Åre – Skandinaviens ski capital, Åreskutan 1 420m and Sweden's three-time World Championships mountain

Åre (pronounced Oh-reh) is a village of around 1,500 permanent inhabitants at 390 m above sea level in Jämtland County, central Sweden, set at the foot of Åreskutan (1 420 m), the most famous mountain in Swedish skiing. It lies 100 km west of Östersund and 650 km north of Stockholm on the Mittbanan railway, which connects the Norwegian Atlantic coast at Trondheim (110 km west) with Stockholm in the east — making Åre simultaneously Sweden's premier mountain resort and one of the most accessible ski destinations in Scandinavia by train.

Åre has hosted the FIS Alpine World Ski Championships three times — in 1954, 2007 and 2019 — making it one of only a handful of venues to have staged three editions. The 2019 Championships, held 4–17 February and opened by King Carl XVI Gustaf, featured 76 nations, 11 disciplines and some of the most emotional individual moments in recent alpine skiing history: Aksel Lund Svindal's silver medal in the men's downhill on 9 February, seconds behind Kjetil Jansrud in what turned out to be the final race of his career; and Lindsey Vonn's bronze medal in the women's downhill on 10 February, also her last World Championships race. The mountain has hosted over 100 FIS World Cup events across the decades.

The Åre ski area is organised in three zones. Åre village is the main zone: slopes descend directly from the Åreskutan summit to the village square, with the historic Kabinbanan gondola (Sweden's first gondola lift, built in 1953) and its successor the VM8 providing access to the Platån plateau at mid-mountain. From Platån, further lifts reach the upper zones: Sadelbanan, Fjällexpressen and the summit station at 1 273 m (highest webcam). Åre Björnen, a short drive west, is the family area. Duved and Tegefjäll, 3 km west, form the third zone with a separate mountain and the Fjällgårdsexpressen chairlift.

The Åre Bergbana (rack railway) is one of the resort's defining historical artefacts. Opened in 1909 — Sweden's first mountain railway — it climbs from the village square at 398 m to the Bergstationen at 556 m on a 792 m track, still operating daily for tourists and as a ski lift supplement. It was built when Åre was already a tourist destination but before any ski lifts existed; visitors took the Bergbana to reach the slopes above. The 12th-century church at the foot of Åreskutan, built by Norwegian farmers when Jämtland was still Norwegian territory, is the oldest building in the village and the reference point of the Stjärntorget (Star Square) webcam.

The Åresjön lake, which the Indalsälven river forms as it broadens in front ofÅreskutan, is the village's natural swimming pool and sailing ground in summer, and freezes to a skating surface in hard winters. The lake and mountain together define Åre's visual identity: every photograph of the village taken from the east shows the settlement between the water and the enormous mountain wall behind it. The Stjärntorget webcam (390 m) sits at the lake's edge and captures this composition at street level.

In summer, Åre is a major mountain biking destination — the UCI Mountain Bike & Trials World Championships were held here in 1999 — and a hiking hub for the Jämtlandstriangeln, the classic three-hut mountain circuit of Jämtland (Sylarna, Storulvån, Blåhammaren) accessible from Åre or Storlien. The Kabinbanan gondola carries summer visitors and hikers to Platån for access to the Jämtlandstriangeln trails.

8 live webcams – from Stjärntorget village square to the Åreskutan summit

The 8 webcams span 883 m of vertical — from the Stjärntorget village square at 390 m to the Åreskutan summit camera at 1 273 m — the widest vertical range of any webcam network in the entire series, and one of the widest of any ski resort in Scandinavia. This reflects Åre's fundamental characteristic: the mountain rises directly above the village, without a valley transfer, so every webcam angle captures a different layer of the same mountain.

The Åreskutan summit webcam (1 273 m) is the reference point for understanding why Åre has attracted World Cup racing for over a century: from the summit, the descent to the village is nearly 900 m vertical in under 3 km horizontal distance on the race course. The Olympia downhill piste, used for the 2019 World Championships men's downhill (Svindal's farewell silver, Jansrud's gold), drops from 1 033 m to 396 m in 2.172 km — a gradient sustained enough for genuinely high downhill speeds while remaining above a lakeside village with a 12th-century church.

The Kabinbanan/VM8 Platån webcam is historically the most significant: the down-station of Sweden's first gondola lift, inaugurated in 1953 just before the 1954 World Championships which it was built to serve. The original Kabinbanan (gondola) ran until the VM8 (built for the 2007 Championships) replaced it as the main access. The down-station webcam shows the gondola arriving from Platån — a view that hasn't fundamentally changed since 1953.

The Stjärntorget village webcam (390 m) captures the element that makes Åre uniquely Scandinavian: a working village at the foot of a World Cup mountain, with a medieval church, a lake, a rack railway and a gondola all within walking distance of the same square. On World Cup race days in January or March, that square is packed with spectators who could ski down from the finish line. At 3:00 in the morning after a race in January, the aurora borealis sometimes appears above Åreskutan — visible from the same camera.

• FIS World Championships 1954/2007/2019
• 100+ World Cup events
• Kabinbanan gondola (1953)
• Åre Bergbana rack railway (1909)
• Duved/Tegefjäll western zone
• Åresjön lake sailing/swimming
• 12th-century Åre church
• Jämtlandstriangeln hiking circuit
• Mountain biking UCI WC (1999)
• Aurora borealis (January–March)
• Mittbanan train Trondheim↔Stockholm
• Östersund 100 km · Oslo 6h train

Access & practical information: Åre, 390 m, Åre municipality, Jämtland County, Sweden.

By train (strongly recommended): Stockholm Central → Åre (~6h30, Mittbanan/SJ, several daily direct trains, no change required); Trondheim S → Åre (~1h45, same Mittbanan line). The train journey from Stockholm through Jämtland is itself a substantial experience: the final 2 hours pass through genuine wilderness. Night trains available from Stockholm (depart ~19:00, arrive Åre ~06:30). By air: Åre Östersund Airport (OSD) 90 km east of Åre, served by SAS and BRA from Stockholm, Gothenburg, Oslo. By car: E14 from Sundsvall (~370 km, 4h30); Rv63 from Trondheim (~180 km, 2h30). Ski area: 3 zones (Åre village + Åre Björnen + Duved/Tegefjäll), summit 1 420 m, base 390 m, ~90 pistes, 42 lifts (SkiStar operated). Åre Bergbana: departs from Bergbanestationen (opposite SkiStar headquarters), operates daily year-round including summer. Kabinbanan/VM8: main gondola access, Åre Torg → Platån (mid-mountain hub), then further lifts to summit. Webcams: snow-online.com (10 camera positions Åre resort), skistar.com/en/ski-destinations/are/winter-in-are/weather-and-slopes/webcams-are/. Site officiel: skistar.com/are / visitare.se.