The Grosser Arber (Großer Arber in German, Velký Javor in Czech) is the highest mountain in the Bavarian Forest and in the whole Bohemian Forest range. It stands a few kilometres inside Germany, right by the Czech border, and the locals call it the “King of the Bavarian Forest”. In winter it is the resort that skiers from Bavaria, Prague and western Bohemia head for when the lower hills start to thaw: a gondola almost to the summit, two six-seater chairlifts, wide pistes covered in machine-made snow and one genuinely black run that once hosted World Cup races.

Grosser Arber skiing makes most sense for one to three days. This is not the Alps. The vertical drop is only around 400 metres, but what the resort has is done properly, and it is a realistic add-on to a winter city break in Prague, Regensburg or Munich. Below we cover the pistes and lifts, what a ski pass costs in euros and roughly in pounds, when the floodlights go on, how the mountain works with children, where to go cross-country skiing, how to get there and where to stay on both sides of the border.

The Grosser Arber ski resort in numbers

The lifts are run by Arber-Bergbahn, a company owned by the princely House of Hohenzollern, which also owns a large part of the mountain and the forests around it. The figures in the table come from the official website arber.de and the resort’s daily snow report; altitudes and piste lengths come from ski atlases.

Piste length is where sources disagree more than usual. Snow.cz gives 10 km, skiresort.de 11.9 km, and the Czech Wikipedia and several tourist sites say 15 km. The gap is mostly down to whether you count the five-kilometre ski touring descent to Bodenmais and the connecting traverses. We would plan on ten to twelve kilometres of groomed runs.

Grosser Arber pistes: what to ski and in which order

The whole ski area sits on the north face of the mountain, so the snow lasts longer here than on most hills in the region. Runs are marked with letters on the piste map, and one rule makes the map easy to read: looking up from the car park, the further left you go, the harder it gets. On the right is the Thurnhof nursery meadow, in the middle are the wide red “motorways”, and on the left is the black Weltcupstrecke under the gondola.

The runs worth knowing about:

• A Böhmerwaldstrecke is the widest piste in the resort: red, open, with an even gradient. In our view it is the best carving run on the mountain.
• B Bayerwaldstrecke runs parallel to it and is almost as wide. It skis best first thing in the morning, before both runs get bumped up.
• I Weltcupstrecke is the black run in the clearing under the gondola, about 1.1 km long with a 342 m drop. It is FIS-homologated for slalom and giant slalom and starts with a properly steep wall where nobody will judge you for skidding your turns. It eases off from halfway down.
• G Osthangstrecke wraps round the east side of the mountain. It starts at the short Osthang T-bar, which takes you to the highest skiable point, almost at the summit. It is marked black but is narrower and on the easier side, and very few people ski it. Combined with the runs below, it is the longest descent in the resort according to skiresort.de: 2.3 km and 406 vertical metres.
• D Damenstrecke and E Familienstrecke are blue runs that swing back to the bottom station in a long curve. The Familienstrecke is very gentle and good for first turns once you leave the nursery slope.
• C Sonnenhang is a shorter run by the chairlift of the same name, floodlit on Friday evenings.
• H Thurnhofhang and K Zeitmessstrecke are gentle slopes by the two Thurnhof drag lifts, with a timed parallel giant slalom course.
• F Schmugglerweg (“smugglers’ path”) is a link run that takes you from the upper part of the area to the lower part.

Given a full day on the Arber, we would start on the Böhmerwaldstrecke as soon as the lifts open at 8:30, then do a few laps on the Osthang, which stays quiet even at lunchtime, and save the Weltcupstrecke for while our legs are still fresh. In the afternoon, especially in spring, the snow on the lower runs softens and the bottom of the mountain gets busier.

The downsides deserve an honest mention. The vertical is only around 400 metres, and the runs are wide and easy to read but rather uniform. On a weekend in high season half of Bavaria and western Bohemia seem to turn up. Snow.cz jokingly calls the Arber the Bohemian Forest’s “ski factory”. Then there is fog: on open pistes with no trees there is nothing to orient yourself by, and when cloud wraps the summit you are better off on the lower runs.

