Niederau

A church village in the Wildschönau

Niederau is one of the four church villages of the Wildschönau, a 24 km long high valley in the Kufstein district of Tyrol, 6 km south of the town of Wörgl. The other three are Oberau, where the municipal office sits, Auffach and Thierbach, and between them lie a handful of hamlets rather than any purpose-built resort. The valley belongs to the Kitzbühel Alps, and although Niederau shares those mountains with much bigger names, the setting is a valley of villages first. That is the ground behind the traditional-character flag attached to Niederau in our data.

28 km on 12 lifts

Niederau’s own ski area, on the Markbachjoch and Lanerköpfl, has 28 km of pistes and 12 lifts, roughly 2.3 km of piste per lift. It is not lift-connected to the rest of Ski Juwel Alpbachtal Wildschönau, the Wiedersbergerhorn and Schatzberg sectors reached from the valley’s other villages; getting there means a ski bus rather than a ski run. Since summer 2012 a lift connection has linked the Wildschönau’s other sectors with the neighbouring Alpbach valley, the kind of link that turns a valley ski area into a wider network, but Niederau’s own slopes sit outside that link. Our data does not divide the 28 km by difficulty and lists no terrain park, so check the current piste map before deciding which part of the area to base a day around.

From 828 m to 2,100 m

The village base at 828 m is a low starting point, and the top station at 2,100 m stops just short of the height at which altitude alone can be counted on for snow. Read that as a ski area with 1,272 m of vertical whose best conditions are on the upper slopes, with the runs back to the valley depending on the winter. The season is listed as December to April; early and late in that window, plan to ski high and check whether the lower pistes are open before booking on the strength of the village altitude.

Who it suits

The combination on offer is a compact home ski area reached from a small village, with the wider Ski Juwel Alpbachtal Wildschönau pass available for skiers who want more terrain a bus ride away. Skiers who want the 28 km and 12 lifts of Niederau’s own slopes, without the scale and pace of a large purpose-built resort, will find that the Wildschönau’s village pattern, four communities strung along a 24 km valley, keeps the experience local. The flip side is that the village itself is the attraction after the lifts close: our data attaches no après-ski flag to Niederau, so expect quieter evenings than in the bigger Tyrolean names.

Getting there

Innsbruck (INN) is the nearest airport, roughly 58 km away as the crow flies. Wörgl, 6 km to the north of the valley, is the nearest town on our records. The municipality’s website is wildschoenau.tirol.gv.at, which covers all four villages rather than Niederau alone.