"Reisch has gone crazy!"

"Sepp, you´ll never know just how beautiful it was!" , Franz Reisch reportedly said to his friend, Josef Herold, after one of his first successful skiing expeditions. Reisch had read "On snowshoes through Greenland", a book by Norwegian polar explorer, Fridjof Nansen, which had gained the public´s attention. In his book, the author gave expression to his enthusiasm for skiing. His writing garnered world-wide interest - not the least in Kitzbühel. It was probably the catalist for the unparalleled development of this sleepy mountain village into a mecca of skiing. The adopted Kitzbüheler, Franz Reisch, was fascinated and soon thereafter obtained a pair of "boards" of his own. His first attempts on "Norwegian snowshoes", as they were called in those days, were made around the turn of the years 1892/1893. In spite of the sceptical attitude of many of his Kitzbühel contemporaries — passed down over the years is the exclamation "Look, Reisch has gone crazy!" — he soon started out on bigger tours. On March 15, 1893, he climbed the Kitzbüheler Horn. In the first edition of the periodical “Der Schneeschuh” (“The Snowshoe”) of November 1, 1893, he depicted his experiences, thus delivering the first-ever text on Alpine skiing. The first photographs from the pioneering age of ski sports in Kitzbühel were proivded by Josef Herold.

Together with a small group of like-minded people, the friends ordered more skis from Norway, putting on the first small-scale ski races as early as 1895. At the start were Josef Herold, Albert Primus, the Stanger brothers, Hans Tscholl, Kathrein, the notary, and Dr. Johann Taunstei Probably every winter since 1895 ski races have been staged in Kitzbühel. They were organized by the ski squad from the local gymnastics club, to which both Reisch and Herold belonged. In 1900, Martin Ritzer Sr. reports in the 2nd edition of the local newspaper, the "Kitzbüheler Bezirks

Development of winter tourism went hand-in-hand with winter sports. It was in Kitzbühel´s Lebenberg Castle, as far back as 1888, that the first hotel and guesthouse was set up with a view to remaining open throughout the winter. The owner, Hugo Graf Lamberg, leased out some apartments to the very first winter sports visitors from England. By 1898, the first skiers from other ski regions showed up in town, including the editor of the German-Austrian Alpine Association’s newspaper and his friends, Stierböck and Meindl, from Vienna. Their numbers were joined in 1900 by members of the Munich Academic Ski Club. They had learned to ski in the Black Forest and now were discovering Kitzbühel as a new skiing paradise. In 1902, they published the book "Ski Tours around Munich", demonstrating their already excellent familiarity with the Kitzbühel ski region.