Zugspitze Cable Car Garmisch-Partenkirchen

Visitors to Germany’s highest peak – the Zugspitze – can look forward to an absolutely top-notch cable car ride up to the summit. The Zugspitze Cable Car boasts the world’s highest steel cable car support tower (127 metres) as well as the world’s longest free span, covering 3,213 metres. The resulting total vertical drop of 1,945 metres over one section of aerial ropeway represents a truly record-breaking feat of engineering.

Passengers on the Zugspitze Cable Car also enjoy outstanding on-board comfort to match. The ride from Eibsee near Grainau up to the 2,962-metre peak of the Zugspitze takes a mere ten minutes! Up on top, guests are treated to a stunning 360° panorama featuring some 400 Alpine peaks across four nations. Find out more about the panoramic Zugspitze...

Thanks to the lift cabins’ top-to-bottom windows, you can enjoy unparalleled views of picturesque Eibsee, the border between Bavaria and Tyrol, the Alpspitze and the Karwendel mountains during the ride. Integrated window heating also prevents fogging in all weather conditions, while a capacity of 580 passengers per hour means next to no waiting at either end.

In winter, the lift also carries skiers, snowboarders, sledders and day-trippers up to Germany’s highest ski area, as the glacier here offers a lengthy seven-month season.

The Zugspitze was scaled for the first time in 1820 by Josef Naus. However, it took more than a century until construction began on the first transportation route up the mountain. The first cog railway opened here in 1930, and the mountain has become the subject of pioneering technical feats and innovations ever since.

Due to its increasing popularity as a tourist destination and the resulting queues for its lifts, the decision was made in 2011 to build a new cable car up to the summit. Work on the new aerial ropeway took nearly six years at dizzying heights and inclement weather conditions close to 3,000 metres above sea level. The new lift was an utterly unique engineering project in terms of its size and complexity.

The new Cable Car opened on 21 December 2017.

Take motorway A95 from Munich to ride the Zugspitze Cable Car. Exit the motorway in Eschenlohe and follow the B2 to Garmisch-Partenkirchen. Turn onto Zugspitzstraße just after you enter town and then follow signs for the Bayerische Zugspitzbahn.

Together with our cooperation partner DB Regio, we also offer an attractive combination ticket in both the summer and winter seasons. It includes the train journey from Munich main station and a ticket for the Zugspitze or the Garmisch-Classic area. For more information please see: https://zugspitze.de/en/Service-information/Tickets-rates/Combination-ticket-train-mountain-railways