J2Ski Forum Posts and Replies by J2SkiNews

Italy has set next Monday, January 18th, as the opening date for its ski areas, but there are doubts as to whether this will, or should happen.

The slopes had originally been due to open on 7th January after they were kept closed through Christmas and New Year, but this was delated to the 18th at the last minute, and with lots of issues concerning reopening still uncertain, many think this will happen again.

The country, which has the second highest number of virus deaths in Europe after the UK, is currently dividing its regions up in to colour coded regions depending on the state of the pandemic for each of them. Yellow is for the areas which have the lowest rates, orange moderate and red high.

Of the major ski regions Lombardy and Veneto are currently graded orange, South Tyrol red.

Ski areas are proposing visitor numbers be limited to 30-40% of capacity and there are also as yet unanswered questions about whether, for example, someone living in a region rated yellow, should travel to one rated orange or red to ski.
It has also left ski area operators wondering if visitor numbers will justify opening.

This has led to one ski area operator quoted in Italian media to suggest it would be better to further delay for a "good opening" in the final months of the season than have a "bad opening" next week.

With time short he suggests the focus should now switch to the 25th of January or 1st of February.

Of the ski nations of Western Europe, ski areas in Andorra, Austria and Spain are now open to local skiers and Swiss ski areas remain open. Ski areas in Germany, France and Italy have been closed since before Christmas and those in the Czech and Slovak Republics as well as Slovenia initially opened but have now closed. In the north, ski areas in Scotland have been closed but they remain open in Finland, Norway and Sweden.

If Italian ski areas do open it would mean France would be the only major Alpine nation with its ski lifts still closed. Italy's Presena glacier also claims a snow depth of 6 metres (20 feet) on its website which, if still correct, is the deepest published base in the world at present.

Interesting on the history. I see Arnold Lunn gets a very brief mention but the histories of ski racing in Wengen from British writers seem to give him a more prominent position and talk of British organised Lauberhorn ski races from 1912 on, if not the official version from 1930 on. I see a Brit took bronze in that first race! Sorry to hear about all the COVID infections. Will they shut down Wengen altogether with that level or keep it open regardless? I see Big White in Canada has over 120 cases in their 'cluster' and has stayed open to locals but (after about three weeks since cluster first apparent) has started cancelling bookings from people living further afield in Canada.

Interesting, thanks. Am I right in thinking the Lauberhorn owes its existence to the British in the first few decades of the last century? ...so in some ways slightly ironic if the English variant of the virus has killed off the 2021 race.

The International Ski Federation (FIS) has just announced that the famous Lauberhorn World Cup races due to take place next weekend have been cancelled, instead most of the races will be staged in Kitzbuhel, which was due to host its own Hahnankamm races the weekend after.

There'll now be two days of slalom racing (the race moved from Wengen and the Kitzbuhel race a week earlier than planned), next weekend, followed by two successive days of downhill racing then a Super G from 22nd to 24th January, all at Kitzbuhel.

The FIS say the decision to cancel the race was made by the authorities in Bern, the canton where Wengen is located. Immediately social media commentators pointed to the apparent irony that Wengen can open to recreational skiers but can't allow competitive races, the reverse of the position in Austria at present it seems.

The FIS statement reads:

"Due to the current circumstances with the Covid-19 pandemic the Men's Audi FIS Ski World Cup races in Wengen (SUI) scheduled for 15th-17th January 2021 have been cancelled. The Canton of Bern's Health and Business Administration decided to withdraw the permit for the Lauberhorn races in consultation with the Wengen OC, Swiss-Ski and the people responsible for the Ski World Cup. It was determined by the Bern Authorities, after a detailed evaluation, that it would not be possible to take all precautions so that the athletes and the support teams can be adequately protected in separate zones."

Le Ski, which runs 32 chalets in the French Alps, has announced it is now skipping this season after the latest French announcement of the season start being further delayed to an unspecified future date.

"We have taken the decision not to run any holidays this winter. There are simply too many obstacles to operating our usual high quality catered chalet holidays this winter so we are skipping a season."

"With the UK in lockdown until at least February, and French ski resorts currently closed with no firm opening date, we have no option but to be decisive and opt not to run our holidays this winter. Nick Morgan, MD, said "For the first time in 38 years Le Ski will not take any guests to the Alps this winter. While this is sad, we felt we had no choice but to display some certainty and clarity for our guests, staff and suppliers. The vast majority of our amazingly loyal guests are happily deferring to next winter, which is already looking busier than ever. We are immensely grateful to our guests and chalet owners for their understanding, which enables Le Ski to remain a strong company."

What's the earliest departure date you'd risk booking a ski holiday right now?

The UK's two largest ski holiday companies, Crystal and Inghams have both announced they're suspending ski holiday sales until mid-February.

With much of the world currently inaccessible for non-essential travel due to the travel ban and the UK in particular banned by many countries due to the rapid spread of the new variant of COVID 19 in Britain, this is of course not a huge surprise.

"As a result of the latest national lockdown measures we're cancelling all holidays departing on or before 12th February. We are contacting customers in departure date order to discuss their options which include amending to another holiday that's on sale or obtaining a full refund," said a spokesperson for Crystal.

The Hotelplan Group have suspended all Inghams, Ski Total and Flexiski holidays until after 27 February 2021.
"We are extremely disappointed for all of our customers impacted by this news. We hope they will choose to join us on an alternative holiday at a later date, but of course we will provide them with a refund if they want one," Hotelplan UK CEO, Joe Ponte said, adding,

It is still not clear when we will be able to travel from the UK to European ski destinations, and understandably many people are eager to get back on the slopes. Our customers can remain assured that we are continuing to closely monitor the situation and when it is safe to do so, we will be ready to deliver the ski holidays people want."

Austria's re-opening date to foreigners (who can get there) has now slid again to 24th January.

On the upside for some it is reported that Saalbach, which was one of a few big name resorts not to open lifts when they could to try to relieve the misery of local people who found them themselves without income but lots of unexpected free time, has today opened a few lifts for locals.

Very useful. Having tried and failed to keep on top of the endless, almost daily changes for the past 10 months my dream would be a site that brings all the information together and constantly updates it, noting how recent each update is. If someone does have time to study the official sources, even for just one country like Switzerland, there is so much to digest, and then you often have different restrictions and rules depending on which country you're travelling from (4 different countries in GB alone), plus the various approaches by different travel providers, insurance companies - each always changing. It's almost impossible to keep up! Even if you do keep up by the time you actually leave the house and start travelling the rules may have changed again. Hopefully some stability will return before too long and it will get much, much simpler and likely to stay the same from one week to the next.

But does anyone know any travel company that is making an effort to constantly update all that detail?? Even just bullet points of the key facts for each country would be handy: Country Name: ???? (1) "in lockdown until X' (2) "Non-essential travel from UK currently not allowed until at least X', (3) "Quarantine Requirements on arrival when travel permitted are currently: X" ...for each country, in one place, would be great!