Davos Klosters

Q: Davos or Klosters — where should I stay?

Davos if you want choice: more hotels, more restaurants, more to do off the slopes, and the Jakobshorn and Parsenn lifts within the town. Klosters if you want a village: quieter, prettier, more expensive per night, with the Gotschna cable car onto the Parsenn from beside the station. Either way the pass covers all six mountains and the train between the two, so the decision is about atmosphere rather than skiing.

Q: What is the Parsenn run to Küblis like?

Long. From the Weissfluhjoch it drops around 2,000 m over 12 km, starting on open upper slopes and finishing on a winding forest track through the villages, with a train back to Davos or Klosters from the bottom. It is not technically hard — a confident intermediate manages it — but it needs snow all the way down, which is not guaranteed at the bottom in a warm spell, and legs that still work at the end.

GraubündenSee it on the map

Foto: Adrian Michael · CC BY-SA 3.0

Region

Graubünden

Country

Switzerland

Local time

Europe/Zurich

Currency

EUR

Davos is not a village. At 1,560 m it is the highest town in Europe, a place of long straight streets, a hockey stadium, research institutes and — one week a year — the World Economic Forum. It grew up as a sanatorium town in the nineteenth century, and the same dry, high air that brought patients later brought skiers: the Parsenn above Davos Dorf was one of the birthplaces of alpine skiing in Switzerland.

The skiing is spread over six separate mountains with around 300 km of pistes between them. Parsenn is the big one, shared with Klosters, rising to the Weissfluhgipfel at 2,844 m and offering the famous 12 km run down to Küblis with 2,000 m of vertical. Jakobshorn, above Davos Platz, is the snowboard and park mountain; Pischa is left mostly ungroomed for freeriders; Rinerhorn and Madrisa, above Klosters, are the family hills; and Schatzalp is a deliberately slow, small, old-fashioned corner. Buses and trains link them, and they are included in the pass.

Klosters, ten minutes down the valley by train, is the chalet village Davos is not: smaller, prettier and quieter, with its own way up onto the Parsenn.

Last reviewed 13 September 2026

Best suited to

Intermediates
Snowboarding
Cross-country
Off-piste and freeride

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Where lessons start

For a first week the sensible choices are Bolgen, the nursery slope at the foot of the Jakobshorn in Davos Platz, and Madrisa above Klosters, a sunny, gentle mountain built around families. Once past the basics, the broad blues at Weissfluhjoch on the Parsenn are the step up. Davos Klosters suits intermediates who want variety — six mountains is a lot of different skiing — and snowboarders, who have had the Jakobshorn to themselves since the eighties. It is a big place, and lessons are easier to organise if you tell your instructor which mountain you are based nearest.

Resort areas

Parsenn
Jakobshorn
Madrisa (Klosters)

Getting there

Zurich to Davos is around two hours by train, changing at Landquart onto the Rhaetian Railway; Klosters is about ten minutes earlier on the same line. The railway runs right through both towns, and the ski buses are included with the pass, so a car is more of a nuisance than a help — Davos is a long town and parking near the lifts is not straightforward. Zurich airport is a little under two hours by road.

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Qualifications required in Switzerland

Teaching skiing or snowboarding for payment in Switzerland is a regulated profession: an instructor must hold the Snowsports instructor diploma. Instructors listed as certified on Alpine Pal have either sent theirs to us for review or are vouched for by the ski school that invited them.

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Davos Klosters: common questions

Davos or Klosters — where should I stay?

Davos if you want choice: more hotels, more restaurants, more to do off the slopes, and the Jakobshorn and Parsenn lifts within the town. Klosters if you want a village: quieter, prettier, more expensive per night, with the Gotschna cable car onto the Parsenn from beside the station. Either way the pass covers all six mountains and the train between the two, so the decision is about atmosphere rather than skiing.

What is the Parsenn run to Küblis like?

Long. From the Weissfluhjoch it drops around 2,000 m over 12 km, starting on open upper slopes and finishing on a winding forest track through the villages, with a train back to Davos or Klosters from the bottom. It is not technically hard — a confident intermediate manages it — but it needs snow all the way down, which is not guaranteed at the bottom in a warm spell, and legs that still work at the end.