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Stepping off the train in Kitzbühel, Austria, feels like entering hallowed ground: one of the most famous ski towns in the Alps, chartered in 1271 by Duke Ludwig II of Bavaria. I inhaled the crisp afternoon air and began a short walk to my accommodations, passing fur boutiques and high-end ski shops, medieval churches, and brightly lit, glassed-in hotel lobbies. I came to a tiny concrete stairway one block off the main drag and descended into a snow-covered garden, where I passed a few ducks, quacking and nibbling on lettuce. I buzzed the doorbell and waited.

It was Tuesday, January 22, 2025. I had come to Kitzbühel to cover the baddest ski race on the World Cup circuit: the Hahnenkamm downhill, alpine schussing’s holy grail, where skiers become legends on a twisting elevator shaft of ice called the Streif. It is staged in this quaint Tyrolean hamlet of 8,000 residents, and each year attracts 45,000 paying fans, as well as celebrities and politicians who intermingle with depraved commoners like few places in the winter world.

I’d planned my trip late, in mid-December, when most of the area’s lodging had been gobbled up. My options were to pay $600 a night for a room in a village four miles away, accessed by train; or $50 a night for a bed in a six-bunk room at the SnowBunnys Hostel, a five-minute walk to the race finish—breakfast included. I hadn’t stayed in a European hostel since I was 21. Now I am a 45-year-old father of two who enjoys sleep.

It’s only six nights, I reassured myself as I booked the hostel.

A few minutes after arriving at the hostel, a heavyset man named Dave with long, stringy black hair and a graying beard opened the door. I followed him upstairs to a small, stuffy quarters on the third floor. He coughed and sneezed without covering his mouth. “Everyone in the village is sick,” he explained.

Dave, a Kiwi in his fifties, showed me the bathrooms: a cramped toilet stall outside our room and a fourth-floor shower with a sign that read, “Only 2 Euros to watch!” A rabbit named Rocky hopped down the hallway.

I met my roommates: Josh, 41, a wildland firefighter from Sun Valley, Idaho, who was here to snowboard; and Jake, a Toronto dad in his sixties who’d come to watch his best friend’s son compete in the Hahnenkamm. More would arrive later in the week.

“Oh, hey,” Jake mentioned in the common room, before I headed upstairs to bed, “Josh is a bit of a snorer. I do, too, sometimes.” I soon learned this was like saying Hahnenkamm racers ski “a bit fast.” Jake started snoring ten seconds after he closed his eyes. But it was nothing like Josh, whose labored breathing sounded like a semi truck using its engine brake. That night I lay awake for six hours.
The following evening, we sat around a table while Dave held court. He told us he’d left school at 14, served in the British infantry, and moved to Kitzbühel in 1990 with 100 British pounds to his name.

“What brought you?” I asked.

“I met a girl in Prague and she was coming here.”

Dave took a job at McDonald’s, which improved his language skills; he spoke English, German, Bulgarian, and Japanese. Dave’s family had run the hostel for 27 years. “Some people are so shiny,” he lamented. “We call ’em ‘shinys.’ They complain about everything to try and get their money back. ‘Oh, my wife was allergic to chickens.’”

Seeking a bit of optimism, he shifted to the week’s marquee event—the reason his hostel would be full come Friday.

“Now we have the Hanhenkamm. It’s just bullshit on bullshit. But it’s amazing how we can put 90,000 people in one little village and nobody’s shooting or driving trucks through the crowd.”