Die Tauplitz Austria

**Die Tauplitz** Ski Trail Map – click on map to enlarge and launch new browser

Tauplitz is a fun, mid-size ski resort in Styria Austria, with some big mountain skiing. Tauplitz has amazing ski history, including the first ski lift in Austria (sorry St Anton – that’s what proud locals told us).

Tauplitz is a hidden gem, many skiers have never heard of. It’s a bit of a confusing network at first, with a high mountain plateau, 43 kilometers of slopes and 17 lifts situated between elevations of 896 – 1965 meters (6,446′-feet’) The key lifts are the Mitterstein gondola, the six-pack Lawinenstein chair to the summit, the Schneiderkogel quad, and two-stage Tauplitz quads (2 separate lifts actually) taking you from the little alpine village up to the snowy Alm – which is a pretty high mountain pasture surrounded by mountains.

You can stay up high on the mountain in the car free Tauplitz Alm. Here you arrive via snow cat or snow mobile, to this magical alpine plateau. Its often quite sunny at Tauplitz, with lots of different exposures, much is southern and eastern for sunshine.

Tauplitz is known for receiving substantial snowfalls, and when that happens, there is vast freeriding opportunities, including some extremely steep challenging drops and cornices all around the high alpine terrain.

If you are a free-rider and the snow is on, don’t miss Tauplitz. Hire a ski guide like Stephan Skrobar of Die Bergstation who knows this terrain incredibly well and is fun to ski with around this interesting, undulating winter playground.

We counted 19 on-mountain huts. We enjoyed the wonderfully traditional chalet S’Krienmandl Hut. Located at the summit it is the highest ski hut in Styria at 1852-meters. Inside is cozy and historic, with old photos of the first lifts in this ski region in the 1930’s. All the homemade food is locally sourced, hearty and delicious.

There are two base towns to the ski area, Tauplitz or Bad Mitterndorf. Bad Mitterndorf offers a free ski bus up to the gondola and with good snow you can ski back to the village.

We stayed at Tauplitz at Der Hechl, a comfortable family-owned hotel with half board meals, and a lovely adult spa. Tauplitz has just enough ski hotels, ski shops, après ski bars and a grocery market.

Local ski shop, Egon Hierzegger of Sport Spanner, can tell you war stories (literally) about his grandfather who introduced the skiing concept here in the 1930’s, with the first ski lift in Austria. Interestingly, he was named after Olympic ski racer, Egon Zimmerman who came to the US and taught Austria’s alpine skiing methods at Gunstock in New Hampshire, Egon trained our ski photographer Greg, and our ski writer Heather’s mom Penny, as ski instructors back in the 70’s.

Speaking of Olympic and competitive skiing, Bad Mittendorf is home to the legendary FIS Skiflug (Ski Flying) Weltcup Kulm arena. Here a monstrous 235-meter ski jump hosts World Cup ski jumping competitions. We love that Austrians call it “ski flying” versus jumping… but then, they do FLY. The Ski Flug Nordic Center offers tours of the ski jump – which opened in 1950! This scary steep long ski jump is for pro athletes only.

Die Tauplitz is near more Austrian skiing – Loser, Schladming, Krippenstein, and the Salzburg region ski mountains of Schladming, Ski Circus Saalbach, Ski Gastein, Snow Space Salzburg, Obertauern and Zell am See!

Tauplitz – Bad Mitterndorf Ski Stats:
Elevation: 896 m – 1965 m, 6,446′
Vertical: 1069 m, 3,507′
Lifts: 17
Trails: 43 km of prepared pistes plus 2 km of ski routes.