The Mountain Playground We Could Not Finish in a Day
At Golm in Austria’s Montafon valley, the coaster, alpine playgrounds and activity-filled mountain paths gave our seven-year-old endless reasons to keep exploring. One day was not nearly enough.
“This is awesome!”
Christopher had found another activity centre on the mountain, and once again we were having trouble persuading him to leave. We had not reached the next playground, the next stretch of trail or the next view yet. None of that mattered to him. This place was already the best place, and he intended to stay.
That became the rhythm of our day at Golm. We kept thinking we were moving towards the next attraction, only to discover that the mountain had filled the space between attractions with so much to do that getting anywhere quickly was almost impossible.
It was exactly the right kind of problem.
Beginning with the Alpine Coaster
We started with the Golm Alpine Coaster, before the rest of the mountain could distract us. Even on a weekday, the line took about thirty minutes. Then we were released onto 2.6 kilometres of steel track running from Latschau towards Vandans, with the speed controlled from our own car.
The wait was forgotten almost immediately. The ride was amazing. It twisted and dipped through the landscape, fast enough to thrill all of us without making Christopher feel like a passenger in an adult adventure.
His verdict was immediate: the roller coaster was the best ever.
We would have happily gone again, but the line had already claimed half an hour of our morning. We decided to keep moving. By the end of the day, we understood that returning for another ride would have required giving up an entirely different part of Golm.
That is the first thing to know about this mountain. It looks possible to collect its activities into one efficient family day. It is not. Each part expands as soon as a child begins to enjoy it.
A playground in the high meadows
After the coaster, we took the Golmerbahn all the way up to Grüneck. At 1,893 metres above sea level, the enormous GOLM letters announce that this is not simply a viewpoint at the top of a gondola.
Around them are wooden structures, water, balancing challenges and activity stations made for children to touch and test. The play area feels open to the mountain rather than separated from it. Christopher could climb and experiment while the adults remained part of the same scene, surrounded by high meadows and the layers of the Montafon peaks.
Again, we had trouble making him leave. Every station produced another “This is awesome!”
We stopped for lunch at Restaurant Feineck beside the Grüneck mountain station. Christopher had Flädlesuppe, its clear broth filled with fine ribbons of pancake. We ordered schnitzels, then shared a plate of Kaiserschmarrn, the soft torn Alpine pancakes served with Apfelmus and a generous dusting of sugar.
There was no feeling that the grown-ups had to finish quickly because the child was waiting for something to happen. Something was already happening. This is one of the qualities I loved most about Golm: the spaces for children and adults are not divided into separate worlds.
Children play outdoors within sight of the terraces. The adults can eat, enjoy the view and linger over a spritz or a beer, perhaps even a local shot, while the children remain absorbed nearby. The pleasure does not have to alternate. Everyone can be having a good time at once.
The walk we almost did not have time to take
Our original hope was to walk one of the scenic loops near the top. The views made it almost painful to turn away. But we also wanted to experience the journey down the mountain, and the last gondolas would leave at 5 p.m. There was no way to do both without rushing through the very thing we had come to enjoy.
We chose the descent towards the Matschwitz middle station.
Golmi’s Forschungspfad, or Golmi’s research trail, runs for approximately 2.4 kilometres from Grüneck to Matschwitz. Its 22 activity stations are designed around the alpine environment and aimed at children from about six years old. On paper, that sounds like a themed family walk. On the ground, it felt more like a long invitation to stop.
There were activity centres, playground elements and little physical challenges all along the way. Christopher never had time to become bored with walking because the trail kept changing the purpose of the walk. He was not being asked to endure the landscape until we reached the fun part. The landscape was the fun part.
For us, the views were extraordinary. The path crossed open meadow, curved among dark fir trees and repeatedly opened onto the valley below. We could stop for the mountains while Christopher stopped for the next activity. Neither experience interrupted the other.
Then we began finding berries.
Wild blueberries, raspberries and strawberries turned the walk into a small treasure hunt. Christopher loved picking them. It was another form of entertainment that did not need to be installed or explained, just noticed. The berries slowed us down even more, and we were happy to be slowed down.
The slides we left for another day
Golm is also home to seven enclosed forest slides between Matschwitz and Latschau. We had imagined including them in our descent. By the time we approached the middle station, however, the research trail had already filled the afternoon.
We did not skip the slides because the walk was disappointing. We skipped them because the walk had been too much fun.
We reached the Matschwitz gondola at around 4:30 p.m., just in time to ride down before the lifts closed. We were tired in the satisfying way that follows a day of climbing, playing, looking and constantly negotiating with a delighted seven-year-old who did not want to leave anything behind.
There was no sense that we had completed Golm. We had ridden the coaster once, played at Grüneck, eaten lunch and followed the research trail to Matschwitz. We had not taken the scenic loop at the top. We had not tried the forest slides. Christopher would have repeated the coaster immediately, and probably every activity centre too.
One day had shown us the mountain. It had not exhausted its possibilities.