Lifts and opening hours

The backbone of the resort is a six-seater gondola built in 1999 to replace an old double chairlift. It is 964 metres long, climbs 342 vertical metres and gets you to the top in as little as four minutes. The top station is about fifty metres below the summit, right next to the Eisensteiner Hütte. The gondola gives access to every run on the mountain, so if you don’t want to bother with the piste map you can spend the whole day on it.

The Nordhang chairlift runs parallel to the gondola and has a weather bubble, which makes it a more pleasant way up in bad weather than an open chair. According to the resort, the Sonnenhang six-seater on the lower slope was the first chairlift in the world with an automatic child lock: the safety bar locks by itself and a child cannot open it. It has no footrest, which counts as an advantage with small children.

In winter the lifts run daily from 8:30 to 16:00. On Fridays the Sonnenhang is also floodlit from 18:00 to 21:00 (see below). Outside the winter season the gondola carries walkers, but in autumn it usually closes for several weeks of maintenance: in November 2026 it runs only at weekends, from 9:00 to 16:00.

Grosser Arber ski pass prices

The resort has not yet published prices for winter 2026/27. The figures below are from the 2025/26 season, taken from the official price list on arber.de. The pound amounts are rough conversions (€1 ≈ £0.85), but they are good enough for a first budget.

The child rate applies from age 4 to 16 inclusive, the adult rate from 17. For family tickets you have to show that the children are your own (documents with the same address or other proof). The pass is loaded on a KeyCard chip card with a €2 deposit, which you get back at the ticket office or from the machines at the gondola and at Thurnhof.

Family passes pay off even with one child. A family day pass for two adults and one child cost €114, with two children €140, with three €160 and with four €180. A four-hour family pass with two children was €104. Multi-day passes are only valid on consecutive days. Seniors from 60, students and apprentices get a discount on the season pass only (€340).

Season passes for winter 2026/27 will be on sale at a 10% discount from 27 November to 6 December 2026, online only; the ticket offices will be closed during that period. Day and multi-day passes can be bought in advance in the resort’s online shop, so you don’t have to queue at the ticket office in the morning. Cards are accepted, but according to the resort only for amounts from €15.

Night skiing on the Grosser Arber

Night skiing on the Arber happens only once a week: every Friday from 18:00 to 21:00. Three runs in the lower part of the resort are floodlit, the Sonnenhang, Damenstrecke and Familienstrecke, served by the Sonnenhang six-seater. An evening ticket cost €22 in the 2025/26 season. The gondola does not run in the evening and the black runs higher up are not lit.

Some older websites mention night skiing “twice a week” or even “every day”. According to the resort’s current snow report, the lights are only on on Fridays. For a break, try the Arberstadl at the top of the Sonnenhang chairlift, which is also where the toboggan run starts.

If one evening a week is not enough, the Czech side has more: at Špičák in Železná Ruda, the Spodní Šance slope is floodlit on Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays from 18:30 to 21:00.

Grosser Arber with children: ArBär-Kinderland and ski schools

The Arber calls itself the biggest family ski resort in the Bavarian Forest, and it really does a lot for small skiers. The ArBär-Kinderland children’s park (named after the mascot, a bear called ArBär) is on the far right, on the gentle Thurnhof slope, away from the fast runs. It has magic carpets ranging from a fifteen-metre one for the very youngest to one over a hundred metres long, small obstacles and handrails for the first runs, a heated room for breaks and children’s toilets. Right next door is the Thurnhofstüberl, where parents can have a coffee while watching the slope.

Once children have mastered the Kinderland, they move on to the Familien-Cross-Park, with rollers, banked turns and small jumps, where they learn to shift their weight without feeling they are having a lesson. After that comes the timed parallel giant slalom on Thurnhof: two start huts, red and blue gates and a finish time on the board, just like at the World Cup. It is free, and in our experience it motivates children more than any amount of praise. Schools and groups of more than ten people can book it by phone on +49 9925 9414612.

According to the resort, 14 ski and snowboard schools operate around the Arber. Those teaching right in the Kinderland include the Czech school Racio, and other schools are based in Bayerisch Eisenstein, Bodenmais and Lam; the resort website lists them all with contact details. Lessons are mostly in German or Czech, so if your children need an English-speaking instructor, ask when you book.

