Hochficht Ski Resort: Pistes, Prices, Kids and How to Get There

Hochficht is the ski area on the Austrian side of the Bohemian Forest, and its summit sits right on the Czech border. Don’t come expecting the Alps. There are three wooded hills, a top station at 1,338 metres, no glacier and no panorama from three thousand metres up. What you do get is long runs by the standards of this low mountain range, a ten-seater gondola, snowmaking on every single piste and facilities that smaller resorts in the region rarely match. For a lot of families from South Bohemia, it was their first taste of skiing in Austria, and it is still the hill they come back to.

The Hochficht ski resort works best for a day trip or a long weekend, with or without children. It is a realistic option if you are spending the winter in Prague, Český Krumlov or Linz and want a proper ski day without travelling all the way to Tyrol. In this guide we cover what the area has, how the dynamic ski pass prices work, when night skiing runs, what to do with small children, how to get there from Prague, Linz or Vienna, and where to sleep on the Austrian and the Czech side.

Hochficht ski area in numbers

Look Hochficht up on a few different websites and the figures won’t match. Some say 20 km of pistes, others 21 or 24, and the bottom station appears as 866 m in one place and 933 m in another. The reason is simple: people counted in different ways, and the resort has re-measured its runs several times since the gondola opened in 2017. For the table below we used only what the operator, Hochficht Bergbahnen, publishes today on its official site skisport.com/hochficht.

To give you a sense of scale: the vertical on Hochficht itself is around 400 metres and the longest run, Stierwiese, is 3.4 km long. For the Bohemian Forest that is a lot. Compared with Lipno just across the border, where you ski on a vertical of under 200 metres, it is in a different league. Compared with an Alpine resort, it is still a small area that a strong skier can cover completely in one morning.

Hochficht skiing: the pistes

The resort is spread over three neighbouring hills, all linked, so you can ski back and forth between them without taking your skis off. The slopes of Hochficht and Reischlberg face south-west and run through forest. Zwieselberg stands opposite, with one north-facing and one south-facing side. The main access point is the Skiarena below the gondola, the second one is the Schwarzenbergbahn chairlift on the south side of Zwieselberg.

Hochficht (Smrčina)

The highest hill, with the longest runs. The Hochfichtbahn four-seater chairlift takes you to the top. From there you have two main ways down: the Standardabfahrt, a wide red cut through the forest that once hosted European Cup races, and the Stierwiese, a long blue that loops around the red in a big arc and is a favourite with ski schools. A third run, the Schönbergabfahrt, follows the Czech border from the summit. It is gentle at the top and turns into a forest traverse lower down. The upper part of the red has a funslope with banked turns, rollers and a tunnel, which is exactly what makes children want to go back up again and again.

If you want to clock up as many kilometres as possible in one go, this is the best hill for it. Our favourite time on Hochficht is early in the morning, when the Standardabfahrt is freshly groomed and most people are still queuing at the ticket office.

Reischlberg (Hraničník)

The middle hill, reached from the car park by the ten-seater Reischlbergbahn gondola in two sections. Since 2017 it has been the backbone of the whole area. Below it you have the fast red Reischlbergabfahrt (1.6 km) and the more relaxed blue Hochwaldabfahrt (1.7 km) with rollers in its upper part. From the mid-station you can ski down the wide meadow of the Wenzelwiese, which is floodlit in the evening. On sunny days the Gipfelbar opens at the summit.

Zwieselberg

The lowest of the three, but home to the sportiest run. From Reischlberg you get there on the blue Rehbergabfahrt (1.2 km), served by a T-bar and popular with children and beginners. From the top of Zwieselberg the Zwieselbergabfahrt FIS drops down the north face. It is a homologated course for giant slalom and slalom, gentle at the top, and its second half holds the only genuinely black section in the whole resort. Next to it runs the family-friendly Zwieselberg Family piste. On the sunny south side, the wide blue Schwarzenbergabfahrt (1.4 km) flows down to the Schwarzenbergbahn chairlift and the second car park.

