About Bergauf

Bergauf

Bergauf is the member magazine of the Österreichischer Alpenverein, the Austrian Alpine Club, headquartered in Innsbruck, Tyrol. Its lineage goes back to the association's member publication Mitteilungen, first published in 1875. According to the magazine's 2025 media data, it appears with a circulation of over 350,000 copies per issue, is delivered directly by post to member households, reaches over 710,000 members, and is also available free online. The same media data describes it as one of the most important and largest German-language mountain-sports magazines. Other reference sources describe its present frequency as five times a year, a discrepancy with the four-times-a-year figure in the batch record and the 2025 media data that this profile reports openly below rather than concealing.

A member magazine on this scale is a different kind of publication from a newsstand title. Bergauf does not have to win a casual buyer each month; it is the printed voice of one of Austria's largest membership associations, arriving in the homes of people who hike, climb, ski-tour and use the club's huts and paths. Its pages therefore mix mountain sport, club news, environmental advocacy and practical information for members, and its circulation is a function of the Alpenverein's membership strength rather than of retail sales.

Lineage from the Mitteilungen of 1875

The magazine's own 2025 media data begins its history in 1875, when the Alpenverein's member magazine appeared for the first time, then under the name Mitteilungen, or Notices. It was, the media data says, as it still is today, required reading for Alpenverein members and mountain-sport enthusiasts, informing them about what was happening in the mountain world and in the sections, the club's local branches. Counting from 1875, the media data presented the magazine in its 2025 edition as 147 years into that tradition — the media data's own arithmetic from an earlier edition cycle — and as having received a careful modern redesign that reflects the diverse work of the Austrian Alpine Club.

The name Bergauf, meaning uphill or up the mountain, belongs to the modern phase of that long lineage. The sources consulted for this profile do not give a verified year for the adoption of the Bergauf title itself, and none is invented here. What is documented is the continuity the publisher claims — a member periodical tradition beginning with the Mitteilungen in 1875 and continuing in today's Bergauf — and the separate, also long, tradition of the club's scholarly yearbook, the Zeitschrift des Deutschen und Österreichischen Alpenvereins, published from 1869 to 1998 and digitised in the Alpenwort corpus project. The yearbook and the member magazine are different publications, and this profile does not merge their histories beyond noting that both belong to the Alpenverein's deep publishing culture.

The Österreichischer Alpenverein

The publisher behind Bergauf is the Österreichischer Alpenverein, or ÖAV, one of Austria's largest associations. The club's own membership-benefits material describes it as a large and long-established mountain club and environmental organisation with more than 725,000 members in that document, a structure of many sections, and more than 160 years of history. Its functions, in that summary, include promoting and facilitating mountain activities such as climbing and ski touring, owning and running mountain huts, maintaining footpaths and climbing routes, producing walking and climbing maps, training and qualifying guides, and acting as an ecological authority — the self-description Anwalt der Alpen, Advocate or Lawyer of the Alps, captures its environmental advocacy role, including as a founder and partner in national parks and other protected areas.

The largest sections illustrate the club's scale: reference figures for December 2025 in the German-language Wikipedia entry list Sektion Austria with 101,686 members, Sektion Edelweiss with 89,758 and Sektion Innsbruck with 41,530. A magazine delivered to member households across that structure reaches university cities, alpine villages and the club's many non-resident members alike. Bergauf is thus also an instrument of cohesion for a federated association whose sections run their own huts, paths and programmes but share one national voice.

Circulation, distribution and the membership model

The 2025 media data gives Bergauf a circulation of over 350,000 copies per issue. Each issue goes directly, without scatter loss, by post to the Alpenverein member, the media data says: the publisher prints no copy in vain, with one copy of Bergauf provided per member household. In addition, Bergauf is freely accessible online. Four times a year, the media data states, over 710,000 members receive a Bergauf with exciting and informative content.

Those figures need careful reading, and this profile reads them as the publisher presents them: a print circulation above 350,000 copies per issue, one per member household rather than one per member, and a membership above 710,000 people who thereby receive the magazine in their households. The club's benefits material giving more than 725,000 members is consistent in scale with the media data's 710,000-plus figure for a different document and date. Because distribution is by membership rather than by sale, Bergauf has no sold circulation in the newsstand sense, and comparisons with commercial mountain magazines should compare reach and membership, not retail sales. No independently audited circulation figure was consulted for this profile; the figures above are the publisher's media-data statements for advertising purposes, identified as such.

