Schilthorn’s early-season freestyle tradition is back for a third year. Pända Snowpark, the freestyle terrain park perched high above Switzerland’s Bernese Oberland, kicks off its 2026 “Pända Freestyle Session” this Saturday, September 26, running through October 25 — giving skiers and snowboarders one of the earliest legitimate freestyle setups anywhere in the Northern Hemisphere, thanks to snow preserved over the summer.
Last year’s early-season setup featured jumps of roughly 8 and 16 meters. This year’s build-out is noticeably bigger, with a 13-meter and a 17-meter jump anchoring the park, alongside rails, boxes, and — new for this edition — tubes, adding another feature type to the jib lineup that wasn’t part of last year’s early-season setup.
Pricing has also shifted slightly. Adult and youth (16-19) day passes remain unchanged at CHF 55 ($66) and CHF 32 ($39) respectively, but the children’s rate (ages 6-15) has actually dropped, from CHF 32 last year to CHF 27 ($32) this year.
The park runs daily from 9:30 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. during this early season window.
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Access works through the Schilthornbahn cable car system: riders take the gondola from Stechelberg up to Birg, then it’s roughly a 10-minute walk from Birg to the snowpark itself, with a shuttle service available to help carry bags, skis, and snowboards along the way. Once on site, two tow ropes serve the park’s features.
As with previous seasons, spots are limited and access requires a valid advance booking — there’s no walk-up option, and passes must be booked separately for each individual day rather than as a multi-day package.
This marks the third consecutive year Pända Freestyle AG has run this early-season session at Schilthorn, a track record that’s clearly building real momentum. The operation’s Instagram following has been counting down to this reopening for weeks, and the park has expanded its footprint beyond just the early-season sessions to include a full winter-long park (split between the Winteregg and Maulerhubel sectors once the main season is underway), a dedicated Girls Session each spring, and a calendar of additional events including the Downdays Snowpark Tour, the BABE Kaninke Race, White Style Open, and the Los Pändas Volantes team battle jam.
Pända Snowpark — formerly known as Skyline Snowpark before its rebrand in partnership with Pända Freestyle AG, a company founded by former freeski athletes Jonas and Cyrill Hunziker — sits within the Schilthorn-Piz Gloria ski area, which offers 54 kilometers (34 miles) of groomed runs across 17 lifts. At 2,970 meters (9,744 feet), Schilthorn-Piz Gloria is the highest ski area in the Bernese Oberland, with panoramic views toward the Eiger, Mönch, and Jungfrau from the summit’s revolving Piz Gloria restaurant — famous in its own right as a filming location for the James Bond film “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.”
The full Schilthorn-Piz Gloria ski area typically doesn’t open for the winter season until early November, meaning the Pända Freestyle Session once again gives riders a genuine head start on the year, weeks before the rest of the resort is even running.