Who Hochficht is not for: skiers looking for steep blacks and a big vertical. There is no truly steep run here, and on weekends the pistes get crowded after lunch. For everyone else, from children on the magic carpet to parents who want to carve some proper turns, we think it is the best skiing you can reach on a day trip from Prague or Linz.

Hochficht lifts and opening hours

Hochficht has nine lifts, and most runs can be reached by chairlift or gondola. The only two T-bars are on the Rehberg.

• A Hochfichtbahn: four-seater chairlift to the top of Hochficht, running since 1994.
• B and C Reischlbergbahn I and II: ten-seater gondola from the Skiarena via the mid-station up to Reischlberg, since 2017.
• G Zwieselbergbahn: four-seater chairlift up Zwieselberg from the north side. According to SNOW magazine it is on the slow side, so expect a short wait at weekends.
• H Schwarzenbergbahn: four-seater chairlift from the south side of Zwieselberg, next to the second car park.
• E1 and E2 Rehberglift: two T-bars on the blue Rehbergabfahrt.
• D and F: magic carpets in the Fichtl Kids Park by the Skiarena and in the Reischa Junior Park at the gondola mid-station (the latter is covered).

The lifts run every day from 8:30 to 16:00. The 2026/27 season is planned from 5 December 2026 to 29 March 2027, but the operator says it will open as soon as the snow allows. Last winter the lifts started turning as early as 28 November 2025. For what is open right now, check the live info on the resort website, which also has the webcams from the Hochficht summit and the Skiarena.

Hochficht ski pass prices

Since the 2024/25 season, Hochficht no longer has a fixed price list for day passes. Prices are dynamic: an algorithm keeps recalculating them based on the stage of the season, the day of the week, the date you buy, the number of tickets already sold for that day and the weather forecast. The operator compares it to buying a plane ticket, and one rule applies: the earlier you buy, the less you pay. Once you have seen a price online, it won’t drop later.

For the 2026/27 season, an adult day pass bought online starts at €44.50, roughly £38. A Saturday in the middle of the February school holidays, bought at the ticket office that morning, will cost more. At the ticket office you pay exactly what the online price is on that day, so buying ahead is the only way to save. You can, however, buy a pass for a later date at the ticket office, which helps if you don’t have a payment card for online use.

A few more things worth knowing about prices:

• Hourly and multi-day passes are dynamic too, and so are child and youth tickets.
• The exception is the KidsCard Mini for the youngest children, which has a fixed price all season. In 2024/25 it cost €4 a day, and the operator’s sister resorts now sell it for €5 (about £4). It is valid for children accompanied by an adult with a valid ski pass, and you need to show proof of age.
• University students under 26 ski on the youth rate if they show a valid student card at the ticket office. This does not apply to season passes.
• The Fichtl Kids Park has its own day ticket, from €13.50 for an adult (about £11.50). It includes two gondola rides to the mid-station, where the Reischa Junior Park is.
• The chip card deposit is €2, refunded at the card return machine. If you still have a card from a previous visit, you can top it up online and walk straight to the turnstile.
• Passes bought in advance cannot be refunded or moved to another date, except in case of a serious injury or illness with a doctor’s certificate. If no lift runs at all on your day, you get a voucher for another day in the same season.

How big is the difference compared with the old fixed prices? In the last season before dynamic pricing (2023/24), according to the overview on lipno.cz, a day pass cost €52 online and €55 at the ticket office, a child’s pass €26 and a four-hour pass €48. Night skiing was €20, or €10 for children. If you buy early enough today, you can get well below those numbers. At the last minute in high season, probably not.

