a climbing forest at the mountain station. In 2018, however, parts of it were destroyed by a storm.Fend would like to create a new attraction here as soon as the insurance issues have been clarified.
Free ticket for schoolchildren
Standstill is a foreign concept for Fend.
The GmbH therefore continues to invest diligently in the piston area.
For its tenth anniversary, those responsible have also come up with something.
They are happy to take the anniversary as an opportunity to give all primary and secondary school students in Ober- and Unterammergau a free ticket for a ride on the Alpine Coaster for Christmas.
"Since it will hopefully be possible again in the early summer of 2022 to maintain more contacts and to do something with school friends or family, a hike to the Alpine Coaster is a good idea," says Fend.
Exercise in the fresh air in the natural surroundings was neglected during the pandemic.
They should now make up for that with fun and joy.