Nebelhorn (Oberstdorf)

The Nebelhorn above Oberstdorf, at 2,224 m, is one of the best-known viewpoint mountains of the Allgäu; from the summit the view reaches over more than 400 peaks. The Nebelhorn cable car leads up comfortably, from where the exposed Nordwandsteig and high trails start. In winter the Nebelhorn is a snow-sure ski area.

Highlights

• Panorama over more than 400 peaks
• Nebelhorn cable car to near the summit
• Exposed Nordwandsteig
• Snow-sure ski area in winter

Good to know

Practical info

Background & History

The Nebelhorn above Oberstdorf is, at a good 2224 metres, one of the highest and most panoramic mountains of the Allgäu Alps, and its name betrays the weather moods of the region: often the valley lies beneath stubborn banks of fog, while the summit thrones in clear sunlight above the sea of clouds. From up here a famous summit panorama opens up, which on clear days is said to take in well over four hundred peaks, from the Bavarian mountains across the Swiss Alps to the distant Dolomites.

Oberstdorf itself, the southernmost market town in Germany, has transformed since the late 19th century from a farming village into a well-known climatic health resort and winter sports destination. It was above all ski jumping that made it internationally famous, for on the neighbouring Schattenberg the opening jump of the Four Hills Tournament is traditionally held. The Nebelhorn cableway, one of the oldest large-cabin cableways in the Alps, opened up the summit as early as the 1920s and made the Allgäu high mountains comfortably accessible without robbing them of their reputation as a paradise for hikers, mountaineers and paragliders. In more recent times the old cableways have been replaced by modern installations, and at the summit an airy viewing platform recalls that the Nebelhorn has remained, for over a century, a place of grand vistas, where the history of Bavarian mountain tourism is concentrated as at scarcely any other point.