For children who can already ski, the best combination is the Sonnenhang chairlift (with its automatic child lock) and the blue Familienstrecke. We would not take younger children on the black runs under the gondola; on the way down, choose the Schmugglerweg or the Damenstrecke instead.

Tobogganing, ski touring and the Arber for non-skiers

The Sonnenhang toboggan run is 1,200 metres long and goes from the Arberstadl down to the Thurnhofstüberl. You ride up on the Sonnenhang chairlift, and a free “Rodelbus” takes tobogganers back to it. When there is enough snow the run is open daily from 9:30 to 15:30, and the last bus leaves at 15:30. Younger children have a 400-metre run with a magic carpet in the Kinderland. A ticket cost €9 in the 2025/26 season for one ride on the Sonnenhang or two in the Kinderland, and ten rides cost €40. Toboggans can be hired at the Sonnenhang chairlift and at Thurnhof for €12, with an ID document left as a deposit.

Ski tourers have clear rules on the Arber. Once the lifts close, all pistes are off limits, because they are groomed by winch cats and moving on the slope is life-threatening. The exception is the Osthang extension, route G, where you can skin up and ski down from 16:30 to 22:00. Climbing from the bottom station takes one to three hours depending on fitness. A five-kilometre touring descent (Tourenabfahrt) also leads from the summit down to Bodenmais, but there is no lift back to the Arber from there, only a bus. A gondola ticket up combined with this route cost €15.

Non-skiers can buy a return gondola ticket for €19 (child €15, family €44 to €50). In winter, foot passengers can only buy return tickets, because the footpaths from the valley to the summit are closed. From the top station a loop of about two kilometres circles the summit, crossing the summit plateau to the Richard-Wagner-Kopf and the Großer Seeriegel rocks. It is neither cleared nor gritted, so sturdy boots are a must, and it closes in bad weather. During a temperature inversion you can see the peaks of the Bohemian Forest, across Bavaria and, on a clear day, as far as the Alps. The gondola is step-free, and a glazed lift takes you from the top station to both mountain huts.

Cross-country skiing: Bretterschachten above Bodenmais

There is no cross-country skiing on the Grosser Arber itself, and no tracks. Cross-country skiers head for Bretterschachten, a sports centre on a high meadow above Bodenmais, about 7 km from the gondola’s bottom station. It lies between 1,100 and 1,300 metres, so the snow holds even when it is raining in the valley, and the municipality of Bodenmais describes it as one of the most snow-sure cross-country areas in Central Europe.

According to Bodenmais, in January there are usually 114 km of groomed tracks, with classic and skating lanes side by side. The shortest is a beginners’ loop around the stadium; the longest is the Auerhahn-Loipe, which the municipality says is the longest high-altitude trail in Bavaria. In the middle of the network are two huts for a stop: the Chamer Hütte in the saddle between the Grosser and Kleiner Arber, and the Berghütte Schareben.

Ski bus 6085 runs from Bodenmais to Bretterschachten and on to the Arber; according to the German Wikipedia, in high season it runs every fifteen minutes between Bodenmais and Bretterschachten. If you are staying on the Czech side, there are also cross-country trails around Železná Ruda and Špičák.

Železná Ruda and Špičák: the Czech side over the hill

Železná Ruda is 12 km from the Arber’s bottom station, and for most Czech skiers it is the base from which they drive to the Arber. If you stay there, you can split your skiing: one day on the Arber, one day at Špičák, the biggest resort on the Czech side of the Bohemian Forest. It lies at 865 to 1,202 m and, according to ceske-sjezdovky.cz, has around 8 to 12 km of pistes, a four-seater chairlift and several drag lifts, a snowpark and night skiing on the Spodní Šance slope. Železná Ruda and the area around it also have smaller lifts: Nad nádražím, Belveder, Pancíř and Hojsova Stráž.

The Czech side is cheaper, and you can ski under floodlights there more often. The Arber wins on vertical, the gondola and spring snow, when Špičák is often already brown. We would spend a full day on the Arber when there is snow and sunshine in the mountains, and go to Špičák for an afternoon and evening. In recent seasons a free ski bus ran between the Czech resorts and cross-country trails in Železná Ruda and Špičák, but it did not go to the Arber.

There is more to the Bohemian Forest in winter than pistes. For trip ideas see our guide to the Šumava National Park, and for the Arber and the other summits our overview of the highest mountains of Šumava.

