Best Hochkonig Snowboarding

South of Salzburg and east of Saalfelden, the multi-valley Hochkönig ski area has 77 pistes totalling 120km that are served by 32 lifts accessing a maximum descent of 1050m. The family-friendly ski area is spread across five valleys stretching over 15km. Most of the pistes are forested and relatively low elevation. While it is possible to do some runs over 1000m, most laps will be more like 500m of vertical descent.

To get oriented, a popular grand tour route is called the Königstour, which follows a 32km loop with 6700m while interconnecting the villages of Maria Alm, Dienten, and Mühlbach. If you're looking for some freeriding, head to Aberg which has numerous ungroomed ski routes. The popular ski routes include: Perme Ski Route #12 from Abergalm summit station, Griessbachhutte Ski Route #17 from Abergalm summit station, Schreinerloch Ski Route #20 from Abergalm summit station, Fasching-Hochmais Ski Route from Fasching Lift to Hochmais Lift in Hinterthal, Sonneleiten-Hochmais Ski Route, and the Fellersbach Ski Route.

The Hochkönig ski area is within the Ski Amade ski arena, which has over 860km of pistes served by 270 lifts spread among 5 ski regions interconnecting 25 villages. The five ski regions include Salzburger Sportwelt, Schladming-Dachstein, Gastein, Grossarltal and Hochkoenig. After a long morning of snowboarding at Hochkonig, make sure to grab lunch at one of the amazing huttes including Karbachalm, Muhlbauerstub'n, Alpengasthof Kopphutte, or Postalm Jausenstation.

In the Hochkoenig ski area, there are four main villages including Hintermoos, Maria Alm, Dienten and Muhlbach. To get between the villages, there are free ski buses interconnecting Maria Alm, Dienten, Hintermoos and Mühlbach. The nearest train stations with service to Salzburg are Saalfelden and Bischofshofen. From the train stations, there are shuttle buses up to the base villages. The centrally located Dienten can make a good lodging base to explore the entire Hochkoenig ski region.

For the freestyle snowboarders in your crew, Hochkoenig has two main terrain parks to session. The massive Blue Tomato Kings Park is located in the Muhlbach sector and is served by the Kings Cab gondola. At over 1.8km long, the park has a huge number of features to session. Over at Maria Alm on the slopes of Aberg, there is a funslope served by the Schonanger lift. This 850m long park has small jumps, banked curves, a tunnel and waves.

Overall, Hochkonig is the 51st most popular snowboard & freeride destination of all 75 snowboarding resorts in Austria.