Season passes for 2026/27

If you live in the region or spend the whole winter nearby and ski at Hochficht every weekend, look at the HochfichtCard. It covers the whole winter, night skiing included, and comes with a generous family bonus: when both parents buy a season pass, all children from the same household born in 2012 or later get a card for free. One parent is enough if the children were born in 2017 or later. You need to show a birth certificate or proof of family.

New this season is the Familienbonus+ for grandparents and single parents: with one adult season pass, up to three children born in 2012 or later get a card for €81 each. So one adult with one child pays €608, with two children €689 and with three €770. This option was only sold in the pre-sale until 31 October.

Hochficht is also part of the SunnyCard network (eight resorts, including Hinterstoder, Wurzeralm and the Schnalstal glacier) and now of the SuperSkiCard, which according to the operator covers around 89 ski areas in Austria and Bavaria with more than 2,800 km of pistes. We look at when each of them pays off in our guide to Austria ski pass prices.

Skiing at Hochficht with kids

This is where Hochficht really shines, and it is the main reason so many families from the Czech Republic and Upper Austria come here. The whole area is designed so that parents and children don’t lose each other: the runs keep merging, there are no steep drops and no avalanche terrain, and the children’s park is only a few dozen metres from the car park.

• The Fichtl Kids Park is right by the gondola bottom station next to the Skiarena. It is a separate learning area with a magic carpet and a practice zone for the very first attempts on skis or a snowboard. Next door is the Fichtl Restaurant with a children’s play corner that opens straight onto the park, and parents can watch their kids through a glass wall.
• The Reischa Junior Park is the next step up. It sits at the gondola mid-station and is served by a covered magic carpet, which the resort renewed in 2026. Children who have mastered the Junior Park ski down the wide, gentle Wenzelwiese, their first real piste.
• The comic slalom on the Wenzelwiese has a piece of comic strip featuring the resort mascots on every gate. The operator says it is the first of its kind in the world. For six-year-olds it is the highlight of the day.
• Funslopes and rollers are scattered across the area. The longest one is on the upper part of Hochficht.
• The Hochficht ski and snowboard school focuses on children and beginners. It has its own separate Kinderland with a covered carpet below the gondola mid-station, an office in the Skiarena and a ski depot. According to Czech guides, the instructors can often manage in Czech with the children too. If you need a lesson in English, arrange the specific course in advance.
• The toboggan run runs alongside the lift. According to the Czech ski-travel site Nev-Dama it is 350 metres long and free to use, even during night skiing.

Small children ski for a few euros with the KidsCard Mini, and families with several children can ask for family discounts at the ticket office. If you are still learning yourself, say a parent getting back on skis after years off, you can spend the first morning in the Fichtl Kids Park on the €13.50 ticket and only buy an hourly pass in the afternoon.

In our view, for children aged roughly four to twelve, Hochficht beats most resorts of the same size in the region. Not because of the kilometres, but because of how carefully the step from the magic carpet to the first blue run has been thought through. If your children are still at the very beginning, Lipno on the Czech side of the Bohemian Forest, with its Fox Park for kids, is another option nearby.

Night skiing at Hochficht

Night skiing at Hochficht happens on one slope only, but on a regular schedule. For the 2026/27 season the plan is:

• 30 December 2026, then from 6 January to 26 February 2027 every Wednesday and Friday,
• always from 16:00 to 19:00,
• on the Wenzelwiese, the wide blue meadow by the Reischlbergbahn I gondola, with about one kilometre of floodlit piste.

The evening ticket is priced dynamically like all the others, and the HochfichtCard and SunnyCard season passes include it. If you are staying at Lipno or in Český Krumlov, you can drive over for three hours after a day of sightseeing. Longer floodlit runs are easier to find on the Czech side, see our guide to night skiing.

Funpark, FIS runs and the ski route

For sportier skiers, Hochficht has two FIS-homologated courses. The Standardabfahrt on Hochficht and the slalom course on Zwieselberg have hosted European Cup races, and the Skibob World Championships were held here in 2007 and 2012. Clubs can rent the training runs, and when a team is training, part of the piste is closed.

