J2Ski Forum Posts and Replies by J2SkiNews

As more ski areas open for the season, there's competition to see which resort can offer the most.

Last weekend Switzerland's Saas Fee became the first to claim it had more than 50km of slopes open and this weekend fellow Swiss resort says it will already be offering 1500 metres of lift-served vertical descent.

"Owing to the excellent snow conditions and the additional artificial snow, the valley descent on Gemsstock is opening on Saturday. This means that on the third weekend of operations, about 20 kilometres of pistes will now be available, with a vertical drop of 1,500 metres," said Stefan Kern of Andermatt Swiss Alps AG.

Mr Kern credits the amount of terrain open to snow farming, which made it possible to have the slopes open in late October, combined with natural snowfall and snowmaking.

"With the opening of the descent to the valley and other pistes, guests can now choose from a wide selection of slopes, ranging from 1,453 to 2,962 metres above sea level," Mr Kern concluded.

Iceman wrote:Sounds like it's "watch this space"

Yup. Have a friend who has daughter booked on school trip to Italy, the travel co switched their destination to Austria end of last week as it was looking the easier option, then the start of this week cases up there and they won't allow over 12s on the slopes if not double vaccinated or recently recovered (test only not enough), and British teens can only get the one jab so not 'fully vaccinated' according to Austria, so not looking good at present, but fingers crossed will improve before they're due to get there. Saying that they have to get in to the country fist...

At least a dozen more ski areas will open for their 21-22 seasons this weekend in six countries, taking the numbers open already for the 21-22 season past the 50 mark.

Austria, Switzerland and the US will see the most centres opening and each will now go into double figures for the centres open in each of their countries.

Canada's Sunshine (pictured top this week) is the third Banff area to open; Breckenridge and Vail will open in the US, Switzerland will see Arosa, Crans Montana and Verbier opening and in Austria four more areas have announced they're opening, including Obergurgl and Schladming. The other two are in Norway and Sweden.

There are no French, German or Italian ski areas known to be opening this weekend although, Tignes remains open in France and Cortina joined the handful of resorts open in Italy already, opening one of its lifts three weeks early.

For the Italian resorts there's extra celebration and relief as ski areas begin to open after they were blocked from opening last season. In Germany, which has seen a rise in cases, there's nervousness ahead of the hoped for start of their 21-22 season at the Zugpitze glacier on Friday 19th and at least four French ski areas, including the first in the Pyrenees have announced they opening from the 20th, several of them bringing forward their season start date.

http://www.italia.it/en/useful-info/covid-19-updates-information-for-tourists.html

...some useful info I think. Had a quick scan and in addition to above points (1) the rules are in place in present form to December 15 so may change one way or the other before your visit (2) Brits also need to do a test 48 hours or less before arriving in Italy.

A fourth French area and so far the first in the Pyrenees has now also announced opening on the 20th.

Developments on this: Switzerland had said that they allow 1x vaccinated children (over 12 years old) to ski without needing testing. However Austria's decision in the past few days to only allow double vaccinated or recently recovered people on the slopes effectively means British teens can't currently ski in Austria unless they have evidence of recent recovery from infection. But the rules keep evolving and in Austria they are currently only in place to the start of December.

Montgenevre has become the third French resort to announce it intends to open for the season a week on Saturday.

Chamonix and Val Thorens had announced they intended to open on that date several months ago, but Montgenevre has moved its opening date forward several weeks after heavy snowfall at the start of the month which brough several feet (60cm+) of new snow to its higher slopes. It's pictured above last week.

Located on the Italian border resort is one of the highest altitude ski centres in France.
The three centres will join already-open Tignes.

France currently has some of the least restrictive rules for getting on the slopes in Europe with no digital pass required to access the slopes.

By contrast Austria has recently announced only skiers who have been fully vaccinated or recently recovered from an infection can use ski lifts there for the next month and that surgical standard face masks must be worn in crowded areas. That's in response to a recent surge in cases there and below European-average vaccine take up.

Italy has similar rules to Austria but allows skiers who are unvaccinated and have not has a recent infection to ski if they show a recent negative virus test result.

British families planning to head to the Alps this summer are being advised by tour operators and travel agents to be aware of issues regarding coronavirus vaccinations for teenagers.

The nub of the matter is that whilst most European countries have been double jabbing teenagers with vaccine, the same as adults, the UK has so far only been giving one dose to teens, so once on holiday in Europe they are not treated as fully-vaccinated like their parents.

The rules are constantly evolving but so far in most European ski nations this means teens can still ski, but it appears will need to take regular tests during their holiday.

In the absence of being able to provide evidence of being double jabbed, teens will also need to be able to show a recent negative test result to be able to get into restaurants and public places like hotel pools.

"If you're a skiing family with teens aiming to get back on the slopes this winter my top tip is to get your teenager's first jab as soon as possible, so that they're eligible for the second if our government follows Europe in a few months and offers the second jab to teens. Then they can travel as fully vaccinated, just like their parents. Travel is only going to get harder for the un-jabbed," said Richard Sinclair, boss of Travel Agency SNO (https://www.sno.co.uk/ski-holidays/), who added, "However when travelling with teenagers who are not double-jabbed, it's reassuring to know that covid tests in Europe are usually a bit cheaper than the UK, and you can easily get them in pharmacies etc. The main thing to know is that your tour operator's reps in resort will help make it easy for you with guidance on where to go if your teens need testing."

Indeed the UK's two biggest ski holiday companies, Crystal and Inghams, have both confirmed that they're updating information hubs and phone apps in which they keep track of the situation in different ski nations and walk skiers through what's needed for their trip and the options available.

"We will have a really robust information hub for customers ready ahead of the season, plus we'll use our app to walk them through in-resort testing options,"

a spokesperson for the UK's largest tour operator, Crystal (https://www.crystalski.co.uk/), confirmed.