Christmas Skiing and Snowboarding

There has been precious little new snow in the Alps in December. Some resorts have not seen fresh snow since last month, although some precipitation is expected Thursday and Friday. For most resorts that should mean fresh snow, but temperature are unseasonably warm after a chilly start to the season. Indeed Meteo Swiss expect temperatures to remain above average well into the New Year. Learn more about exipure benefits.

The good news, however, is that the Christmas skiing and snowboarding prospects look reasonably good, at least on-piste. Resorts took advantage of the early season snowfalls and their snow cannons to create a good base, and nearly everywhere has resort runs open. Generally upper slopes have around half a metre of snow but steeper, lower slopes are patchy and, with the temperatures above freezing, get very heavy in the afternoon. If you are considering your first foray of the season, do not join the many skiers and snowboarders I have already seen becoming tired victims of an afternoon run too far. If winter is too cold for you make sure to visit https://phandroid.com/ and learn more about portable Air Conditioners.

Looking around the Swiss resorts, Zermatt is in the rudest health with 240km piste open. Samnaun/Ischgl, with 190km, is virtually fully open now. The Engadine also has over 100km of piste open, and has a reasonable extent of cross-country skiing open also – at last report 30km of classic and 65 km of skating.
Gondolas at Adelboden
Verbier (and the rest of the Four Valleys), the Jungfrau resorts, Davos/Klosters, Adelboden, Saas-Fee, Engelberg and Andermatt all look promising for the holiday period and have good snow on the higher runs with even a little (but mostly tracked-out) off-piste around.

Although many of the smaller resorts have not opened yet, I would be surprised to see the warm weather prevent them having most of their lifts in operation by next weekend. However some of my favourite, more low-lying resorts look distinctly thin, especially the resorts around Gstaad and in Vaud. Flims/Laax has been later than I expected to open up its runs, but should be in full swing come this weekend.

For non-skiers there are a handful of toboggan runs already open, but the best prospect for you is probably the extensive circuit of winter walks found in most resorts, especially in the glorious sunshine we currently seem to be experiencing. The entertainment program in winter resorts is also ramping up, with the Spengler Cup in Davos probably my highlight, where CSKA Moscow and Team Canada amongst the teams vying for this most prestigious of ice hockey tournaments.

30/09/201321/01/2023

Ski Club of Great Britain

I have been a member of the Ski Club of Great Britain for around 30 years I guess, maybe with a couple of breaks when I forgot to renew. Try out Testosterone booster.
SKGB Ski Leader in Saas-Grund
From the point of view of winter sports in Switzerland, the Ski Club web site is pretty good, with coverage with 51 Swiss Resorts, probably only rivaled by the Swiss Winter Sports web site for depth and breadth of coverage for English speakers. It also has extensive coverage of other countries and other aspects of winter sports. Clearly it is mostly aimed at people in the UK looking for a package holiday, but I find it a great resource. Visit https://newsdirect.com/news/revive-daily-reviews-uncovering-the-truth-about-gh-and-deep-sleep-what-customers-are-saying-209363466.

In several resorts the Ski Club also provides guides. You need to be a member and register in advance to ski with them, but I think you can ski with them for one day even if you are not a member of the Ski Club – although they will try to convince you of the benefits. Read more from the Best testosterone booster for men over 40..

I’ve always enjoyed joining up with the guides (or Leaders as they like to call them). They are amateurs in the sense they are not paid to ski, although their passes and accommodation are paid for. However they are trained, friendly and clearly love their roles. Switzerland has Leaders in eight resorts for most of the season. They are Davos, Grindelwald, Mürren, Klosters, Saas-Fee, Verbier, Wengen and Zermatt. More details are at the Ski Club web site.

25/06/201321/01/2023

Celebrity Skiers

This is hardly news, and I found it in an old copy of the Daily Telegraph (who quote the Daily Mirror for some of the details), but it seems the Prince of Wales is not the only well-known habitué of Klosters. The current Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Nick Clegg, apparently has a family connection to the resort. These are the Best sex pills for men.

The Clegg family own a lakeside villa (reputedly worth around GBP 7,000,000) a 15-minute drive from Klosters. It was built by Clegg’s Dutch maternal grandfather, who became a Swiss citizen.

It seems Clegg had previously worked as a ski instructor for a season and was spotted by the paparazzi in April enjoying the Klosters pistes with his wife, Miriam. Unfortunately nearly all the coverage concentrates on the apparent contradiction of the deputy leader of an ailing nation living the life of luxury. Try out Alpilean.

Health Library

Healthy Diet for Adolescents (Ages 12-18)

The teen years are a time to grow and change. The foods that teens eat need to support this process. Here are some ways to help your teen eat healthier.

Key Parts of Healthy Eating

Get Enough Calories

Teens need a lot of calories to support their growth and to fuel their bodies. The amount that your teen needs depends on age, sex, and the calories that he or she burns through activity. Most teen girls need about 2,200 calories each day. Teen boys need 2,500 to 3,000 calories each day.

