Heiden
Heiden is a local ski area in Appenzell Ausserrhoden with 3 km of mapped pistes and 2 lifts, between 806 m and 939 m. Mostly blue and red, no black.
Rank Heiden against every ski area near St. Gallen for this weekend
This weekend
Measured snow and weekend forecast
Snow at the nearest SLF station
There is no SLF snow station within 15 km of Heiden at a comparable elevation (within 500 m of the ski area's mid-mountain), so Skiboard shows no measured snow for this ski area.
Weekend forecast
- : Partly cloudy, 6°C, wind 5 km/h
- : Partly cloudy, 7°C, wind 5 km/h
Source: MeteoSwiss, local forecast for Heiden (782 m, 1 km from the ski area), with the temperature at the ski area's mid-mountain, averaged over 09:00–16:00. Fetched .
Written into this page when it was last built. The live ranking uses the newest values.
Your trip
Travel time from Swiss cities
| From | Car | Train |
|---|---|---|
| St. Gallen | 19 min | 44 minHeiden, Rosengarten · direct |
| Winterthur | 1h 11 | 1h 28Heiden, Rosengarten · 1 change |
| Chur | 1h 15 | 1h 24Heiden, Bissau · 2 changes |
| Zurich Airport | 1h 23 | 1h 43Heiden, Rosengarten · 1 change |
| Zürich | 1h 25 | 1h 54Heiden, Rosengarten · 1 change |
| Zug | 1h 33 | 2h 28Heiden, Rosengarten · 2 changes |
| Lucerne | 1h 53 | 2h 51Heiden, Rosengarten · 2 changes |
| Basel | 2h 40 | 2h 53Heiden, Rosengarten · 2 changes |
| Bern | 3h 01 | 2h 54Heiden, Rosengarten · 2 changes |
| Lausanne | 3h 57 | 4h 09Heiden, Rosengarten · 2 changes |
| Geneva | 4h 43 | 4h 51Heiden, Rosengarten · 2 changes |
| Geneva Airport | 4h 44 | 5h 01Heiden, Rosengarten · 2 changes |
Train: the timetable’s fastest connection leaving the city’s station between 06:30 and 09:30 on Sat 16 Jan 2027, to the valley station of the area’s lowest lift, with the walk from the last stop. Car: an estimate from coordinates, not live traffic. Check your trip on sbb.ch before you go.
Plan your trip
Practical links for the trip. They do not affect the ranking.
- Stay in Heiden Booking.com · Saturday to Sunday, 7 Nov – 8 Nov · 2 adults
The mountain
Facts
- Mapped pistes
- 3 km
- Blue pistes
- 1 km
- Red pistes
- 2 km
- Lifts
- 2
- Top station
- 939 m
- Base
- 806 m
- Vertical
- 133 m
- Longest mapped run
- 0.8 km, from 939 m down to 808 m
- Canton
- Appenzell Ausserrhoden
Piste map
How steep the pistes in Heiden are
| Colour | Pistes | Steepest 100 m, typically | All of Switzerland | Here |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Blue | 2 · 1.3 km | 19 % | 28 % | — |
| Red | 1 · 1.5 km | 28 % | 38 % | — |
How this was measured
Skiboard measured the 3 pistes OpenStreetMap maps in Heiden (2.8 km) on swisstopo’s terrain model: the steepest 100 m of each, against every Swiss piste of the same colour.
Measured along the line OpenStreetMap draws, on terrain without snow: snow and grooming soften steps, and a piste can run beside its line. A gradient of 100 % is 45°. Colours as OpenStreetMap maps them, which can differ from the lift company’s piste map: check it before you go.
Piste lines from OpenStreetMap, read 30 Oct 2026 (© OpenStreetMap contributors, ODbL); terrain: swissALTI3D © swisstopo. A piste wrong or missing? Fix the map
About Heiden
Ski areas near Heiden
All ski areas in Appenzell Ausserrhoden
Heiden in numbers
11'894 winter hotel nights · 15 % second homes
Hotels, homes and lifts in Heiden, where the area’s lifts start: the federal statistics, and what the lift company publishes.
Hotels
In winter 2025/26 (November to April) the hotels of Heiden sold 11'894 overnight stays, -7.2 % on 2024/25. 42 % of their rooms were occupied, with up to 190 beds in 5 open hotels. In summer 2025 (May to October) they sold 16'258; over winter 2024/25 and that summer, 44 % of the nights were in winter.
Guests in winter 2025/26: 88 % of the nights were Swiss residents’, then Germany 7 %, Czechia 1 %, Netherlands 0 % and United States 0 %.
Winter hotel nights, season by season
| Winter | Overnight stays | Rooms occupied | Beds at peak |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025/26 | 11'894 | 42 % | 190 |
| 2024/25 | 12'813 | 48 % | 190 |
| 2023/24 | 12'645 | 45 % | 190 |
| 2022/23 | 12'579 | 46 % | 188 |
| 2021/22 | 5'589 | 42 % | 179 |
| 2020/21 | 15'038 | 57 % | 179 |
| 2018/19 | 9'969 | 39 % | 161 |
| 2017/18 | 9'853 | 41 % | 161 |
| 2016/17 | 6'868 | 33 % | 173 |
| 2015/16 | 9'903 | 43 % | 173 |
Homes
15 % of the 2'302 homes in Heiden are second homes (housing inventory, October 2026). Below 20 %, the Second Homes Act does not restrict new ones.
Commune figures count every hotel guest, not only skiers, and holiday flats are not in the hotel statistics. A licence year is when the installation’s current federal licence starts: usually the year it opened, sometimes a renewal.
Sources: Federal Statistical Office, hotel statistics (HESTA) · Federal Office for Spatial Development, housing inventory
Featured in
Catalog facts from OpenSkiMap / OpenStreetMap (ODbL). Where an SLF station is nearby, the app shows its measured snow, and the day-pass price is read from the operator’s own shop or tariff; for opening status, check the operator.
Skigebiet Heiden · Domaine skiable Heiden · Comprensorio sciistico Heiden