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Hailed the snowboard capital of Europe, Austria’s resorts are home to some of the best snowparks in the Alps - not to mention seemingly bottomless powder and more corduroy than Woody Allen’s wardrobe...
Throw in an infectiously chilled vibe and cheaper prices than France or Switzerland, and it’s clear why we keep coming back here. Pick one of the ten best resorts and you'll have a snowboard holiday of top quality shredding.
Austria: Top 10 for Snowboarding
Mayrhofen’s a big deal for boarders, and it has a little something to do with the Vans Penken Park. Land a fakie off the huge rainbow box and you might find yourself lining up for seasons to come behind regulars like Jenny Jones. Beyond the park, expert riders will have a storm on the Penken powder routes and pistes like black #17 (the wide, open and consistently steep “Devil’s Run’) and the Harakiri (with a pitch of 78% it’s the steepest in Austria). With nursery slopes on both mountains and more than enough cruisers, first time boarders are just as in on the action. Take the nearby Sesselbahn lift to Knorren, where the zig-zag blue #20 is a docile descent from an impressive 2081m altitude.
After a week of long distances, deep powder and big freestyle, confident riders will leave St Anton even more confident and hungry for more. The Arlberg area’s teeming with some of the best terrain we’ve seen: 280km of gloriously groomed pistes – including some cruisy routes from Kapall and steeper ones on Rendl. Then you’ve got 180km+ of insane freeride trails, including the Mattun and Mattunjoch itineraries for some serious shredding over steep inclines. Those aside, we could easily spend all season at the STANTON Park, where kicker lines and rails of different levels accompany a Wallride, Shrek, Mushroom Bubble and an Elefant Butter Box.
Freestylers, welcome to the big league. The PlayStation Vita Snowpark is probably a name you’ve heard before (if not, spend the week here and it’ll be etched in your memories for all the right reasons). One of the world’s gnarliest, it has more than 50 unique features, an air bag and the longest pro-line in Europe to keep you happily occupied. If you fancy some boarding over the border, there’s also the halfpipe, boardercross and Obstacle Park over in Swiss Samnaun. Whip down the mountain on wide open reds (like #12 from Idjoch) or take your pick of pitchy blacks – we’ll never tire of the super steep #20 and #21 over on Palinkopf, or the tasty off piste between them. Speaking of, powder hounds are also in for a handful of treats here: get a guide to take you off the back of Palinkopf or to Piz Val Gronda - with lift access, only 1 piste and a whole mountain of untouched pow.
Medieval Kitzbühel may sound like the stuff of fairy tales, but a specialist snowboard instructor (like the ones at Powderflo) will show you that it’s a real-life wonder, whether you’re starting off on magic carpets or in quest of the area’s legendary powder. For newbies, the #28 and #29 blues under the Pengelstein peak are the smoothest of them all (and after a few tumbles, trust us, the heated seats on the lifts here are another dream come true). As you progress, you’ll also find reels of playful bumps, hits and powder stashes on the side of the piste. The serious freestyle here goes down at the Hanglalm Snowpark (especially when the QParks tour comes to town). But the climax of the Kitz story is without question its freeriding. Catch the snowcat up to Bichlalm or work through the awesome descents on the Kitzbueheler Horn and you can ride on and on happily ever after.
There’s a reason Absinthe Films and GoPro make their movies here, and it’s the powder off the Kriegerhorn: Drop off the back for some of the finest bowls and mounds on the planet. Add in the backcountry from Zuger Hochlicht and Saloberkopf, and if you didn’t need sleep or sustenance, you could ride here for months. In the corduroy department, Oberlech has loads of blue motorway runs, and Zürs some steeper but still cruisy reds. On the whole, the pistes are wide, lengthy and superbly groomed for big turns and building up a rhythm. There’s a funpark here too, but everyone’s got one of those – what sets Lech apart for snowboarders is the fact that it’s one of a handful of places you can still heli-board: the Mehlsack and Orgelscharte are the drop-off points for the rides of a lifetime.
SkiWelt’s boarder HQ: Not only can you ride the copious amounts of cruisy trails that make up the 280km area, you’ll come home to the best park in the massif. Boarder's Playground on Gampenkogel has easy, medium and hard lines to tear up, with the crowning glory being the 20m ‘Big Mama’ kicker on the pro line. If you know where to look, there are oodles of natural hits to be shred nearby too, like the pipe just off the side of red run #118a. The local pistes are mainly easy-going reds and blues with some of that perfect crisp corduroy we love so much on the Fleiding. If you want to “get weird in the woods” Travis Rice stylie, throw yourself in amongst the hundreds of natural forest runs, like the one from Talkaser. Next, take it up a notch and freeride the backside of Choralpe and Gampenkogel.
