Obertauern Ski Resort – Austria

Obertauern Trail Ski Map – Click on Map to Enlarge in new browser

Obertauern in Austria Salzburg is a large-scale ski resort in the heart of the Austria’s Alps. Obertauern means “upper route” this was an important passage in Roman times for trading, so its very historic.

Considered Austria’s most snow-rich area, Obertauern enjoys snowfall from both the north and the south, with a base elevation of 1630 meters, and skiing up to 2313 meters (7,588′) on seven interconnected peaks around the valley surrounding the alpine valley of Obertauern. Its shaped like a snow bowl, so you can follow the sun to varying exposures during your ski day, on a variety of new modern lifts and older high-capacity lifts, moving people around in circuitous routes.

Obertauern has a wide range of green and red trails, easy to intermediate, prepared groomed daily pistes. Most of the trails are short and sweet, many under 1000’ vertical feet (300 meters). A few steeper trails, black, make it interesting. The steepest is up an older double chair Gamsleiten, to a Double Black pitch considered to be among the most difficult in the Alps, with a 45° gradient and a pitch of 100%, not usually groomed and only opened when conditions are suitable. The Gamsleiten ranks with the legendary Swiss Wall at Portes du Soleil, Black Ibex at Kaunertal, the Black Wall at Glacier 3000, Grand Couloir at Courcheval, Lagalb at St Moritz, the Streif at Kitzbuhel, and Harikari at Mountopolis.

For free-riders, Obertauern has vast open space for exploring just off the pistes. With a guide, a Bergführer, you can drop into nearby valleys ski touring for a cool alpine experience. We had a fun freeride offpiste adventure with guide Marcus from Obertauern ski school. Fun fact, Obertauern hosts the annual Freeride World Tour Challenge Finale in March on its wild terrain.

You can see much of Obertauern’s entire ski area from the upper mountain lifts, on a clear day in the Alps which is magical. You can ski in a clockwise or counter-clockwise circuit. There are two tours, for fun and challenge, the Red Tour (Tauernrundle) is clockwise and more difficult, while the Green Tauernrunde, is more intermediates. This ski tour has skiers riding many of the 26 lifts.

Obertauern’s Super 7 is another challenge to ski every peak, all the high points of the ski area, with photo points (find the heart, The Beatles, and their silver piano). Scan your lift ticket, wait for the countdown, pose, and see the photo when you log in to your RFID at day’s end, plus all your vertical stats.

For kids, Obertauern has fun mascots, Bobby the bunny has his own Bobby Runde, plus a cast of animal friends too. Kids can track a snow monster scavenger hunt with “my track”. Another novelty is that the Beatles filmed their music video “Help” in 1965 in Obertauern, so you’ll see Beatles statues and tribute concerts.

Obertauern has fifty mountain huts, we loved our super scenic lunch at Gams Milche Bar atop the Zenhnerkar gondola. Treff 2000 is another cool spot (though the staff was not uber-friendly), also for après ski, along with Hochalm and Edelweiss.

Obertauern offers night skiing Monday and Thursday on the Edelweiss lift. The ski area boasts a long ski season too, mid November to May typically. We like their lift ticket model, you can buy two hours of skiing, your choice of time for under $40, and there are lots of other pass options including the Salzburg Super Ski Card and the Lungo pass good at nearby Grosseck and Katschberg.

Non-skiers can enjoy winter wandering riding Obertauern’s major lifts to high plateau paths, and include a lunch at a mountain hut. You can also snow shoe or Nordic ski on groomed tracked runs.

Obertauern Lodging: The claim to fame in the village of Obertauern is that every hotel is ski in ski out, which we believe is accurate among the 100+ lodging properties. Autoroute 99 passes right through the village, so skiers cross ski bridges to access both sides of the valley. You’ll find ski shops, restaurants, grocery markets, lining the main road. Obertauern as a ski village, with the major road passing right thru, is not quite as charming as Kitzbuhel or St Anton, but still very authentic and alpine with ski culture, après ski and a good vibe.

We stayed at the 4-star Hotel Romerhof, a lovely historic family hotel, with half board, a lovely spa, excellent dining, two bars and lounges, and most of the 50+ rooms have views.

The two shortcomings to Obertauern: the high base elevation does not allow for very long trails and big vertical drops that other Austrian resorts offer. With its high elevation, there is also very little tree cover or trail definition on a stormy, snowy, cloud day (in other words – white out).

Obertauern is easily reached just 90-minutes from downtown Salzburg. Its also convenient to nearby ski resorts Zauchensee, Snow Space Salzburg, and on the same ticket as neighboring Grosseck Speiereck, in Mauterndorf, and Katschberg nearby.

Obertauern Ski Stats:
Elevation: 1630 m – 2313 m, 7,588′
Vertical: 683 m, 2,240′
Lifts: 26
Trails: 100 km of prepared pistes