How to get to the Grosser Arber

From the UK, the most practical gateways are Munich and Prague, both with regular flights from London and Manchester; Nuremberg is another option. Check current schedules, as winter routes change from season to season. From either city you will want a hire car, or you can take the train (see below).

By car from Prague, take the D5 motorway to Plzeň, then head for Klatovy and follow road I/27 to Železná Ruda. Just after the Alžbětín border crossing, at the start of Bayerisch Eisenstein, turn sharp right towards Brennes (signposted “Arber Bergbahn”). The road climbs in hairpins for about 7 km to the junction at Brennes; turn left there towards Bodenmais and after 1.5 km the bottom station and the big car park are on your right. From Munich, Nuremberg or Regensburg you come from the other side, via Zwiesel or Bodenmais; the drive from Munich or Nuremberg is roughly two and a half to three hours, but check your route planner for the day’s conditions.

If you drive from Prague you need a Czech motorway vignette for the D5 (an electronic one is bought online). In Germany there are no road tolls for cars. The road from Bayerisch Eisenstein up to Brennes is a steep mountain road, so winter tyres and snow chains in the boot are not a formality, and if you hire a car, make sure it comes with winter tyres. The Arber is very popular, so on weekends in high season it pays to set off early and be at the lift when it opens at 8:30.

Parking at the Arber costs €4 a day, paid at a machine or via an app. There are over a thousand spaces and four electric car charging points at the gondola’s bottom station. A winter season parking ticket costs €80, or €40 for season pass holders.

By train from Prague, you travel via Plzeň and Klatovy to the border station Železná Ruda-Alžbětín, which is also Bayerisch Eisenstein station. The border runs right through the building. From there bus 6081 goes via Brennes to the bottom station of the gondola. From the German side, Bayerisch Eisenstein is the end of the Waldbahn line from Plattling via Zwiesel, and Plattling has connections to Munich and Regensburg. On the German side, the Bayerwald-Tagesticket costs €16 a day (up to three children under 14 travel free), and the Bayerwald-Tagesticket+CZ for €21 is also valid on around two hundred Czech routes in the western part of the Plzeň and South Bohemian regions. If you stay in one of the Bavarian Forest villages that belong to the GUTi scheme, you get a guest card with free travel on buses and trains. Bus timetables change with the season, so check them before you go on the Deutsche Bahn journey planner or the resort website.

Ski hire, ski lockers and where to eat

The resort has two hire shops of its own, at the Sonnenhang chairlift and at Thurnhof, and you can reserve equipment online at arberski.de. They rent skis, snowboards, boots, poles and helmets, and for an extra 10% of the rental price you can insure the gear against damage and theft. Next to the main car park there is a ski depot with heated lockers, where boots and gloves dry overnight. According to a snow.cz report, a locker for two pairs of skis cost €12 a day. There are also small lockers for your belongings at the gondola’s top station.

Food on the Arber is Bavarian and closer to the Alps than to Czech cooking: soup with liver dumplings, Spätzle, currywurst, Germknödel and Kaiserschmarrn. The resort’s huts and restaurants:

• Eisensteiner Hütte stands right by the gondola’s top station and is the highest restaurant on the mountain. It is step-free.
• Arberschutzhaus below the summit is a traditional mountain hut with a restaurant and rooms, so you can stay the night and be first on the piste in the morning.
• Arberstadl is at the start of the toboggan run by the Sonnenhang chairlift.
• Thurnhofstüberl is by the children’s park and the finish of the toboggan run.
• Gasthaus zur Gondelbahn is at the gondola’s bottom station, where ski tourers also start their climb.

We think it is worth having lunch up at the Eisensteiner Hütte or the Arberschutzhaus before twelve, because the terraces fill up after that. A word on cards: they are accepted everywhere, but only from €15, so bring cash for smaller amounts.

Where to stay near the Grosser Arber

There are three bases to choose from. Bayerisch Eisenstein is the closest, about 8 km from the lifts, with a train station and a bus to the Arber. Železná Ruda on the Czech side is a little further but cheaper, with Czech food and the option of a day at Špičák. Bodenmais on the other side of the mountain suits cross-country skiers, as it is the closest to Bretterschachten. And if you want to be first on the piste, you can sleep on the mountain itself.

