Alpine Winter Sports

Just South of Sierre, the villages of Chandolin, St-Luc, Grimentz, Vercorin and Zinal provide a largely unconnected ski area regarded by many as some of the most outstanding slopes in the entire Alps. Grimentz is the prettiest of the villages, Vercorin has the most facilities, St Luc and Chandolin share what is the largest connected pistes in the valley and Zinal probably gives access to the best off-piste. With a long, tortuous road journey to access the slopes and overshadowed by more famous resorts in Valais, this valley really is an almost undiscovered gem of wonderful, uncrowded slopes.

In Brief

Leaving Switzerland’s sunniest town, Sierre, from the heart of the Rhône valley, an impossibly tortuous road takes you up to pretty Visoise. From here roads fan out to all the ski areas (although Vercorin can also be reached by cable car from Chalais, just outside Sierre). Post buses link Sierre to Visoise, and from there additional postbuses serve the entire valley.
The road to St Luc and Chandolin is the hairiest, but the reward is some of the best piste and off-piste in the Alps. There is a funicular railway from St Luc and two chairlifts from Chandolin, but parking is a short walk away from both and this is the limit of the non-surface lifts in the system that connects the two villages. Despite mostly being served by drag lifts, this is a fabulous area for snowboarders with none of the flatter connecting runs that require you to unclip and walk at any point. With runs up to 3000m there is good snow throughout the season and the tree-shielded valley runs down to Chandolin (2000m) and St Luc (1650m) tend to stay open very late into the season. With huge areas of off-piste to enjoy, the largest vertical descent and 65km of piste you may not want to visit the other areas in the valley, but that would be a mistake.
Zinal (1670m) has the best road out of Visoise and is the resort furthest up the valley. A cable car takes you to Soreboise (2440m) where there is a playground and some nursery slopes. A couple of chair lifts then takes you to the Corne de Soreboise at 2896 from where there is a long run to Grimentz, a micture of red, black and mogul runs back down to the chairlift stations and a large area of off-piste. With a guide it also possible to go off piste over the other side of the Corne de Soreboise into the Val de Moiry. To the south of the resort perimeter is a long surface lift that gives access to a designated freeride area and plenty of additional off-piste. The off-piste out of Zinal is some of the best in the Alps but, outside of the areas mentioned, really does require a guide. In addition the valley runs don’t bring you back to the cable car in Zinal and don’t stay open as long as the resort runs in the other villages in Val D’anniviers.
Grimentz is a pretty family resort with good facilities and a fine range of on (45km) and off piste between 1570m and 2900m. You can generally avoid using surface lifts except to access the Becs-de-Bosson area, but this offers some of the most rewarding slopes and shouldn’t be missed.
Vercorin’s gondola lift to the Crêt du Midi (2332m) gives access to 35 km of piste, a snow park with a half-pipe, marked off-piste, sledging runs, winter hiking trails, snowshoe routes and 12km cross-country skiing. Like all the resorts, the summits provide fabulous views across the mountains of Valais. Across the Rhône valley you can make out the sunny South-facing slopes of Crans-Montana.
If Val D’annivers had a mountain railway there is little doubt it would be considered one of the world’s great winter sports areas, but would also have all the crowds, commercial activity and bustle of it’s illustrious neighbour, Zermatt, in the next valley off the Rhône. As it stands it is a charming, near-mythical valley with some of the best and extensive on and off-piste conditions anywhere in the Alps. Some of the installations would benefit from being upgraded, but even at weekends you are unlikely to hit any queues.