Skiing
near Munich

Search for ski resorts near Munich and you will mostly find the same four names, because they share a lift pass called Alpen Plus: Spitzingsee-Tegernsee, Sudelfeld, Brauneck-Wegscheid near Lenggries and the Wallberg above Rottach-Egern. All four sit in the Bavarian Prealps, roughly an hour south of the city. Spitzingsee is five kilometres from Schliersee, Sudelfeld is the next valley east.

It is worth being clear about scale before you book. These are low, compact areas. Spitzingsee has about 14 kilometres of marked runs, Sudelfeld about 31. That is plenty for a weekend, for families, for people who want three or four hours on the snow and an afternoon by a lake, or for a week mixed with sledging, cross-country and a sauna. If you want a different valley of long runs every day for a week, the large Austrian areas are the better match and a longer drive.

What this corner of Bavaria offers instead is proximity. You can stay in a lakeside village with restaurants, a station and a bakery, ride up for the morning, and be back on the shore by mid-afternoon. Lift times, prices, snow depths and which runs are open change daily and are published by the operators, linked at the end of this page. We do not copy them here: a number that was right last week is worse than none.

Spitzingsee is a mountain lake at 1,084 metres, about five kilometres south of Schliersee and part of the same municipality. The ski area is on the slopes south-west of the lake, around the Stümpfling (1,484 metres) and the Roßkopf (1,580 metres), and carries the name Spitzingsee-Tegernsee because a second chairlift, the Suttenbahn, comes up from the Tegernsee side.

In numbers, according to skiresort.de: 14.2 kilometres of piste, 11 lifts, an altitude range of 980 to 1,580 metres. Of those runs, 1.7 kilometres are graded easy, 8.2 intermediate and 4.3 difficult. That is a red-run area. Complete beginners usually start on the short practice lifts near the lake; confident intermediates get the most out of it. Most of the pistes have snowmaking.

Two things are local to this place. The Kurvenlift, a drag lift from 1974, takes two bends on the way up. Ride it once. And on some evenings in the season the Stümpfling run is floodlit for night skiing, with a free night ski bus from Schliersee and Neuhaus stations. Which evenings, and whether it runs at all that week, is on the Alpenbahnen Spitzingsee site.

You may still find the Taubenstein on older maps, on the other side of the lake. Its winter lifts stopped after the 2014/15 season. The gondola still runs in summer for hikers, and in winter the slopes belong to ski tourers.

A note on grading, for visitors from Britain and North America: in Germany and Austria pistes are marked blue (easy), red (intermediate) and black (difficult). There is no green grade, so the easiest runs you will find are blue. Ski routes, where they exist, are marked but not groomed or patrolled like pistes.

Sudelfeld lies between Bayrischzell in the Leitzach valley and Oberaudorf in the Inn valley, on wide, open meadows rather than narrow forest runs. skiresort.de lists 31.5 kilometres of piste plus 1.9 kilometres of ski routes between 850 and 1,563 metres; 8 kilometres easy, 18.7 intermediate, 4.8 difficult. Wikipedia describes it as the largest connected ski area in Germany. With a blue share of about a quarter, it is the friendlier of the two for mixed groups.

Since 2014 most of the money has gone into modernising rather than expanding: a six-seater chair at Waldkopf in 2014, a reservoir holding 150,000 cubic metres of water for snowmaking, and in 2017 an eight-seater chair from Grafenherberg up to the Sudelfeldkopf at 1,436 metres. Snowmaking covers the central main runs, not every piste, so the natural-snow runs open and close with the weather.

From the Terofal it is 15 to 20 minutes by car. Without a car, the same BRB line that brings you from Munich continues from Schliersee to Bayrischzell, and ski buses run from Bayrischzell station up to the lifts. With the guest card, both the train south of Miesbach and the ski buses in Bayrischzell are free.

Lift passes. Each area sells its own day and part-day tickets. For more than a couple of days, the Alpen Plus passes are valid at Spitzingsee-Tegernsee, Sudelfeld, Brauneck-Wegscheid and Wallberg; there are multi-day Holiday Cards and a season pass. Current prices are on the operators’ sites and change every winter.

