Adelboden is a lovely village which shares with Lenk an impressive ski area with a very good park for boarders. In addition there are also a number of smaller areas covered by the pass and, from the spa town of Lenk, the opportunity to access the extensive slopes at Zweisimmen.
Truly one of the world’s greatest and oldest winter sports destinations. The legendary mountain railways make this area one of the most accessible to get to, and the range of skiing, snowboarding and winter walking options is huge. It is not possible to get from Mürren to the main area between Grindelwald and Wengen without taking a train, but there is some wonderful on and off piste slopes here, and always you are in sight of the mighty Eiger, Jungfrau and Monch.
Ski Area
Jungfrau Region
Resorts
First, Grindelwald, Lauterbrunnen, Kleine Scheidegg, Männlichen, Mürren, Schilthorn, Wengen
Flims is the Swiss snowboarders favourite resort with the outstanding Crap Sogn Gion park and fabulous off-piste terrain, although some of the runs between the otherwise well-linked resorts are a little flat – keep your speed up! Skiers will also wonder why this resort isn’t better known internationally, and you rarely have to worry about crowds here except for the village run to Flims at the end of the day. All the more reason to wrap up with a drink at the Crap Bar in Laax Murschetg!
The Silvretta Arena comprises a large area between quiet, duty-free Samnaun in Switzerland and party-twn Ischgl in Austria. There is some excellent skiing and snowboarding, but these are not slopes best suited either to learners or experts. The modern, efficient lifts, excellent park, high, well-groomed slopes and Ischgl’s apres ski give it an almost legendary status amongst those with a work hard, play hard ethic, contrasting with the more traditional, family atmosphere of Samnaun.
Ski Area
Silvretta
Resorts
Samnaun (A: Ischgl)
Ski Region
Graubünden
Piste (km)
235
Top run (m)
2872
Bottom (m)
1700
Max Drop
1172
Snow’n’Rail
Y
Black (km)
45
Red (km)
132
Blue (km)
38
Lifts (#/hr)
80000
My Rating
5
Alpine
5
SnowPark
3
Nordic
2
Hiking
2
Family
5
Apres Ski
3
Free Ride
Y
Snow making
Y
Fun park
Y
Snow park
Y
Half pipes
Y
Spa
In Brief
Silvretta Arena
Samnaun shares the huge Silvretta Arena with Ischgl, the racier of the two resorts. There is a lot to commend the area – the resorts are pretty, the marked pistes cover a huge area, the lift system is good and mostly new, all but the resort runs are over 2000m , snow cover until the end of April is pretty much guaranteed (even for the resort runs)… all round an impressive set-up. The downsides? Not many – the lifts are not cheap (but you should have no reason to expect this extensive, modern system to be inexpensive), the resorts are hard to get to (particularly by public transport or from Switzerland)… that’s about it.
Ischgl is the better of the two resorts to use as a base. The lifts are central, the slopes on the Ischgl side are mainly North-facing, the valley runs stays open late in the season, the village is very compact and the apres-ski scene is one of the best in the Alps. Samnaun is well-regarded, however, and has the advantage of being duty-free. In many ways Ischgl reminds me of Flims/Laax. Nice long cruisy runs, great for boarders, good park.
I don’t think the Silvretta area offers as much for advanced skiers and boarders as Verbier or Zermatt, but it has plenty of off-piste and some good black runs. Beginners might find it hard to really make the most of their passes, but there is a good range of blue runs connecting many of the lifts and I would still recommend the resorts to a mixed ability party because there really is enough of the right type of slope for everybody.
Red Run #1 takes you right into IschglIf you’re driving, remember that passes you may need to take are often closed in the winter (Fluellapass and Silvretta-Hochalpenstraße) and you either need respectively to take a brief car-train journey or take a longer route if you are coming from the West. Convenient parking is free in Ischgl. Sadly public transport is not practical unless you are somewhere nearby.
Some controversy surrounds the Silvretta Arena. Ischgl, once a small sleepy village is now a global tourist destination with outlets for Rolex and Hugo Boss, a jet-set nightlife, concerts attracting major stars such as Elton John or the Killers, and the huge winter sports area it shares with Samnaun. The development of the Alps for tourism is resisted, not least amongst Alpine societies, and the plans to extend the Silvretta Arena up the 2812m Piz Val Gronda have attracted so much controversy that years after the development was first mooted, the scheme still stands on hold. With the relentlessly increasing popularity of winter sports holidays and the increasing unpredictability of snow conditions in lower resorts, the controversy about limits to development of the Alps won’t go away.