Snowboarders and freestylers have a funpark with obstacles plus a Kids Funpark for the youngest. If you want to leave the groomed runs, there is a ski route, a marked but ungroomed descent. Don’t expect real freeride terrain, though. Most of the area is forest, and the Czech side of the mountain lies in the core zone of Šumava National Park, which is off limits.

Cross-country skiing in Schöneben

Hochficht is not only about downhill. A few kilometres from the resort, in Schöneben by the former border crossing with Přední Zvonková, you’ll find the Nordisches Zentrum Böhmerwald. According to the operator it has 78 km of high-level trails at around a thousand metres, and in good snow years about 70 km more down in the valley. The trails are groomed for both classic and skating, and Hochficht Bergbahnen describes the area as one of the most snow-sure cross-country regions in Upper Austria, with the most snow usually in February.

Instead of a parking fee, you pay a trail fee here. Schöneben has a car park, changing rooms, showers and a restaurant, and according to Nev-Dama there is also a two-kilometre floodlit loop on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The shorter Panoramaloipe Klaffer is nine kilometres long and starts on the village green in Klaffer.

Cross-country and downhill make for a good family compromise: one of you hits the pistes in the morning, the other takes the trails, and you meet up for lunch.

How to get to Hochficht

Hochficht sits in the tri-border area where the Czech Republic, Austria and Bavaria meet, and that location is both its biggest advantage and its biggest drawback. It is close to the border, but only minor roads and mountain roads lead there. The last stretch is the same whichever way you come.

Flying in from the UK, the most practical gateways are Prague and Vienna, both with plenty of connections. Linz has its own small airport and is the closest of the three, so it is worth checking whether there is a convenient connection in your travel dates. Either way, you will need a hire car for the last part, unless you go by train and ski bus from Linz (see below).

From Prague there are two routes. The first goes via Strakonice, Vimperk and the Strážný/Philippsreut border crossing into Germany, then through Neureichenau to the Schwarzenbergbahn bottom station: about 205 km and, according to route planners, around three hours. Nev-Dama recommends this route too, and in winter we find it the more reliable one. The second goes via České Budějovice, Český Krumlov and Lipno to the Skiarena, around 225 km and roughly three and a half hours. On the Czech motorway out of Prague you need a Czech vignette, but you won’t use any Austrian motorway.

From Linz and Vienna you drive north into the Mühlviertel, through Rohrbach and Aigen-Schlägl to Ulrichsberg and the Skiarena. From Vienna it is a long drive for a single day, so we would plan at least one night. If you take the motorway from Vienna towards Linz, remember that Austrian motorways require a vignette.

From Český Krumlov and České Budějovice, many visitors’ base in South Bohemia, it is around 54 and 78 km. You can drive via Lipno and Přední Zvonková, or via Vyšší Brod and through Austria (Bad Leonfelden, Haslach, Aigen).

From Lake Lipno, lipno.cz describes three routes:

The shortest route goes via Přední Zvonková and Schöneben, but it is a narrow mountain road. On the Czech side it is ploughed and gritted, on the Austrian side salted, and after fresh snow it can still be unpleasant. If you are coming from Horní Planá, you can shorten the trip with the Horní Planá – Přední Zvonková ferry, which according to lipno.cz usually runs until the lake freezes over. Don’t count on it in midwinter.

By ski bus. On the Austrian side a free ski bus runs from Rohrbach and Aigen-Schlägl, and your ski pass is your ticket. Last season it ran on Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays, and daily over Christmas and the Austrian semester holidays. The operator has not yet published the 2026/27 timetable. On the Czech side, according to Nev-Dama, local accommodation providers and travel agencies sometimes run a ski bus from Lipno and Nová Pec via Přední Zvonková to Hochficht, depending on demand. Check the dates directly with them.

