snow and rail – Alpine Winter Sports

10/11/202011/11/2020

Snow’n’Rail

The Swiss Railways provide an excellent discount deal for skiers, called Snow’n’Rail, which typically discounts the price of a rail ticket to a ski resort by 20% and the lift pass by 10%. it is available online or at Swiss Railway stations.

The new schedule for 2020/21 is out, and it is always interesting to see which new resorts have been added and which have fallen off the scheme. Sadly there have been some substantial losses this year – Zermatt, Saas-Fee, Gstaad Mountain Rides and the Vaud resorts (Leysin, les Diablerets and Villars-Gryon).

That still leaves a number of outstanding destinations such as Engelberg, Andermatt, Davos, St Moritz, Wengen, Portes du Soleil and Verbier, amongst others.

The brochure available at railway stations is thin on details this year, relying on you to see what is available at the Swiss Railways web site. Where routes include buses or cableways, these are also included in the offer. Swiss Railways also offer discounts on a number of other rail and winter sports combinations, such as tobogganing, snowshoe walking and cross-country skiing.

The Austrian Railways, ÖBB, offer a similar scheme which includes world class resorts like St Anton and Kitzbühel. They also run overnight services from Amsterdam, Hamburg and Düsseldorf to the ski resorts and a shuttle to Kitzbühel from Munich.

A full list of Alpine resorts which have a railway station is at the Snow and Rail web site. Daniel Elkan at SnowCarbon can assist people wanting to get to the Alps from the UK by train, offering a wider selection of resorts where the last leg might require a bus or taxi transfer.

16/07/201916/07/2019

Ski Train seats on sale

The Eurostar Ski Train tickets goes on sale tomorrow at 8am (Wednesday, 17th July 2019). There is a handy guide by Daniel at Snowcarbon on getting the best seats here. I found out about this from an email from Daniel and was also introduced to this character that the he interviewed extolling the virtues of taking the train:

Daniel knows how to get you to the Alps, but if you are already in the area and want to know public transport options, check out Snow and Rail which gives details on every ski resort in the Alps you can get to by train alone.

10/03/201709/02/2019

New Winter Sport Web Site

Alpine Winter Blog will have a companion web site for the 2017/18 season*. The new ski and snowboard site, Alpine Winter Sport, will expand on the scope of Swiss Winter Sports and Snow and Rail by focusing on all the important ski resorts across the Alpine region. Most notably, this will include coverage of significantly more resorts in France and Italy.

The new site will still cater predominantly for the independent traveller.

Watch this space for more details!

Delayed until 2019/20 season

04/10/201609/02/2019

World’s Scariest Ski Airports

The Daily Telegraph reports on the scariest airports to land at that cater for skiers and snowboarders. For winter sports enthusiasts with a fear of flying, these are the ones to avoid!

The following airports are classified as category C, i.e. they require pilots to have special training before they can land there:

Chambéry (for resorts like Les Arcs)
Innsbruck (for resorts like Mayrhofen)
Salzburg (for resorts like Schladming)
Sion (for resorts like Verbier)

Sion, in the heart of Swiss skiing
What makes for these airports to be designated as Category C? The Torygraph goes on to explain: “Challenging visual manoeuvring within the valley, made harder by low-level wind shear (a sudden change of wind velocity and/or direction), come as standard. The approach is fraught with challenges for the aircraft’s captain, who is the only one allowed to fly the plane – the first officer isn’t qualified.”

I can certainly vouch for Innsbruck as the scariest. It is quite an astonishing experience to look out of the cabin window for the approach to the airport, with all the surrounding Alpine peaks seemingly almost close enough to touch as the pilot twists and turns through the descent.

However if you want a really white-knuckle ride into your ski resort, try the small airport in the resort of Courchevel. It is Europe’s highest tarmacked runway and is too short to safely accommodate most types of aircraft. Fewer than 100 pilots have the special “Qualification of Sight” licence required to land there.

Of course there is an alternative if you are not minded to fly for a ski holiday – take the train! There are over 50 ski resorts with railway stations right in the resort (including all those named above). Visit Snow and Rail for more details.