Tree runs, wide powder fields, over 200km of corduroy and two kickass parks come together to make this one hell of a resort for riders. An updated lift system makes it easier to navigate the pistes, and lucky for us, there’s hardly a T-bar in sight. There are some super descents on either side of the area, like the blistering black Zwolferkogel North. The valley's also swimming in blues - like the evenly pitched Reriterkogel Valley Descent, up the Hasenauerbahn 8er chairlift from Hinterglemm. Park rats should scurry along to Hinterglemm and Leogang, which both have different tracks ranging from easy to challenging, for shredding until you can shred no more.
If you’re new to the whole boarding business, master the art on the Lechnerberg nursery slope and Maiskogel’s cluster of smooth blues. Or, if you’ve been riding for years, head straight to the glacier where you’ll quickly develop a soft spot for red #11, a massive, wide curve that dominates the base of the Kitzsteinhorn. Black Mamba’s a killer for experts: 1km of groomer at a 290 vertical metre drop, with the added bite of a 63% gradient. On the freestyling front, the combination of obstacles spread over the Kitzsteinhorn and Maiskogel parks add up to 70 in chart-topping total, a mass of mega jibs, half pipes and super pipes, difficulty rated for those starting off with two left feet all the way through to the bona fide pros.
With two glaciers, uber high peaks, never-ending powder and an epic freestyle zone, Sölden is shred central. The Area 47 snowpark has beginner and intermediate kicker lines with boxes, then a completely separate pro-line with reams of inventive jibs that are one of a kind. There are some serious one-off steeps packed in here too, like the pitchiest of the lot, black #3, closely followed by red #31 on the Rettenbach glacier (of World Cup fame) and black #25 on the Schwarzseekegl. Sölden’s second glacier, Tiefenbach is the only place to be if you’re feeling broad, rolling slopes - try out #39 and #38. This is Austria’s only ski area with 3 mountains over 3000m which means only one thing: seriously massive runs. The longest trail is a whopping 15km, starting from Schwarze Schneide and leading all the way to Gaislachkogl base terminal (dropping a mammoth 1970m vertical). To step things up even further, start at Hainbachjoch and take the 14/20/22 route, a 1350 meter drop following a line of bloodcurdlingly beautiful blacks.
For freestylers, this region is a clear winner – the Dachstein Superpark nearly always hosts the World Snowboard Tour and the huge Planai park's where they hold the O’Neill roof battle. Together they have all the features you could possibly wish for (and then some). Being split over four mountains, you’ll find different terrain all over the place. Speed-freaks can rip the long red runs under the Hauser Kaibling peak, while lovers of tree lines (and tongue twisters) should head right from the top of Planai’s Larchkogelbahn chair – there you’ll find two reds with hefty forests between them, perfect for powdery lines.
Austria's top snowboarding destinations won’t always be the same as its top skiing ones, so what makes an Austrian mountain into one of the best Austrian snowboard mountains? All kinds of things, starting with a smashing snow park, high-tech lifts (not too many buttons/drags), easy to reach powder terrain, top notch snowboarding tuition and buzzing apres ski...
You can check how good a resort is for boarders by looking up the marks-out-of-five in our resort descriptions but for Austria’s best, you’re in the right place! For the top spots in other countries, see our lists for Italy, France and Switzerland. Only a special few have made it to our list of the Best Snowboard Resorts on Earth, which shows you the cream of the crop from Europe, North America and beyond.
Austria - best snowboard resorts
| Resort | Best features |
|---|---|
| Mayrhofen | Vans Penken Park, Austria’s steepest slope, gentle beginner terrain |
| St Anton | Great groomed runs, legendary off-piste, STANTON snowpark |
| Ischgl | World class PlayStation Vita Snowpark, Europe’s longest pro-line, excellent piste and powder |
| Kitzbuhel | Hanglalm Snowpark, freeriding, excellent pistes |
| Lech | Awesome backcountry, wide slopes, heli-boarding |
| Westendorf | Boarder’s Playground snowpark, natural tree runs, all kinds of pistes |
| Saalbach | Linked ski area with 2 snow parks, range of trails, freeride terrain |
| Kaprun | Gentle terrain for beginners, 2 snow parks, freeride and steeps for experts |
| Solden | Seriously snow sure, Area 47 snow park, great mix of trails |
| Schladming | World Snowboard Tour host, Dachstein & Planai snow parks |
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