The Gschwandtkopf is a mountain south of the

ski resort A ski resort is a resort developed for skiing, snowboarding, and other winter sports. In Europe, most ski resorts are towns or villages in or adjacent to a ski area – a mountainous area with pistes (ski trails) and a ski lift system. In North ...

of Seefeld in Tirol in the

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

n state of

Tyrol Tyrol (; historically the Tyrole; de-AT, Tirol ; it, Tirolo) is a historical region in the Alps - in Northern Italy and western Austria. The area was historically the core of the County of Tyrol, part of the Holy Roman Empire, Austrian Emp ...

. It is 1,495 metres high. There are two inns at the summit: the ''Ötzi Hut'' and the ''Sonnenalm''.''Seefeld Leutasch'' 1:25,000 hiking map, Wanderland-Verlag, 4th edn., 2011.

Geography

The Gschwandtkopf rises prominently above the surrounding

Seefeld Plateau The Seefeld Plateau (german: Seefelder Plateau) is a montane valley and basin landscape in the North Tyrolean Limestone Alps about 500 metres above the Inn valley in the Austrian state of Tyrol. The plateau covers the valley basin around the vil ...

by some 300-400 metres. The summit is located about 1.5 kilometres south-southwest of the centre of Seefeld, about 1.5 km west-northwest of the village of Auland and 2.5 kilometres east-northeast of Mösern. The mountain is bounded to the west and northwest by the ''Möserer Tal'' valley, to the east and northeast by the Seefeld Plateau and to the south by the ''Hoher Wand'', a high rock face above the

Inn valley , image = UnterinntalWest.JPG , image_caption = Lower Inn valley from Rattenberg castle , source1_location = Swiss Alps (Lägh dal Lunghin) , source1_elevation = , source1_coordinates= , mouth_location = Danube (Passau) , mo ...

. At the northeastern foot of the Geschwandtkopf is the picturesque bathing lake of Wildsee.

Winter sports

The Geschwandtkopf has an Olympic ski jump at the foot of its northern slopes. It is also one of several ski areas at Seefeld. There is an eponymous

chairlift An elevated passenger ropeway, or chairlift, is a type of aerial lift, which consists of a continuously circulating steel wire rope loop strung between two end terminals and usually over intermediate towers, carrying a series of chairs. They ...

from Seefeld to the summit and two shorter

T-bar lift A surface lift is a type of cable transport for snow sports in which skiers and snowboarders remain on the ground as they are pulled uphill. While they were once prevalent, they have been overtaken in popularity by higher-capacity and higher-co ...

s at the bottom of the piste: the ''Olympialift'' and the ''Brunnenlift''. Until 2013, another chairlift, the ''Sessellift Reith'', used to run from Auland to the top. The majority of downhill runs are easy (blue) but there is at least one marked medium (red) route. There are also three lifts on the neighbouring ''Brennenkopf'' (1,494 m) linking the village of Mosern with the ski area on the Geschwandtkopf. There is a ''

rodelbahn A toboggan is a simple sled traditionally used by children. It is also a traditional form of transport used by the Innu and Cree of northern Canada. In modern times, it is used on snow to carry one or more people (often children) down a hill o ...

'' from the top to Auland. Around the base of the mountain are several

cross-country skiing Cross-country skiing is a form of skiing where skiers rely on their own locomotion to move across snow-covered terrain, rather than using ski lifts or other forms of assistance. Cross-country skiing is widely practiced as a sport and recreation ...

runs which are part of an extensive network in the Seefeld area.

References

{{Reflist Mountains of Tyrol (state) Two-thousanders of Austria Mountains of the Alps