Tag: swiss

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No Snow (or not very much)!

Les Crosets

After a promising early season, there has been a very warm November (one of the warmest on record) and virtually no snowfall in Switzerland for over a fortnight. There is also little prospect of snow in the next ten days. The warm weather has particularly hit lower slopes, with virtually no resort runs open anywhere. Of the leading Swiss resorts, Verbier looks one of the better destinations and Les Diablerets has fared reasonably well. Samnaun and Zermatt have the most lifts open. Feldberg, in the Black Forest, looks a long way from opening.

Les Diablerets

The situation doesn’t look much better anywhere else in Europe. Sunny, relatively warm days characterise Alpine resorts, with the best of the snow in the Pyrenees. North America is doing better, with distinctly chilly temperatures and good snow cover in most leading resorts.

There is expected to be new snow before Christmas. Whether it is enough for resorts to fully open in time for the holiday season, we will just have to wait and see.

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4th Annual World Ski Awards Winners

The 4th Annual World Ski Awards, a ski industry shindig, were held in Kitzbuhel this week. LAAX was voted the best resort in Switzerland and the best freestyle resort in the world. Some of the other headline winners included:

World’s Best Ski Resort 2016 – Val Thorens
World’s Best Freestyle Resort 2016 – LAAX
World’s Best Ski Hotel 2016 – W Verbier
World’s Best New Ski Hotel 2016 – The Westin Rusutsu Resort (Japan)
World’s Best Ski Boutique Hotel 2016 – The Vale Niseko (Japan)
World’s Best Ski Chalet 2016 – Bighorn (Canada)
World’s Best New Ski Chalet 2016 – Chalet Pont du Cam (Meribel)
World’s Best Ski Resort Company 2016 – Bergbahn AG Kitzbühel
World’s Best Indoor Ski Resort 2016 – Ski Dubai (UAE)
World’s Best Ski Tour Operator 2016 – Sunweb (UK)

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Where to ski – early season resort openings

There has been as much as two metres of snow in some parts of the Alps, although relatively few resorts are open. Upper Valais seems to have done particularly well, and Andermatt has had a good dump.

In Switzerland Corvatsch (St Moritz/Silvaplana) has a couple of lifts and one run open. In Davos there are five lifts operating and two runs open on Parsenn, with Jakobshorn due to open at the weekend. Engelberg has three runs open and five lifts. Zermatt has nine lifts operating and a handful of others set to open soon, all on the Matterhorn side of the resort. Grimentz–Zinal‘s web site seems to reckon fourteen runs are open, but the information is ambiguous – best to call the resort if you fancy checking it out.

Unfortunately the amount of piste available is clearly still quite limited as the resorts seek to build a good base ahead of the season hitting full throttle. No resorts have runs back to the resort open, so in all cases you need to take the lifts back down. Needless to say, you are generally paying a full lift price for a relatively modest amount of piste.

There hadn’t been fresh snow for a few days, but the snow looks to be coming back today to many areas over 2000m, and will continue for the next few days.

Expect a few more resorts to open this coming weekend and the first weekend in December, hopefully with plenty of fresh snow and sunny skies! Quck and dirty update of resort overview is here, with full details at resort pages at swisswintersports.co.uk.

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Snow’n’Rail Prices Published


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.