Frequency: four or five times a year

The sources consulted disagree about Bergauf's present frequency, and an honest profile must show the disagreement. The batch record, drawn from the magazine's 2025 media data and Austria-Forum, states four times a year, and the media data itself says members receive a Bergauf four times a year. German-language Wikipedia's article on the Österreichischer Alpenverein, however, states that the member magazine Bergauf appears five times a year, and the Austria-Forum version of the same article likewise describes a member magazine appearing five times a year. The discrepancy may reflect a frequency change between editions of the sources, or a difference between the media data's advertising year and the encyclopedia's update cycle.

This profile therefore reports the position exactly as found: four issues a year according to the 2025 media data on which the batch record rests, five issues a year according to the encyclopedia entries consulted. It does not average the two, pick one silently or invent a change date. Readers who need the current frequency for advertising or subscription purposes should check the magazine's latest media data, the document the publisher itself maintains for that purpose.

Content: mountain sport, huts, paths and the environment

Bergauf's content follows the Alpenverein's work. The media data presents it as the competence in Austrian mountain sport, and the club's activities define its editorial territory: tour reports and area presentations, news from the sections, information about huts and paths, training and safety, youth and family programmes, and environmental protection in the Alps. Material originating in Bergauf and summarised by the club's British section illustrates the range: an article on Austrian alpine huts by the club's huts and paths officials discussed the history and future of the catered hut network, and a three-article series on receding glaciers reported the club's glacier measurements — a systematic record the club has kept since 1891 — including the finding that in 2018/19, of 93 monitored glaciers, 89 had receded.

That glacier coverage shows the member magazine doing double duty as a science-communication channel: measurements gathered by volunteers and specialists reach, through Bergauf, a readership of hundreds of thousands of mountain users who see the changes on their own tours. The club also publishes the specialist safety magazine bergundsteigen jointly with the German, South Tyrolean and Swiss alpine clubs, founded by the ÖAV in 1992, and Bergauf should not be confused with that quarterly risk-management title; Bergauf is the general member magazine, bergundsteigen the safety specialists' journal.

Design and the modern relaunch

The 2025 media data announces that the member magazine appears in a new look: with much sensitivity, it says, Bergauf was given a modern design that skilfully reflects the diverse work of the Austrian Alpine Club. Relaunches of member magazines are rarely cosmetic only; a federated association with members of all ages, including a large youth organisation, the Alpenvereinsjugend, needs a printed flagship that younger members raised on digital media will still open. The free online availability of Bergauf alongside the postal print edition points in the same direction: the print copy per household anchors the membership relationship, while the online edition extends reach to members and interested readers wherever they are.

The magazine's Innsbruck headquarters place its editorial work in Tyrol, Austria's most alpine province and the city of the club's largest historic sections. The batch record's placement — Innsbruck, Tyrol — matches the Alpenverein's national base there. For a directory, that geography is part of the title's identity: a national magazine edited from within the mountain region it covers, rather than from the capital's media district.

Bergauf among German-language mountain magazines

The publisher calls Bergauf one of the most important and largest mountain-sports magazines in the German-language area, and its claimed circulation above 350,000 supports the size claim in the publisher's own terms. German-language mountain publishing includes commercial newsstand titles, the German Alpine Club's member magazine and specialist journals such as bergundsteigen. Bergauf's distinction within that field is the scale of its guaranteed membership distribution: few European sports magazines of any kind are posted, as a membership benefit, to a readership community of more than 710,000 members.

That scale also makes Bergauf a significant advertising medium for the outdoor industry, which is why the figures in this profile come from media data prepared for advertisers. The commercial and the associational purposes coexist: advertisers buy access to a precisely defined, affluent and active readership of mountain households, and the club funds part of its communications from that access while informing members about the huts, paths, training and environmental campaigns their fees support.

Limits of the record

Several things a full magazine history would want are not verified in the sources consulted for this profile: the year the Bergauf name was adopted, the names of its editors-in-chief past and present, its page counts and section structure issue by issue, and an independently audited circulation series. The frequency disagreement documented above is a further open point. This profile has preferred the publisher's media data for circulation and reach, clearly attributed, and the encyclopedia record for the association's structure, and has flagged every place where the record runs out. For a member magazine, some of that thinness is normal: club periodicals are documented by their publishers for advertisers and members, less often by independent media journalism.

Bergauf today

Bergauf continues as the member magazine of the Österreichischer Alpenverein from Innsbruck, delivered by post to member households at a circulation the publisher puts at over 350,000 copies per issue, reaching over 710,000 members, and available free online via the Alpenverein at alpenverein.at. Its lineage from the Mitteilungen of 1875 makes it one of the oldest continuously rooted association magazines in Austria, and its present scale makes it, by its publisher's description, one of the largest German-language mountain-sports magazines. The verified record — 1875 lineage, Innsbruck base, membership distribution, the 2025 media-data figures, and the openly noted four-versus-five frequency question — is the profile this directory can honestly stand behind.