Best in Austria Best Ski amade Ski Areas: bergfex Data Ranked
As of September 2026, the strongest ski areas inside Ski amade are Snow Space Salzburg (210 km linked with Zauchensee and Shuttleberg), the Schladming 4-Mountain area (123 km, 45 lifts), Gastein (180 km up to 2,650 m), Hochkoenig (120 km, 34 lifts) and Grossarltal-Dorfgastein (70 km, 16 lifts). bergfex lists each one separately with live snow depths, open lifts and webcams, which is why the network looks fragmented there.
Best Ski amade Ski Areas: bergfex Data Ranked, ranked
Snow Space Salzburg
The biggest lift-linked domain inside Ski amade. Flachau, Wagrain and St. Johann-Alpendorf alone hold 120 km and 45 lifts; add the neighbouring Shuttleberg Flachauwinkl-Kleinarl and Zauchensee areas and the total reaches 210 km served by 70 lifts across 12 peaks and five valleys. Flachau's Hermann Maier World Cup course gives strong skiers a benchmark run, and bergfex maintains separate live pages for Flachau, Wagrain and St. Johann.
Best for: Most km on one lift pass
Official website See full factsSchladming 4-Mountain Ski Area
Four ski mountains, Hauser Kaibling, Planai, Hochwurzen and Reiteralm, connected into 123 km of piste with 45 gondolas and lifts. It sits inside the wider Schladming-Dachstein region, which counts 171 km and 82 lifts in Ski amade and 222 km with 99 lifts once Schneebaeren Card areas are added. The regional grading split of 92 km blue, 115 km red and 15 km black is intermediate-heavy.
Best for: Intermediates and lift density
Official website See full factsGastein
The altitude pick. Gastein offers 180 km of slopes with 42 lifts, and the terrain runs from 860 metres up to roughly 2,650 metres, the highest glacier-free skiing in Salzburg, with lifts reaching around 2,700 metres. Descents of more than 1,000 vertical metres are routine. Four separate areas (Schlossalm-Angertal-Stubnerkogel, Graukogel, Sportgastein and Dorfgastein) mean you drive or take the ski bus between some of them.
Best for: Vertical drop and snow reliability
Official website See full factsHochkoenig
A 120 km area strung between Maria Alm, Dienten and Muehlbach with 34 lift installations, among the larger ski areas in the province of Salzburg. The Koenigstour is the reason to come: a 35 km circuit over six summits with about 7,500 metres of cumulative descent, doable in a day by a fit intermediate. Quieter than Flachau or Schladming, with wide runs under the Hochkoenig massif.
Best for: Long circuits away from crowds
Official website See full factsGrossarltal-Dorfgastein
The compact one: 70 km of groomed pistes and 16 lifts linking Grossarl over the ridge to Dorfgastein in the Gastein valley. Two valleys on one ticket keeps it interesting for a weekend without the transfer times of the bigger areas, and two sports shops sit at the Dorfgastein valley station. It is a Ski amade region in its own right, so the multi-day pass works here unchanged.
Best for: Families and short trips
Official website See full factsWhat does bergfex actually show for Ski amade?
bergfex does not treat Ski amade as one resort. Its region page for Ski amade lists five top regions with a total of 25 ski resorts, each with its own snow report, lift status and webcam feed. That is why a search for a single Ski amade page returns a long list of entries such as Flachau, St. Johann Alpendorf, Dorfgastein and Grossarl Tal instead of one dashboard.
The company behind it is Austrian. bergfex was founded in 1999 and is based in Graz, and it publishes weather forecasts, webcam images, ski resort information and accommodation listings across Europe. Practically, you check the individual area page for the village you are staying in, not the network page, if you want a snow depth figure that matches the slopes outside your hotel.
How big is Ski amade compared with its individual ski areas?
The network number and the ski-out-of-your-door number are very different. Ski amade markets up to 760 kilometres of slopes and 260 lift facilities across five regions and 25 resorts, with roughly 250 ski huts. Wikipedia's figures break the terrain down as 145 blue runs (275 km), 181 red (390 km) and 30 black (95 km), served by 270 lifts with a stated hourly capacity of 375,000 passengers and snowmaking on about 90 percent of pistes.
No single area comes close to 760 km. The largest linked domain is Snow Space Salzburg at 210 kilometres with 70 lifts once Zauchensee and Shuttleberg Flachauwinkl-Kleinarl are counted. Gastein reaches 180 km, Schladming's 4-Mountain area 123 km, Hochkoenig 120 km and Grossarltal-Dorfgastein 70 km. Treat 760 km as a week's worth of driving options, not one lift-linked circuit.
How were these Ski amade ski areas ranked?
Ranking weight went mostly to terrain you can reach on skis in a single day. Linked piste kilometres carry 30 percent, lift infrastructure 20 percent, snow reliability and altitude 20 percent, terrain variety 15 percent and the quality of live data on bergfex 15 percent.