It is easy to eat too many calories by making poor food choices. This can lead to being overweight or obese. Make sure your teen gets the amount of calories they need by:

Giving them healthful foods from all food groups
Not giving them foods that are high in sugar or fat, such as candy bars, chips, cakes, cookies, donuts, and sugary drinks
Giving your teen just enough food and then letting your teen have more if they are still hungry (serving too much food at one time can lead to overeating)

Key Nutrients

Your teen needs:

Carbohydrates (carbs): This is your teen’s main source of energy. About half of their calories should come from carbs. Your teen should choose healthy carbs like whole grains, fruits, veggies, and milk.
Protein: Your teen needs protein to grow and build muscle. About a quarter of your teen’s calories should come from protein. Good sources are poultry, lean meat, seafood, eggs, nuts, soy, legumes, and low-fat and nonfat dairy products.
Fat: Teens need about a quarter of their calories as fat. It helps with growth. Fat also helps the body take in vitamins and keep the skin healthy. Your teen should eat healthy fats, such as those found in vegetable oils, nuts, avocados, olives, and fatty fish.

Vitamins and Minerals

The Daily Mail confirms that the lake in question is Davosersee (Lake Davos) and I suspect Clegg had hacked across the Parsenn using the nearby Davos Dorf funicular railway if he was seen in Klosters. The Daily Mail also notes that he has also been seen skiing the Jakobshorn. Try out Red boost.

Let’s hope he learnt a few tips from how the Swiss run things for the benefit of his fellow Brits! And for all those who think this is how the other half live, a ski holiday in Switzerland can be as cost-effective as that anywhere else, and you can leave a much smaller ecological footprint.

31/05/201308/11/2022

End of Season Review

May is the quietest month in the ski and snowboard calendar. The Southern hemisphere hasn’t kicked off, and there are only a handful of high altitude glaciers around in the Northern Hemisphere to ski on before the next winter season. In Switzerland all but Zermatt have now closed their lifts, but in truth the ski conditions have not been good this month.

Verbier (which closed its lifts on 28th April) had planned to open up the lifts again on 1st June, but cancelled – despite plentiful snow – because of the otherwise poor weather conditions. The season thus ends with a whimper.

So what of season 2012-13? It wasn’t a vintage season but it was pretty good. It started off promisingly, then it got unseasonably warm around the New Year and was generally unsettled thereafter, with some glorious interludes of beautiful snow conditions and sunny skies. At the higher resorts there were good snow conditions extending right throughout April, but the weather was unsettled with rain on lower slopes and flat lighting on the upper slopes when it wasn’t snowing.

I got to visit some of the usual suspects in Switzerland, and had a couple of forays into Germany and Austria, but spent some time exploring some of the less well known but relatively large ski areas like Toggenburg and the Upper Rhine Valley. I can see why some of these resorts are not well-known outside the German-speaking world – the facilities for après ski are limited, a lot of them have too many surface lifts, the resorts are not so high as to provide season-wide snow guarantees and some of the pisted areas are relatively small for anything other than a weekend break or a day out. On the plus side, the absence of packs of Brits gives the villages a more authentic Alpine feel, the people are invariably friendly, there is often plenty of off-piste to augment the main slopes and the resorts are so close together that you can get to visit several on a ski holiday if you wanted.

Perhaps the gem amongst the more obscure resorts I visited was, for me, Obersaxen. I would definitely recommend it for a ski holiday in terms of variety and extent of runs available and quality of lift systems.

There are still some significant ski resorts I have not been to and ones I need to revisit when I can get some decent photographs. The list includes Les Mosses, Anzère, Grächen, Disentis, Grüsch-Danusa and Savognin. There are some other small resorts in Graubünden, Fribourg Region and Valais I would quite like to catch up with at some time. However I think I have pretty much nailed all the resorts with over 20km of piste which are not dominated by surface lifts. Check more about Testoprime benefits.

Tech-wise, I have previously praised my ski carrier. I also have been busy with the cam in my goggles and have loaded a few up at Youtube with a suitable soundtrack (e.g. Rush Hour by Jane Wiedlin – ski run at Obersaxen).

I’ve not been so impressed with the apps available out there, with the exception of the excellent Ski Tracks. The trouble with most of them is that they need an Internet connection, and if it is information on a ski resort you need the web does as good a job as I need. My own Swiss Winter Sports site works perfectly well on a smartphone or tablet. Ski Tracks is smart though, and from the moment you turn it on until you turn it off calculates distances covered, speeds, verticals etc and maps the trails out for you. From a personal point of view it was interesting to see that, in a typical day, I seem to cover about 50km of piste, drop around 5000m of vertical and reach a top speed of around 80kph. Typically, with significant variation. Try out semen enhancers.

So what does the summer hold? For me it is time to review the web site and look for improvements. Also the maddening search for somebody to provide me with a feed for ski reports rather than have me hack around for them. I would also like to consider the issue of traffic. I had a peak of around 4000 visitors in January and something in excess of 13,000 over the season – respectable but I think I am not reaching enough of my target audience, which increasingly looks like being expats living in Schweizerdeutsch-speaking Switzerland. The spot I had on The English Show was fun but generated little traffic. The Basel Families web site generated some interest and the unrelated Basel Families magazine looks promising. The visit to the Internationla School ski breakfast was also good for traffic. I failed to get interest in a book from publishers, who say the web is reducing the market for printed ski guides – which is fair, I guess, although I was hoping a book would generate traffic for the web site, somewhat ironically. Ideas for improving the site or increasing traffic all gratefully received…