St Johann Ski Area

The St. Johann ski area is all located on the north side of the famous Kitzbüheler Horn, opposite the imposing Wilder Kaiser range. The area is characterised by a number of wide meandering runs down through the trees back to either St. Johann itself or nearby Oberndorf.

There are three main areas on the mountain: the Eichenhof lifts section – which can be relatively quiet although involves some long t-bars; the area around the Harschbichl and Hochfeld lifts on the middle of the mountain, which tends to be quite busy with ski schools; and the Penzing-Bauernalm area towards Oberndorf, which features some steeper slopes.

With a peak of 1,604m, conditions in St. Johann can suffer when the weather is warm, although artificial snow-making facilities cover much of the resort, and its northerly orientation means this isn’t as much of a problem as it could be.

The area is very well suited to beginners, with three gentle nursery areas for novices and children, and 8 of 19 runs easy blues. In general, runs from the mid-station down are marked blue and provide a network of easily accessible pistes where learners can build their confidence before attempting some of the more testing terrain higher up the mountain.

Above the mid-station, the concentration of red runs offer an enjoyable couple of days skiing for intermediates, with some wide easy cruisers (4a) as well as more challenging slopes towards the Penzing area (5a/6a).

There is, however, very little advanced skiing – the run down from the Bauernalm cable car (7a) is the only black piste. Skiers with some experience will quickly cover the slopes St. Johann has to offer and will need to go further afield to find new ground to explore.

Luckily, St. Johann is well placed within the Schneewinkel area which offers 176km prepared pistes, and is also not far from the KitzSki (170km) and SkiWelt (279km) areas, although a car is needed to get to these areas easily.

Within the Schneewinkel area the two resorts most worth a visit are Fieberbrunn and Steinplatte; both can be reached easily by car or by the ski bus which connects the Schneewinkel villages. The other villages have very small ski areas so are probably not worth the effort.

Fieberbrunn has 43km of prepared pistes, but is best known for the superb off-piste on offer, as showcased by the Swatch Freeride World Tour. Steinplatte, meanwhile, is a relatively compact ski area (35km prepared pistes), with some good intermediate skiing on a dense network of wide blues and reds at the top of the mountain.