April Skiing

With a late Easter many resorts are planning to stay open, but with clear blue skies and temperatures in the valleys well into double figures, conditions are poor in many lower lying resorts.

Some resorts have finished for the season, and it is hard to believe that anywhere below 1000m has resort runs open. Any runs below 2000m will be icy in the morning and porridge in the afternoon. There is unlikely to be any decent off-piste below 2500m – on most south-facing slopes the only snow left is on the carefully manicured pistes, cascading like ribbons down the mountains.

Despite a poor start to the season, snow did come, and some Swiss resorts still have plenty of snow on the upper runs and conditions for ski touring are generally good. Zermatt, Saas-Fee and Verbier, no surprises, have amongst the best conditions.

I visited the Portes du Soleil, on account of a claimed 526km of the total 650km of piste being open. Remarkably it did seem like the vast majority of runs were open, but this is not on the whole a particularly high ski area despite being the largest in the world, and some parts of the circuit, including Torgon, have closed already. It’s glorious being in the mountains this time of year, but you need to get used to skiing on icy pistes and wrapping up for the day around lunchtime unless you want to plough through the sticky stuff.

March skiing

March is probably my favourite month for skiing, the longer evenings and sunny skies heralding Spring. And, of course, you do tend to get Spring ski conditions – crusty off-piste, whilst the pistes are icy first thing and slushy at the end of the day. So a good tip is to look for resorts where most of the skiing is high.

No schools in Europe have half term during March this year, so there should be some good bargains for accommodation, particularly family-friendly resorts.

Some of the medium-sized resorts are perfect to visit since they have lower lift pass prices and should have the full extent of their ski area still open.


Booking.com


These, then, are my top tips for March skiing, all resorts with plenty of altitude:

Saas-Fee
Ski Saas-Fee

Nendaz
Ski Nendaz

Celerina (Engadine)
ski Celerina in the Engadine

Mürren
ski Murren in the Jungfrau

Flims
Ski Flims Laax Falera

St-Luc/Chandolin
Ski St-Luc and Chandolin

Crans-Montana
ski Crans and Montana

Surlej (Engadine)
ski Surlej, Silvaplana

Belalp
ski Belalp and Blatten

Lauchernalp
Ski Lauchernalp in the Lötschental

Where was the snow?

Predictions of a good dusting of snow across the Alps last week failed to materialise. Furthermore the temperatures did not drop as much as predicted and lower slopes continue to suffer. Web cams from around the resorts are rather depressing.

As a result the resorts that are providing the best skiing are high, and my Xmas skiing is looking like it will be limited to Verbier and Zermatt.

What is the outlook like for the next few days? Not promising, but things will improve. Whether it is global warming or unconnected climatic variations, early season snow conditions have been poor for the last three years, but have improved into the New Year.
ski conditions xmas 2016

World’s Scariest Ski Airports

The Daily Telegraph reports on the scariest airports to land at that cater for skiers and snowboarders. For winter sports enthusiasts with a fear of flying, these are the ones to avoid!

The following airports are classified as category C, i.e. they require pilots to have special training before they can land there:

Sion, in the heart of Swiss skiing
What makes for these airports to be designated as Category C? The Torygraph goes on to explain: “Challenging visual manoeuvring within the valley, made harder by low-level wind shear (a sudden change of wind velocity and/or direction), come as standard. The approach is fraught with challenges for the aircraft’s captain, who is the only one allowed to fly the plane – the first officer isn’t qualified.”

I can certainly vouch for Innsbruck as the scariest. It is quite an astonishing experience to look out of the cabin window for the approach to the airport, with all the surrounding Alpine peaks seemingly almost close enough to touch as the pilot twists and turns through the descent.

However if you want a really white-knuckle ride into your ski resort, try the small airport in the resort of Courchevel. It is Europe’s highest tarmacked runway and is too short to safely accommodate most types of aircraft. Fewer than 100 pilots have the special “Qualification of Sight” licence required to land there.

Of course there is an alternative if you are not minded to fly for a ski holiday – take the train! There are over 50 ski resorts with railway stations right in the resort (including all those named above). Visit Snow and Rail for more details.