Obergurgl Ski Resort
With a chilled out vibe and a long season stretching from the beginning of November to the end of May, Obergurgl ticks all the boxes for a certain kind of skier. What kind of skier you ask? Well let’s see. Perhaps one with children, definitely not a raver but someone who enjoys a good knees up, probably not an expert, but an intermediate skier would find plenty of challenging terrain. Oh and definitely someone who is fond of Austrian things. You see, for despite lying at the end of the Otztal Valley right next to the Italian border, the resort has all of the elements you would expect of a traditional Austrian mountain village. In fact, it wouldn’t be entirely unheard of to spot a fellow skier in lederhosen at the breakfast bar tucking into some wholesome homemade muesli – such are Obergurgl’s indisputable Tyrolean qualities.
The resort is known for two things. Its height – it boasts of having the highest parish in Europe – and for being the crash pad of Swiss explorer Auguste Piccard who in 1931 crashed his hot-air balloon on the Gurgler-Ferner glacier. Piccard was attempting to reach a world altitude record and he achieved it right before he hurtled down to Obergurgl. Fortunately for the village locals, Piccard’s misfortune literally put them on the map; newspapers around the world reported the story and visitors began to flock to the special mountain.
It’s fortunate too that the locals are genuinely welcoming, the village is quaint, quiet and mostly car-free. Year after year the resort continues to draw back loyal customers while attracting new ones too.
OPEN
Season Start/End: 16/11/2017 – 22/04/2018
ALTITUDE: 1800m – 3080m
PISTES: 34%|37%| 14%| 14%
LIFTS: 24
LIFT TICKETS: from €24.00 to €52.00
RESORT HEIGHT
1,927m
SNOW RANGE
1,800-3,082m
TOTAL KM OF PISTE
Obergurgl-Hochgurgl 110km
Piste type Km of piste
Easy 35km
Intermediate 55km
Difficult 20km
Ski routes 10km