By train you can’t get all the way to the slopes. The nearest station is Aigen-Schlägl, the end of the line from Linz, and from there you take the ski bus. If you are staying in Linz without a car, that is the way to do it on a ski bus day.

Parking is free at two large car parks: at the Skiarena Hochficht (gondola access, signposted from Pfaffetschlag) and at the Schwarzenbergbahn bottom station. According to the resort’s Czech website, the Skiarena car park has around 1,200 spaces. It is terraced, and attendants direct you to a free spot.

Hochficht and Lipno: how to combine them

There is no joint ski pass for Hochficht and Lipno. They are two different operators in two different countries. Accommodation providers around Lake Lipno, however, routinely sell “stay at Lipno, ski at Hochficht” packages, and plenty of people do exactly that: they sleep on the Czech side, where there are more beds and dinner is cheaper, and drive over to Hochficht.

For a week with children, this is how we would do it: base at Lipno, small children in ski school and in the Fox Park at Kramolín, and one or two day trips to Hochficht once the kids can handle a blue run. With children who already ski well, or without children, we would turn it around and stay in Austria, because an hour in the car there and back every day adds up.

Where to eat and hire skis

There are four places to eat on the mountain:

• The Skiarena restaurant at the gondola bottom station, self-service on the upper floor and reachable straight from the pistes. There is a terrace with free deckchairs, plus the Fichtl Restaurant with its children’s corner. According to SNOW, most main courses cost €5 to €10 (about £4 to £8.50): soups, pasta, sausages, schnitzel.
• Gasthaus zum Überleben at the gondola mid-station, a log-built inn with a tiled stove and a terrace with views as far as the Alps. Local dishes such as Brat’l in da Rei (roast pork from the tray), Stifterjause or Bauernkrapfen.
• Zwieseltreff at the top of the Schwarzenbergbahn at 1,150 m, the highest restaurant in the Mühlviertel, all glass and wood, with a terrace for a hundred people and free deckchairs.
• Gipfelbar at the top of Reischlberg, open on sunny days only.

Intersport Pötscher, the rental and service shop, is right inside the Skiarena and in winter opens daily from 8:15 to 16:30. The lift stations have free Wi-Fi, and the Skiarena has free lockers where you can also charge your phone.

To save money, pack a snack and sit on the terrace for lunch. On a clear day you can see the Alpine ridge from both the Gasthaus and the Zwieseltreff, and for us that is the best view of the whole day.

Where to stay near Hochficht

There is almost nothing right below the slopes. Hochficht sits in a thinly populated border area and the nearest villages are small. You have three options: the Austrian villages around the resort (Ulrichsberg with Schöneben, Klaffer, Schwarzenberg am Böhmerwald), the larger Aigen-Schlägl with its hotels and spa, or the Czech side around Lipno and Nová Pec. We checked these specific places on Booking.com:

• keyone homes Hochficht (Ulrichsberg). Brand new: the resort announced its opening for 27 November 2026. Apartments with kitchens, a seasonal outdoor pool, a sauna and a hammam. In our view the most interesting choice for a family that wants to cook for itself and be close to the pistes.
• INNs HOLZ (Schöneben, Ulrichsberg). A spa hotel and wooden chalets on the edge of Schöneben, close to the cross-country trails and, according to the resort’s partner page, about ten minutes by car from the pistes. Saunas, a hot tub, a restaurant and a kids’ corner. More expensive, but ideal for a weekend for two.
• Hotel Almesberger (Aigen-Schlägl). A large spa hotel with a 5,000 m² spa area, indoor and outdoor pools and views of the Bohemian Forest. Last season a ski bus ran from Aigen to Hochficht at weekends. For anyone who would rather spend the afternoon in the sauna than do a second shift on the slopes.
• Ferienhaus Grobauer (Schwarzenberg am Böhmerwald). A detached holiday house with two bedrooms, a kitchen and parking. Schwarzenberg is the village below Zwieselberg, a short hop from the Schwarzenbergbahn chairlift.
• Penzion Mauritz (Nová Pec). A family-run guesthouse on the Czech side that the resort lists among its partner accommodations. From Nová Pec it is just under 30 km to Hochficht via Přední Zvonková. The cheapest of these six, with Czech home cooking.
• Amenity Hotel & Resort Lipno (Lipno nad Vltavou). A hotel and apartments right by the lake. A good fit if you want to combine Lipno and Hochficht and have somewhere to go in the evening.

