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Chateau D’Oex

Chateau d’Oex in the Pays-d’Enhaut is the most Easterly French-speaking winter sports resort in Switzerland. It is denoted Sector 3 of the huge but largely unconnected Gstaad Mountain Rides network, most of which is in Saanerland in the Bernese Oberland. It is one of the few valley stations in the circuit that is easy to reach by public transport (Zweisimmen being the easiest) but is also fairly easy to reach by car from Berne, via Bulle and Gruyeres. Indeed, Gstaad Mountain Rides is probably the only winter sports area in Switzerland where a car is a good option – for those flying in by private jet to Gstaad airport there is a good Range Rover rental company nearby!

Chateau D’Oex is most famous for its thermals and balloon festival in January, and once was a favourite ski resort with the Brits, but probably fell out of favour because of it’s height – the top station at La Braye is only 1630m. There are a number of quibbles you can have with the resort as well as it’s altitude. No valley run except to nearby Gérignoz,  the awful t-bar from Bois-Chenau which you need to take up from the Gérignoz chairlift to get back to La Braye, old equipment,  a modest vertical, only one mountain restaurant…

Chateaus d'Oex

But on the bright side, it’s a lovely, friendly resort with 40km of pistes for all abilities and it is usually totally uncrowded at weekends. After the frequently-run valley cable car gets you up the mountain you can rely upon the efficient covered two-person chairlift to give you access to virtually all the terrain, including blue, red and black runs and some off-piste and a fun park. The runs are mostly North-facing and through the trees and are generally wide, well-groomed and easier than their designation. The restaurant at La Braye is good and (like everyone here) very friendly, and also doubles up as a ski-in, ski-out b&b at a respectable CHF25 for adults (less or free for kids; half-board is also available). The ski school seems good and English is widely spoken at the ski school, restaurant and lift office. The lift pass in 2010/11 is CHF42 for an adult for a full day, much cheaper than the main Gstaad area, sector 1.

An up to date resort report is located at the Swiss Winter Sports web site and a Dutch language version here.

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Malbun – Ski Liechtenstein

Landlocked within the landlocked nations of Switzerland and Austria, Liechtenstein hosts one tiny ski resort, Malbun. It is a spectacular drive from the motorway at Sargans in Switzerland, or about 30 minutes by bus from Valbun, Liechtenstein’s capital (itself 30 minutes by bus from Sargans station).
The resort has just over 20km piste and stands at about 1600m. The highest runs are from 2000m with three modern chairlifts servicing virtually all of the resort. There is a good range of skiing from nursery slopes through runs of increasing difficulty, including one short, steep black and some off-piste. There’s cross-country skiing in nearby Steg and toboggan runs and winter walking trails in Malbun itself.
On the face of it, there would be little to attract skiers and snowboarders to Malbun  but it is uncrowded and friendly, and in the Hotel Gorfion has an excellent ski-in, ski-out family hotel where you can deposit your kids in the ski school opposite or leave them in the hotel’s supervised nursery from as early as 7am until 8pm (schedule varies).
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Google Street View takes to the Alps

swissinfo.ch reports that Google Street View is moving onto the European ski pistes, with Zermatt chosen as the first European outing for its special snowmobile.

Apparently over 30,000 winter sport enthusiasts took part in a competition launched jointly with Switzerland Tourism at the beginning of February, to select which Swiss resort should be featured.

Google first included the Canadian resort of Whistler Mountain alongside the 2010 Winter Olympics.

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Feldberg in the Black Forest

Although some of the best skiing in the world is only a couple of hours away from Basel it is possible to ski and snowboard much closer. In the Jura, in Basel-land, there is a small ski area called Langenbruck, with a couple of surface lifts and some short, gentle runs. It is accessible by public transport, but is easier to reach by car. However it is low and currently closed because of the unseasonably warm winter. The nearest resort of any size still open is Feldberg in the Black Forest.

Feldberg )resort website is here) is comparable to many of the smaller Alpine resorts in scale, although with pistes between 1448 and 945m it is quite low. Despite the altitude, however, the pistes have held up better than many higher resorts this season. There are fourteen runs – 3 black, 7 red and 4 blue – comprising around 25km of piste spread over two sides of a valley. The runs on the North-facing side of the valley, off the Grafenmatt, are mostly through the trees and are largely suitable for intermediate skiers. The runs on the South-facing side of the valley, on Seebuck, only loosely connect to the runs across the road via a ski bridge, but the area is better for beginners with a wide, gentle blue run and red runs that really should be graded blue and a good funpark all accessible by an excellent six person chair lift. On Grafenmatt it is almost impossible to escape using surface lifts, of which there are nine in the resort, although there is a modern four-seater chairlift with over 400m vertical ascent providing access to some fine red and black runs, a free ride area and a 3km-long, very challenging blue run. The combined lift capacity of the resort is 24,000 people an hour, so queues are generally short even at busy periods. Around 5km of the pistes have snow cannon cover.

Needless to say, Feldberg is popular with weekend skiers and parking can be challenging unless you arrive early. Interestingly enough Feldberg is also popular with many skiers and snowboarders from Belgium, Holland and North Germany, for whom it is an easier trip than the Alps.

The run from Basel by car is just over an hour, driving north on the B317 from Lörrach up through the delightful Wiesental, and from Freiburg it is three-quarters of an hour (via Titisee). By public transport the trip is under 2 hours from Basel (via Freiburg) and around an hour from Freiburg with regular buses on routes 9007 and 7300 from the nearby railway station at Feldberg-Bärental.

Although small, low, busy and with too many surface lifts, Feldberg is actually a delightful little resort, and highly affordable. A day pass is a reasonable 27 Euros and prices for kit hire, lessons, meals and refreshments are very competitive and there is plenty of choice. There are also number of smaller resorts in the area, including a pleasant area served by a surface lift at Altglashütten, and one served by a gondola at Belchen. All of the resort runs, public transport and a range of other amenities are available free with the “Hochschwarzwald-Card”, which is itself provided gratis for guests in local hotels (depending on length of stay). The area is good for walking and there are a number of cross-country ski circuits, an outstanding all-season water park at Titisee and various other off-piste diversions throughout the “Hochschwarzwald” area.

The standard of accommodation in the hotels and guesthouses in the Black Forest is consistently high. For families the Feldberger Hof  is supremely convenient for the slopes and has superb childcare facilities.  For the more budget-conscious I recommend the excellent family-run Landhotel Sonneck in nearby Altglashütten, a delightful village with rail connections to Titisee and a bus service to Feldberg, as well as having a small ski area in the village.

A full resort report is located at the Swiss Winter Sports web site, with a version in Dutch here.