Obernbergtal valley
Ski touring in the Obernbergtal - almost everyone who goes on a ski tour in Tyrol has been there before.
The Sattelberg from Gries am Brenner is most popular. Light, easy and usually even groomed - a goal for beginners and training ski mountaineers. But you can also find more demanding and even extreme tours like the Obernberger Tribulaun, where everything has to fit. In any case, the Obernberg Tal offers ski tours for almost everyone.
Protected sites and wildlife
Based on the principles of the “Tyrolean Ski and Snowboard Tour Plan”, the partners to the “Wildschönau Touring Region” project have agreed on three subjects of protection. Mountaineers should voluntarily avoid the conservation areas protecting these sites.
The three subjects of protection are:
Digital map
The exact location of the protection zones for forest and wildlife that we have agreed in the working group can be found here.
Sattelberg - new direct ascent
The direct ascent from the lower (western parking lot) in Gries to the Sattelberg is a nice alternative to the busy route via the old ski slope and the Sattelbergalm.
However, this climb also has some disadvantages, which have become more and more visible due to the high frequency of ski tourers in recent years:
In the middle section, the route leads over old beating areas, which are heavily overgrown and only laborious to walk on. In addition, the old ascent leads through the middle of an important habitat for grouse (capercaillie, black grouse). Grouse are particularly sensitive to winter disturbances because, unlike many other animal species, they are unable to build up fat reserves in autumn and consume an extremely large amount of energy when they are startled out of their cover.
The Austrian Alpine Association, the forestry, the hunting and the mountain hut owner of the Sattelbergalm have therefore worked together to find an alternative route that is easy to follow for hikers and largely avoids disturbing the grouse.
This new ascent route we have then also immediately after the first abundant snowfall together signposted. We hope that the new route will be well accepted and that the adjacent forests will be spared.
Orientation boards
Panorama boards will be erected at the most important starting points for ski tours in the Obernbergtal in January 2020. The maps provide information about the course of the ski tours and the exact location of the game and forest protection zones that should not be used. The QR codes contain all the information and background stories about our 4 protected areas and you can find out why you should avoid the protection zones shown.
The information about the emergency equipment, the emergency APP and the link to the avalanche report are provided by our partner Bergrettung Tirol.
The maps shown here are the detailed 3D versions that can be downloaded here:
Signposting
Conservation areas are marked in open country only at locations where there is direct contact with a ski tour. The directional arrows, which make it possible to bypass or go round, are only used very sparingly. The signs in general are restricted to the area below the tree line.
The direction signs do not mean that the proposed routes are safe from avalanches and other natural hazards. It is the ski mountaineers’ responsibility to make this assessment themselves.
The “Obernbergtal Ski Tour Region” working party
With the Tyrolean Ski and Snowboard Tour Plan, it has been particularly important to us that all stakeholders should have an equal say about all measures and be able to voice their concerns. In the Villgratental working party, as with the Sellrain pilot project, we have so far been very successful in achieving this and hope that, by virtue of the wide range of stakeholders, all interests have been considered in a balanced way.
