by Amy Borrett
THE RECENT Les Rencontres du 7ème Art Lausanne Film Festival First Edition attracted a host of Hollywood celebrities and shone a spotlight on the Crans-Montana ski area in Switzerland.
And there was more good news this week when it was announced the ongoing dispute which had led to the indefinite closure of the ski lifts had been resolved for the time being. Day tickets are now on sale at a vastly reduced price, and Crans-Montana’s slopes will now stay open until 17 April.
AS THE season in Cortina d’Ampezzo draws to a close, skiers and snowboarders can still make the most of the fresh snowfalls which have created fabulous spring skiing conditions.
Anyone making last minute bookings to the Queen of the Dolomites, which claims to be Italy’s most fashionable resort, will be well rewarded.
DID you know that virtually all the mountain restaurants in Val Gardena offer visitors waiter service?
Try a bit of speck mit glas on the slopes of Val Gardena.
The sight of skiers and snowboarders trying to find a table while balancing a tray of self-service food and drink is very rare in this Italian resort located in the heart of the Italian Dolomites and Christina Demetz, from the tourist office says: “It’s a remarkable feature of the Val Gardena slopes. All our wonderful mountain huts have table service, which we believe somehow reflects our philosophy of giving our guests the most relaxing and enjoyable experience possible.
by Rob Rees
If you still haven’t decided where to go to enjoy this bumper ski season, and you’ve just about recovered from ‘The Beast from the East’, Les Arcs is a perfect venue. The gorgeous boutique Chalet des Cascades above Les Arcs 2000 still has some spaces left, at cracking prices through Flexiski (www.flexiski.com).
ZELL AN SEE-KAPRUN: The refurbishment of Zell am See’s Areitbahn ropeway, which now includes free wifi, will help bring skiers and snowboarders to the Schmittenhöhe even faster thanks to a 50% increase in passenger capacity.
There were some amazing ski properties on show when NEIL ENGLISH visited the Utah resorts of Deer Valley and Park City, which now claims to be the biggest ski area in America. But one well-heeled owner of a slopeside mansion is now having to eat a slice of humble pie…
FOUR Pyrenean ski resorts have combined to create a new ski area – the Pyrenees 2 Vallées.
PHOTO: Peyragudes
Saint-Lary, Peyragudes, Piau-Engaly and Val Louron will be linked by shuttle bus and between them offer 247 km of skiable terrain with 166 pistes and 66 lifts.
AFTER a period of uncertainty for La Grave, the future of the legendary off piste area in Les Hautes Alpes has been secured by SATA, the lift company associated with Alpe d’Huez.
SATA has taken on the lease to operate the lift system in La Grave and has pledged to maintain the unique off-piste atmosphere of the area.
Nassfeld is the largest resort in the Southern Austrian region of Carinthia, yet it remains relatively unknown to British holidaymakers.
Located close to the Italian and Slovenian borders, the ski area itself is surprisingly expansive and has everything we come to expect from a resort nowadays – terrain parks, a snow cross track, a half pipe and over 100km of pistes ranging from beginner nursery type slopes through to the ‘Carnia’, a piste that is over 7km long.
There are some clandestine activities going on in Sölden that would be worthy of a spy thriller story.
But then that’s not surprising as the ski area, located in the Austrian Tyrol, found itself in the media spotlight in 2015 when it was used as one of the locations for the James Bond film Spectre.
Frank ‘Scoop’ Baldwin, editor of the Skier & Snowboarder magazine writes:
I skied the Berthoud Pass Ski area in Colorado about 25 years ago – and it was of my most memorable ski days ever.
The high cost of trans-Atlantic air fares has always been one of the stumbling blocks when trying to attract UK skiers and snowboarders to the Rockies in America.
But there are changes in the air as Norwegian is offering return flights from London Gatwick to Seattle and Denver for under £400.
Val d’Isère is embarking on an ambitious €200m (£170m) building project to redevelop the centre of the world-famous resort.
The project is being called Le Coin de Val d’Isère and involves the demolition and reconstruction of a giant triangle in the heart of the resort.
New airline powdair has launched ticket sales through its website powdair.ski with a winter schedule that links Sion Airport with the UK.
Flights commence from 14 December, 2017 and will cut transfer times to some of Switzerland’s most popular ski resorts for winter sports enthusiasts including Zermatt, Verbier, Saas Fee, Crans Montana and Nendaz. A variety of transfer options from Sion Airport to onward destinations are available to book at the point of ticket purchase, including shared and private journeys to the major resorts in the region.
The airline claims that there will be very little fluctuation on ticket pricing across peak dates, meaning that families won’t feel hard done by during the busier school holiday periods. Average prices will be around £140 and there is more good news for skiers and snowboarders because equipment is included in the ticket price.
The eight airports that will be served by powdair are – London Luton, London Southend, Southampton, Bristol, Manchester and Edinburgh. Flight times are typically between one hour 25 minutes and two hours.
Marcelline Kuonen, Head of Experience and Market Management at Valais Promotion, said: “We are looking forward to seeing direct flights into the Valais region and welcoming more guests into our fantastic region. Some of the world’s top ski resorts are within easy reach of Sion Airport.”
Zoë Ombler, Head of Commercial for powdair said: “It’s not every day that we get to launch an airline and especially one that opens up a completely new route into an airport that is so close to some of the world’s best ski resorts. The response we have already seen shows the kind of interest people have in the area and regular, scheduled flights into Sion are long overdue
It might be one of the hottest months of the year, but most of the talk was about skiing and snowboarding last week when representatives from the Savoie Mont Blanc area of France visited London to spread the word about new attractions in the their resorts for the coming season. Here are some of the highlights (for more info on the resorts, click on the names):
After a weekend of fun and frolics, the Arapahoe Basin Ski Area season, which was extended because of fantastic late snow falls in Colorado, finally came to an end on Sunday (11 June).
Closing Day was full of costumes, pond skimming on Lake Reveal, tunes from the resort favourite local band High 5 in the base area, and lots of smiling faces.
Photo: Ashley Ojala/Arapahoe Basin Ski Area
We often get calls at the Skier & Snowboarder from people looking to get a final fix of skiing and snowboarding right at the end of the season. All of the major European resorts are now closed, but due to some unusually late snowfalls in North America there are some great conditions to be had if you don’t mind a transatlantic crossing.
Sitting comfortably on the stateline between California and Nevada, Heavenly Ski Resort offers skiers and boarders a unique opportunity to ski two US states in one day, on top of experiencing the lively, flashy casino atmosphere that Nevada is famous for.
Why is there no Sunday Ski Train? The direct daytime Eurostar Ski Train, which runs every Saturday from London to the Tarentaise region of the French Alps, is now so popular that at February half term it sells out within hours of going on sale.
Each summer, the Sounds of the Dolomites music festival is held in the beautiful Trentino Dolomites in Italy. The event features an eclectic and wide-ranging musical programme and this year includes the 12 Cellists of the Berliner Philharmoniker, singer-songwriter Jack Savoretti, and jazz legend Chick Corea.