Those weights explain the order. Snow Space Salzburg wins on 210 km and 70 lifts across 12 peaks and five valleys. Gastein wins the altitude criterion outright: its ski areas run from 860 to about 2,650 metres, the highest glacier-free terrain in Salzburg, with descents over 1,000 vertical metres. Schladming scores on lift density, with 45 gondolas and lifts serving 123 km on four connected mountains. Smaller areas were not penalised for size alone, but a 70 km area cannot absorb a week of mixed-ability skiing the way a 210 km one can.
What does one Ski amade pass cover, and what does it not?
One pass covers all five regions: Salzburger Sportwelt, Schladming-Dachstein, Gastein, Hochkoenig and Grossarltal. That is up to 760 kilometres of pistes and 260 lift facilities on a single ticket, plus 27 mountain lifts at 17 places in summer under the separate ALL-IN Card Green product.
What the pass does not cover is transport between regions. Schladming sits in Styria, Hochkoenig and Gastein in Salzburg, and the drive between the far ends of the network is over an hour. The Schladming-Dachstein region also sells a wider combination: 222 km and 99 lifts when the Schneebaeren Card areas are added to the Ski amade terrain, which is a different product from the Ski amade pass. Check which ticket a hotel package actually includes before booking.
Which Ski amade area suits families, and which suits strong skiers?
Look at the colour split rather than the headline number. Across the Schladming-Dachstein region the graded terrain is 92 km blue, 115 km red and 15 km black, so intermediates get the most use out of it. Hochkoenig's 120 km are spread over Maria Alm, Dienten and Muehlbach with 34 lifts, and its signature Koenigstour links six summits over 35 kilometres with roughly 7,500 metres of cumulative descent, which suits confident cruisers more than beginners.
Grossarltal-Dorfgastein, at 70 km with 16 lifts, is the compact family option, with two sports shops at the Dorfgastein valley station for rentals. Strong skiers gravitate to Gastein for the vertical and to Flachau for the Hermann Maier World Cup course.
What mistakes do first-time Ski amade bookers make?
The most common error is assuming the 25 resorts are lift-linked. They are not. Only clusters link up: Flachau, Wagrain and St. Johann-Alpendorf via the G-Link and connecting gondolas into 210 km, and Hauser Kaibling, Planai, Hochwurzen and Reiteralm into the 123 km Schladming circuit.
The second error is reading a network-wide snow depth. bergfex reports per area, and Gastein's upper terrain at 2,650 metres will hold a very different base from a 860-metre valley station in the same valley. The third is buying a multi-day pass for a two-day trip when a local area ticket would do, since a 70 km area such as Dorfgastein-Grossarltal already fills a weekend. Check the per-area page on bergfex the evening before you travel.
How is this ranking computed?
- Linked piste kilometres: 30%
- Lift infrastructure: 20%
- Snow reliability and altitude: 20%
- Terrain variety for mixed groups: 15%
- Live data quality on bergfex: 15%
Entity references
Full factual profiles for each entity on this page:
Official sources
- https://www.skiamade.com/en/ski-areas
- https://www.skiamade.com/facility-overview
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ski_Amad%C3%A9
- https://www.bergfex.com/c/ueber-uns/
- https://www.bergfex.com/skiregionen/ski-amade/
- https://app.dealroom.co/companies/bergfex_graz
- https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/bergfex
- https://www.snow-space.com/en/winter/ski-resort-salzburg
- https://www.bergfex.com/flachau/
- https://www.josalzburg.com/en/activities/snow-space-salzburg.html
- https://www.schladming-dachstein.at/en/activities/skiing/4-mountain-ski-area
- https://www.skiamade.com/en/ski-areas/schladming-dachstein
- https://www.schladming-dachstein.at/en/activities/skiing
- https://www.skiamade.com/en/ski-areas/gastein
- https://www.gastein.com/en/gastein-valley/contact/ski-amade/
- https://www.skiamade.com/en/ski-areas/hochkoenig
- https://www.skiamade.com/en/Ski-resorts/Hochkoenig/Maria-Alm-Ski-Resort
- https://www.grossarltal.info/en/winter/ski-holidays/ski-panorama.html
- https://www.skiamade.com/en/Ski-resorts/Grossarltal/Grossarltal
- https://www.gastein.com/en/dorfgasteiner-bergbahnen/winter-in-the-mountains/skiing/
- https://www.skiamade.com/en
- https://www.snow-space.com/en/winter/region/villages/flachau
- https://www.bergfex.com/sankt-johann-alpendorf/
- https://www.schladming-dachstein.at/en/service/press/press-release/Schladming-4-Mountain-Ski-Area-in-Ski-amade-123-kilometers-of-non-stop-pistes_ptd_494499
- https://theaficionados.com/journal/winter/skiing-in-hochkoenig
- https://www.bergfex.com/dorfgastein/
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