Does this appeal to anyone?

I have done this in Whistle but it was called fresh tracks. We got the lift up at 7am and had breakfast in the restaurant then we went probably 75% of the way up the mountain and you could work your way down at leisure. Not all lifts were open for obvious reasons so your limited as to where you can go. But it was fantastic especially if you drop on a powder day. It's a nice touch to add to your holiday but not worth doing every day, as mentioned just get up and on the first lift.

Televerbier started doing it couple seasons ago and we signed up last year as due to poor snow were desperately looking for entertainment. It's a good experience and I would recommend it especially if you have your ski holiday during busy time like half-terms when empty slopes is a luxury. Getting up for the first lifts normal time won't get you very far in this case as first lifts is when all the ski schools are going up so queues are very long. They open lifts 45 minutes earlier, and only two main lifts to take you to the top of the main run. Not much, but still a good experience to ski on freshly groomed cordiroy before everyone else. Breakfast was couple croissants and coffee, and I won't remember how much we paid but it was very reasonable. You might want to research with your resort as it may cost less if your book directly with them, not the travel agency. I can also recommend signing up for a torchlit descent after fondue if this is available. Reasonably priced (you basically pay for fondue and a glass of wine) and a good experience.

This sounds like a slippery slope to me [pun intended ;-)]

What's next "fast-track" (like at theme parks), pay extra to jump the queues.

Sorry, no, if they can get lifts open earlier, then get them open for all, first come first served and they get the first run. All these 'extras' are just greed. IMHO

smartski wrote:This sounds like a slippery slope to me [pun intended ;-)]

What's next "fast-track" (like at theme parks), pay extra to jump the queues.

Sorry, no, if they can get lifts open earlier, then get them open for all, first come first served and they get the first run. All these 'extras' are just greed. IMHO

:thumbup:

All depends on the quality of the snow and the quality of the breakfast!

smartski wrote:This sounds like a slippery slope to me [pun intended ;-)]

What's next "fast-track" (like at theme parks), pay extra to jump the queues.

Sorry, no, if they can get lifts open earlier, then get them open for all, first come first served and they get the first run. All these 'extras' are just greed. IMHO

Smartski, if a resort gets the lifts open earlier, they have to charge a cost for it. And even if I do not like the idea of paying more when ski trips are already sooo expensive, I have to admit that having to pay for this "extra" is understandable --since it costs them to offer it. (See Dave Mac's thorough explanation about ski-resorts operational costs in the "late season ski passes" thread).

So if they were to get the lifts open "for all" so early, then they would have to generally increase the skipass prices, which might turn some customers away, and/or put some really-hard-to-deal-with burden on those who are already making financial sacrifices in order to afford a ski holiday.

So bottom line: While I would not afford doing this every day of a ski trip, I would certainly try to do it (if available) at least once per trip. I'd look at it like going only "once in a (long) while" to a very expensive restaurant, or buying only "once in a (extremely-long) while" a really expensive bottle of wine/scotch/cognac -ingnoring the thought that some people can do that every day while I can't. :) :)

Zermatt and Cervinia also run first tracks trips including breakfast, the punters simply go up in the cable car with the staff. For CHF 100 (including a bottle of champagne) you can go up to Trockener Steg in the VIP gondola http://www.zermatt.ch/en/page.cfm/57379

It's also possible to spend the night up on the mountain. I have had some really good nights in the guides hut at Testa Grigia http://www.rifugioguidedelcervino.com/index.asp and some even better ones in the Rifugio Guglielmina (sadly it burnt down in December) above Alagna, didn't get much sleep though.

catp wrote:

smartski wrote:This sounds like a slippery slope to me [pun intended ;-)]

What's next "fast-track" (like at theme parks), pay extra to jump the queues.

Sorry, no, if they can get lifts open earlier, then get them open for all, first come first served and they get the first run. All these 'extras' are just greed. IMHO

Smartski, if a resort gets the lifts open earlier, they have to charge a cost for it. And even if I do not like the idea of paying more when ski trips are already sooo expensive, I have to admit that having to pay for this "extra" is understandable --since it costs them to offer it.

SwingBeep partly got to the point before me. I suspect the lifts are running anyway, for staff etc. You can often see bubbles running an hour or so before they officially open, it's not extra "cost", just extra profit...which is my point about a 'slippery slope'.