• Arberschutzhaus (Grosser Arber). A mountain hut below the summit, a short walk from the gondola’s top station. Rooms with private bathrooms, a restaurant and a sunny terrace. The pistes start right outside the door, so in the morning you are on the slope first, without waiting for the gondola from the valley.
• Hotel Eisensteiner Hof (Bayerisch Eisenstein). A family-run hotel in the village centre with a restaurant, half board, a sauna and rooms with balconies. The lifts are about a quarter of an hour away by car, and parking at the hotel is free.
• Haus Kraus (Bayerisch Eisenstein). Apartments with kitchens, a garden, a terrace and private parking. A good choice for families who want to cook for themselves and save on restaurants.
• OREA Resort Horizont Šumava (Železná Ruda). A large hotel on the southern slope of Pancíř with an indoor pool and spa included in the price, and views over the Bohemian Forest. The Arber is about twenty minutes away by car across the border.
• Hotel Šumava (Železná Ruda). A three-star hotel in the centre of Železná Ruda with a restaurant, a bar and a buffet breakfast. In the evening you can walk into town for dinner.

More places to stay by village: accommodation in Bayerisch Eisenstein, accommodation in Železná Ruda and accommodation in Bodenmais.

A bit of history: from a wooden shelter to the World Cup

The Grosser Arber has belonged to the princes of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen for more than 150 years. In 1852 they bought the estate of the glassmaster Hafenbrädl in what was then Böhmisch Eisenstein, today’s Železná Ruda, and twenty years later the Bavarian side as well. Walkers started coming at the end of the 19th century: in 1884 the Bavarian Forest Club built a wooden shelter on the slope, in 1903 the first mountain refuge went up on the summit, and today’s shingle-clad Arberschutzhaus has stood since 1936.

Skiing history began on 17 September 1949, when the first chairlift on the Arber opened. From 1973 the mountain hosted European Cup slalom and giant slalom races, and from 1976 the World Cup as well. World Cup races were held here nine times in total, with the German federation awarding them in turn to the Arber, Ofterschwang and Berchtesgaden, and there have been none here since 2011. The resort took its present shape around the turn of the millennium: the gondola in 1999, the Nordhang chairlift in 2002 and the Sonnenhang in 2005.

And the two white balls on the summit? That is a military radar built in 1983, during the Cold War, so that the West could see into the airspace of the Eastern Bloc. Today it is part of NATO’s air defence system. Below the mountain, by the Grosser Arbersee lake, is the Hohenzollern biathlon stadium, which hosts biathlon and cross-country skiing races.

What we would do differently

Most people come to the Arber for the pistes and then spend the whole day shuttling between the gondola and the Böhmerwaldstrecke, as if they were counting runs. You don’t have to. One run in the morning on fresh corduroy and another down the Osthang, past spruces heavy with snow, will tell you more about the Arber than ten more laps of the same red run.

At some point we would take a break up top without skis: walk from the top station round the summit to the Richard-Wagner-Kopf rocks and simply look out to see whether the Alps are visible. We would leave the phone in our pocket, since no photo captures an inversion anyway. For lunch we would skip the snack bar by the car park and go to the Arberschutzhaus, and instead of the Kaiserschmarrn everyone knows, we would try something on the menu we had never heard of.

And it does not have to be just the Arber. If you are staying in Železná Ruda or Bayerisch Eisenstein, take a walk through the town, have dinner in a pub you know nothing about and leave one day with no plan at all. Our best memories from the mountains come from days like that, not from ticked-off kilometres.

Grosser Arber skiing: frequently asked questions

Where next

• Šumava National Park: places worth visiting in the Bohemian Forest when you are not skiing.
• Highest mountains of Šumava: the Grosser Arber, Plechý and other summits you can climb.
• Hochficht ski resort: the Austrian ski area in the Bohemian Forest, with more kilometres of pistes.
• Austrian ski resorts near Vienna, Linz and Prague: where to ski on a short trip without going all the way to Tyrol.
• Austria ski pass prices: what a day on the slopes costs in Austrian resorts.
• Skiing in Italy: the best Italian resorts and what they cost.
• Lipno: a family ski area above the lake at the other end of the Bohemian Forest.