The guest card. Every overnight guest in Schliersee receives a Gästekarte from their host; at the Terofal you get it at check-in for the length of your stay. Together with photo ID it works as a bus and train ticket in MVV zones 6 to 9, which covers the ski bus to Spitzingsee, the BRB trains from Miesbach south to Bayrischzell, and the ski and cross-country buses in Fischbachau and Bayrischzell. It also gives 10 per cent off Alpen Plus Holiday Card multi-day passes, free use of the cross-country trails around Schliersee, Fischbachau and Bayrischzell, free entry to the natural ice rink in Schliersee, and two hours in the monte mare spa in Schliersee once per stay (a weekend and holiday surcharge applies). The tourist office lists the full and current set of benefits; they can change.

Ski hire. Ute and Markus Leitner, who run the Terofal, send guests to Sport Berauer in the village, which rents out skis and boards for the winter. There is also hire at the Spitzingsee base. If you arrive by train with nothing but boots, you can be on the snow the next morning.

When to come. The season usually runs from mid-December into March, but it depends entirely on snow; at these altitudes a warm spell can close natural-snow runs within days. The quietest days are weekdays outside the Bavarian school holidays. On sunny weekends the road up to Spitzingsee fills early, which is a good argument for the bus.

From Munich Hauptbahnhof, the Bayerische Regiobahn (BRB) runs directly to Schliersee in about 50 minutes, hourly to half-hourly between roughly 6 am and midnight. The station is a seven-minute walk from the Terofal through the village. The Deutschlandticket is valid on these trains.

From Munich Airport, take the S-Bahn (S1 or S8) into Munich Hauptbahnhof and change to the BRB. Allow about an hour and three quarters in total, more at night or with a tight connection. The Deutsche Bahn journey planner, linked below, shows the live connections and works in English.

From Schliersee, MVV bus 362 runs up to Spitzingsee and the Stümpfling lift, usually hourly, in about 15 minutes, from the Seehotel Schlierseer Hof stop in the village. With the guest card it costs nothing. So a ski week can work like this: arrive by train on Saturday, pick up skis in the village, take the bus up each morning, and never sit in a car.

If you do drive: from Munich take the A8 towards Salzburg, exit Weyarn, then about 20 minutes. Parking at the Terofal is free for guests. The guest card also covers parking on many municipal car parks in the village, but not at Spitzingsee, where the lift car parks are partly paid.

Two and a half kilometres south of the Terofal, between the southern end of the lake and Neuhaus, lies the hamlet of Fischhausen. In 1888 the Munich bookseller and publisher August Finsterlin brought a pair of skis back from a journey to Finland and used them there, the first person on skis in the Bavarian Alps. Fischhausen is therefore counted as the cradle of Alpine skiing in Bavaria.

Finsterlin stayed. In 1891 he bought the Högerhof in Fischhausen, published one of the first specialist ski magazines, Der Schneeschuh, and promoted the sport. In 1907 the first Bavarian Ski Championships were held there. When you ride the ski bus up the valley, you are travelling a route that exists because of him.

Sledging (tobogganing). Ute and Markus’ tip is the Obere Firstalm: walk up from the Spitzingsattel, hire a sledge at the hut, eat, and ride the roughly 2.5-kilometre forest road back down to the car park. Wear warm clothes and, if you have them, ski goggles.

Cross-country skiing. The owners regard Bayrischzell as the place for it in this area. Around Schliersee there are trails too, partly floodlit, and the guest card makes them free.

Ski touring. The Brecherspitz (1,684 metres) is a popular ski-touring summit; until about 1997 a drag lift ran to its west shoulder, and in 2010 it was removed for good. The slopes stayed. The same rule applies here as anywhere in the Alps, and it is easy to forget because Munich is so close: read the Bavarian avalanche bulletin the evening before. It is linked below.

And on the days without snow or energy: the natural ice rink in Schliersee opens when it freezes, and there is the sauna in your room.