Ski in Château d'Oex

Skiing in Château d'Oex

Château d'Oex (Gstaad Mountain Rides), Switzerland (970m to 1800m)

A lovely village on the French side of the French/German language border within Switzerland. Home for many years to actor David Niven and still to the biggest annual ballooning festival in the Alps each January. More than 250km of piste are available on the Gstaad Mountain Rides pass which includes the mountain railway which conveniently runs between base lifts at most of the resorts en route.

Château d'Oex

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Château d'Oex Ski Facts

Château d'Oex Ski Facts

		Expert Skiers
		Intermediate Skiers
		Beginners
		Snowboarding
		Snow
		Apres-ski
	1	Black Run (4km)
	3	Red Runs (5km)
	2	Blue Runs (3km)
	4	Green Runs (3km)
50km		Downhill Pistes
28km		Cross Country Trails
10		Ski Lifts
830m		Max Vertical
1800m		Highest Lift
970m		Lowest Piste
970m		Resort Altitude

Château d'Oex

The Swiss ski resort of Château d'Oex is part of the Gstaad Mountain Rides Ski Area with access to 144 individual pistes. In addition to the skiing in Château d'Oex itself (50km of pisted ski runs), the appropriate ski Lift Pass will allow you to ski or snowboard in the other Gstaad Mountain Rides ski resorts of Gstaad, Saanen, Saanenmöser, Schönried and Zweisimmen. Château d'Oex is directly linked by Ski Lift to the ski areas of Anzère.

Snowmaking :- Château d'Oex is able to augment natural snow, with 3 Snow Cannons.

Ski Lift Capacity :- The 10 Ski Lifts of Château d'Oex are able to uplift 5,000 skiers / snowboarders per hour.

There are four airports within two hours drive, so ski weekends, snowboard breaks and short ski holidays to Château d'Oex are perfectly feasible. Sion Airport is just one hours drive away, in good driving conditions, so you can be on the piste quickly.

Skiing in Château d'Oex

Château-d'Oex's local ski area on La Braye, reached by cable-car - is of modest dimensions: 25km (16 miles) of trails served by 10 lifts and a respectable 802 metres (2631 feet) vertical. A second ski area on Mont Chevreuils, a short distance from the village, has ceased operations. What is not immediately apparent to anyone just passing through is that you're actually in one of the world's largest ski pass areas, certainly Switzerland's largest, the Ski Gstaad Pass, of which Château-d'Oex's near neighbours of the Gstaad Superski area are just a part. Public service trains and buses take skiers on the single pass over to a selection of 15 different resorts, together offering 600km (375 miles) of runs.

Famous resorts included are Adelboden, Lenk, Les Diablerets, Les Mosses, Leysin, Villars and of course Gstaad. The minimum duration for this pass is 4 days. This means that intermediates and expert skiers have a vast choice of runs including, from February onwards, the epic descent from the top of the Diablerets glacier down 13km (8 miles) to the Gstaad road. The local Swiss Ski School also organises high mountain touring, off piste guiding, ski mountaineering and heli-skiing for the more adventurous.

Beginners will enjoy the chance to stay in an authentic Swiss village, learn to ski on the peaceful and largely gentle slopes of La Braye above the resort, but then have the option of doing more than just ski or 'board, with the easy access to Gstaad and larger Swiss cities beyond. Intermediates can explore all of the ski areas, but the local slopes at La Braye above the resort itself will provide several days entertainment.

The largest and most popular area nearby is above Schönried or Saanenmöser, the first and second rail stop respectively a few minutes after Gstaad. Now all inter-linked right over to St Stephan beyond Zweisimmen, this is a wonderful area of many long blues and reds and where, with higher bases than Château-d'Oex, top-to-bottom snow lasts longer (although Château-d'Oex's ski area is in any case accessed by cable-car so the snow fields can be reached without hassle even when the lower slopes thaw at the end of the season).

A second large intermediate-friendly skiing area, not quite so big but closer still, joins the skiing above Rougemont, Chateau-d'Oex's French speaking neighbour, and to that above the resort after it, Saanen (first of the German-speaking villages).

Experts have many opportunities in the region, some already mentioned. Closer to home Château-d'Oex has several black-graded descents including a rather long one down from Monts Chevreuils to Les Moulins, above the village.

Snowboarding in Château d'Oex

Snowboarders have the same huge choice as skiers with the Ski Gstaad Pass. Most of the resorts in the area have snowboard parks, so this could be the area with the most snowboard-parks-on-one-pass in the world if anyone cares enough to add up such things (probably not a cool thing to do!)

There are three terrain parks in the area, in the larger Schönried - Saanenmöser sector, and a further three above Les Diablerets and Villars.

The year-round park on the Diablerets glacier helps this summer glacier skiing to be dominated by 'boarders throughout the warmer periods of the year, with numerous international camps.

Château d'Oex Aprés Ski

There are few resorts where you have the option of stopping off in a cafe or bar as you come off the slopes 20km from your hotel and then staying for a coffee or an après ski tipple without having to worry about missing the last ski bus home. Thanks to the area lift pass it's possible to get a train back to Château-d'Oex from Zweissemen, Saanenmoser, Rougemont, Saanen or Gstaad almost any time of the evening.

One popular option is to stop off in Gstaad en route home and take an après ski dip at the wonderful swimming pool complex. Another is to head back to Château-d'Oex to shower, change and maybe eat, then head for Gstaad's legendary après ski opportunities.

There are a dozen cosy bars and restaurants in Château-d'Oex itself should you wish to stay closer to home, and La Bamba disco is often lively.

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Château d'Oex in brief

Château d'Oex Ski Resort is:-
Very good for Expert Skiers.
Excellent for Intermediate Skiers.
Good for Beginners.
Good for Snowboarding.

Château d'Oex Snow Forecast

Château d'Oex Piste Map

Map of Château d'Oex