More places to stay by village: accommodation in Ulrichsberg, in Aigen-Schlägl, in Schwarzenberg, in Nová Pec and in Lipno nad Vltavou. For the February school holidays we would book well in advance. The small Austrian villages around the resort don’t have nearly as many beds as there are skiers driving in from the Czech Republic and Austria that month.

A bit of history: a mountain on the border

Hochficht, Smrčina in Czech, is 1,338 metres high, and the border between Austria and the Czech Republic runs right across its summit. At the top there is a rock with a cross, a weather station and the top station of the chairlift. The Czech side of the mountain belongs to the core zone of Šumava National Park, so while lifts run on the Austrian slope, the Czech slope is forest that nobody is allowed to enter. For people in South Bohemia, this was for decades a hill they could only look at through barbed wire.

The resort started taking its present shape in the 1990s. The Hochfichtbahn chairlift arrived in 1994, the Schwarzenbergbahn in 2001, the Zwieselbergbahn in 2004, and in 2017 the ten-seater Reischlbergbahn gondola replaced three old drag lifts. Half of Hochficht Bergbahnen is owned by entrepreneur Peter Schröcksnadel, for many years the head of the Austrian Ski Federation, and the other half by the Premonstratensian monastery of Schlägl in neighbouring Aigen. European Cup races have been held on the FIS runs, and the Skibob World Championships came here in 2007 and 2012.

The big turning point for Czech skiers came when the Czech Republic joined the Schengen area at the end of 2007 and border checks disappeared. Day trips to Hochficht soon became a winter tradition in South Bohemia, and the resort responded with a Czech-language website, Czech-speaking staff in the mountain huts and partner guesthouses around Lipno. That is why you’ll hear so much Czech on the pistes today.

What we would do differently

People tend to tackle Hochficht with a plan: ski pass bought in advance, in the car park by eight, first run on the Standardabfahrt, lunch at eleven before the Skiarena fills up. It works. But if you are there for a whole weekend, you don’t have to ski from first lift to last every day.

We would keep one afternoon for cross-country skiing in Schöneben, even if it meant standing on skinny skis for the first time in years. The forest above Ulrichsberg has a silence you never hear on a piste, and on a clear day you can see the Alpine ridge through the gaps between the trees.

In the evening we wouldn’t just go for the nearest option. We would drive to Aigen or Ulrichsberg for an ordinary pub dinner, try Mühlviertler Speckknödel (bacon dumplings) or a local beer and see what turns up. Hochficht has no real après-ski scene, and in our opinion that is one of its strengths.

And with children, we wouldn’t push for kilometres. A day when the whole family does lap after lap of the Wenzelwiese and the comic slalom still beats a day when one parent comes back from Hochficht exhausted and the child gave up after the second run. Feel free to leave the ski-tracking app in your pocket. The Bohemian Forest is best seen from the top of Hochficht without a screen in front of you.

Hochficht ski resort FAQ

Where next

• Austrian ski resorts near Vienna, Linz and Prague: Sternstein, Hinterstoder, Hochkar, Semmering and other areas within easy reach of the big cities.
• Austria ski pass prices: SunnyCard, SuperSkiCard and other regional passes, and when each one pays off.
• Skiing on the Großer Arber: the Bavarian side of the Bohemian Forest, if you fancy trying a different hill.
• Šumava National Park: ideas for days out in the Bohemian Forest when you are not skiing.