# Ski instructors in Damüls-Mellau

> The snowiest village in the Alps by measured record, linked to Mellau in the Bregenzerwald: a friendly, unpretentious area where powder days are the rule.

- Region: Bregenzerwald, Vorarlberg
- Country: [Austria](https://alpinepal.com/en/ski-instructors/austria)
- Time zone: Europe/Vienna
- Currency: EUR
- Coordinates: 47.28019, 9.8908
- Official website: https://www.damuels-mellau.at
- Wikidata: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q23689784

Page: https://alpinepal.com/en/resorts/damuls-mellau
Last reviewed: 13 September 2026

## About Damüls-Mellau

Damüls is a small farming village at 1,430 m in the Bregenzerwald, the rolling, wooded district of Vorarlberg behind Lake Constance, and it holds a title no marketing department could invent: on the strength of decades of measurements it has been called the snowiest village in the world, with an average of around nine metres a winter. The reason is geography — it sits in the first line of hills that the wet north-westerly storms hit after crossing Germany, and they drop their load here.

Since a gondola link opened in 2009, Damüls shares its mountain with Mellau, a lower village at 700 m on the far side, forming an area of around 110 km of piste rising to about 2,050 m. The slopes are moderate, open above Damüls and wooded above Mellau, with a good balance of blues and reds and a few short steep pitches, and the whole thing has the unhurried feel of a place where most visitors come from a couple of hours away.

That snow record has a flip side: it snows a lot, which means days of poor visibility and, for a village on a high pass road, occasional closures. When the sun comes out afterwards, though, the powder on the open slopes above Damüls is as good as anything in Austria at twice the price.

## Where lessons start

Damüls has nursery slopes right by the village, and because of the altitude and the snowfall they are reliably white from December to April, which is more than most beginner areas in Vorarlberg can say. Mellau's beginner terrain is up at the top of its gondola rather than at village level. The area as a whole is a good, gentle place for families and second-week skiers, and on a fresh morning it is an unusually kind introduction to skiing powder beside the piste.

## Getting there

The nearest big stations are Dornbirn and Bregenz on the Zurich–Vorarlberg line, from where Damüls is about 45 minutes by road and Mellau half an hour; buses run through the Bregenzerwald. Zurich airport is about two hours, Friedrichshafen an hour and a quarter, Munich three. Damüls sits on the Faschina pass road, which is kept open but is steep and winding, and in a heavy storm the last kilometres can close for a few hours.

## Instructors at Damüls-Mellau

_No instructors have joined here yet._

## Qualifications required in Austria

Teaching for payment in Austria requires the Skilehrer qualification, issued by Landesskilehrerverband.

## Frequently asked questions

### Is Damüls really the snowiest village in the world?

The claim rests on long-term measurements averaging around nine metres of snowfall a winter, which is more than any other permanently inhabited village that keeps records — hence the title. Some villages in Japan or the Rockies almost certainly get more, but do not have the same record. What matters for a skier is simpler: in a poor Alpine winter, Damüls usually still has snow.