Other songs that could have made it but didn’t include:
Kanye West: Coldest Winter John Denver: Rocky Mountain High Janes Addiction: Mountain Song Moutain: Nantucket Sleighride Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds: Fifteen Feet Of Pure White Snow Wham: Last Christmas Nina: Do You Know How Christmas Trees Are Grown?” Darlene Love: Winter Wonderland
The Nina song is a bit twee but did feature in James Bond’s OHMSS, which also featured the ski chase off the Schilthorn above Mürren. The video for the Wham song was filmed in Saas-Fee. Rocky Mountain High is the official state song of Colorado which, as both the cannabis capital of the world and the home of some of the world’s most awesome skiing is pretty appropriate. My most recent US ski trip is featured here.
I recently revisited my Swiss Winter Resorts web site to update it with what I have learned skiing and talking to people these last two months. I also revamped one of the landing pages, largely because I have come up with a few recommendations framed in terms of the ‘best five’ for various criteria. What do you think?
Best resorts from Geneva, Geneva Airport and Lausanne for short or long breaks: 1. Champéry – Portes du Soleil, 2. Villars, 3. Verbier, 4. Leysin, 5. Zermatt Geneva has an inter-regional railway station within the airport building.
Smaller resorts you can get to quickly from Basel for day trips: 1. Feldberg (DE), 2. Engelberg, 3. Sörenberg 4. Klewenalp, 5. Melchsee-Frutt With the exception of the first in the list, these are also the most convenient for Luzern.
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.
Snow’n’Rail is the popular scheme organised every year by the Swiss Railways which provides a significant discount on the combined lift and public transport ticket prices for over 40 resorts. The booklets listing the offers are available from stations in local language versions, and the online brochure also provides details in English.
There are no new resorts for 2016/7 although les Portes du Soleil is back after a one year absence. Toggenburg, Hoch-Ybrig and Val D’Anniviers have fallen off the scheme, sadly, and a couple of minor resorts are now only listed online.
After modest increases last year, it is perhaps not surprising to see significant increases in some of the offers. Adelboden, the 4 Vallées, Saas-Fee and many Graubünden resorts have seen hikes around 10%. However Zermatt has kept prices flat, as have a number of other resorts, including Les Diablerets, Leysin, Villars, Grindelwald, Wengen, Mürren, Gstaad, Meiringen, Sörenberg, Melchsee-Frutt, Klewenalp, Airolo and Stoos – some routes from Luzern have even fallen slightly.
Tickets can still get pricey, even with the discounts, especially if you do not have a half-price rail card. Without the additional discount, a full day skiing or snowboarding in Zermatt from Basel or Zurich will set you back around 270 SFr. Conversely, with a half-price card, a day in Engelberg will give you change from a 100 Sfr note. Meiringen, Sörenberg and Klewenalp, in particular, provide very good value for the extent of piste available.
For more details of the new season prices visit the resort pages at SwissWinterSports.
