Messages posted by : J2SkiNews
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Part of Austria until after WW1? If I remember correctly the Italian version is Plan de Corones. They used to make a big deal of putting both names together like Kropnplatz /Plan de Corones but that doesn't seem to be such an issue any more and they definitely seem to prefer the German version...
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Italy's Kronplatz ski area has announced yet another big summer spend on upgrades for the ski season. The latest in a long line of investments which has transformed the ski region, part of the Dolomiti Superski, in to one of the most technically advanced on the planet at present. The South Tyrol resort already operates more gondola lifts than almost any other ski area on the planet – 22 at the last count, matched only by Saalbach in Austria. This summer it has spent €7m upgrading the key Belvedere gondola with a new state of the art lift with cabins each containing 15 seats and offering free onboard wifi. The lift can carry up to 3,300 people per hour on its 1,061 m length. Kronplatz has also added new terrain in recent seasons and 15-16 will be no different with a new blue grade run created by the lower section of the existing Ried run, and named Variante Ried. There's also been a €2m spend to enlarge the Alpen run on the hillside of Valdaora with a new snowmaking system installed too. Finally, a new Mountain Museum has opened at Kronplatz following another €3m investment. |
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A band of heavy snowfall has been moving across the Alps bringing fresh cover to resorts already open for the 2015-16 ski season and inspiring views for those opening over the next three months. Austrian ski areas, and particularly the Tirol, have fared particularly well from the fresh snow with Solden, which opened for the season 10 days ago, issuing a 'powder alarm' for more than a foot of snow on its glacier in the past 24 hours – a total of 37cm reported. Other Austrian areas already open including Hintertux and the Pitztal glacier have reported heavy snow too. A total of eight areas, mostly in the Tirol, are scheduled to be open there by October 7th with many planning 'Octoberfest' and 15-16 ski gear testing weekends over the next few weeks so the snowfall is good news for them. The Stubai glacier aims to open this Friday and it's also only a month until the first World Cup races are due to take place on Solden's glaciers. Avoriaz (pictured above) was one of the high altitude French resorts to report snow right down to base level. All French areas are currently closed, but Tignes will open its glacier slopes in 10 days on October 3rd. Elsewhere the glacier ski areas at Saas Fee and Zermatt bin Switzerland are open as well as Passo Stelvio in Italy, where a second area, Val Senales, expects to open on Friday. Across the Atlantic Sunday River in Maine fired up its snow guns yesterday. |
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A cancer charity operating in conjunction with a ski holiday company is running a contest to win the chance to learn to ski jump with Eddie The Eagle. Unlike many competitions this is a serious prize, with the winner spending a week using the artificial surface Olympic ski jump facility in Courchevel in October, then coming back for a further week in January to jump on snow – with the aim of ultimately tackling one of the bigger jumps. Not for the faint hearted, competitors should be good skiers, confident on blacks, and feel they're really up for some ski jumping. And the prize includes two one week long trips to the 3 Valleys, staying in luxury catered chalet accommodation, with travel to France and all equipment required included. The only remaining point of note is that there are just six days to enter – entries close on 28th September. For more information and to enter go to: http://www.alpleisure.com/jump-with-eddie.htm Judging of winners will be by Eddie Edwards, Chris Learoyd of Alp Leisure Ltd, and Andrew Hayward of Ski 4 Cancer. Organised by Alp Leisure Ltd in support of Ski 4 Cancer, the four winners of the competition will train for one week in October (12th – 19th), followed by a final week at the end of January (25th-31st). The training will take place at the Olympic Ski Jump Centre in Le Praz Courchevel, by French World Cup ex-Ski Jumpers (Club des Sports de Courchevel). The extensive training will be a balanced mix of practical and theory, with the participants practicing on the 10m, 25m and 60m hills as their level of competence improves, with the 90m large hill the ultimate goal. The climax of the challenge will be when the participants join Eddie 'The Eagle' Edwards on the Ski Jump. As well as jumping, Eddie will also participate with training and advice. The winners will also be invited as guests to the French National Summer Challenge, with a chance to meet some of the local ski jumpers training for the competition and the 2016 Youth Olympics. They will also get the chance to meet Olympic Bronze Medalist Coline Mattel who will be competing at the contest. Nearly 30 years after his heroic ski jumping at the Calgary Olympics, Eddie the Eagle has never been a bigger star, appearing in series of The Jump and with a movie about his life starring high Jackman due for release next spring. The charity Ski 4 Cancer was set up by a group of keen skiers and snowboarders who have all lost a close relative or friend to cancer. By providing a range of alpine respite holidays for families living with cancer, Ski 4 Cancer gives families something to look forward to at the end of treatment schedules or after a loved one has died. Ski 4 Cancer also makes grants to palliative care centres and supports research into the positive effects of exercise and how it can both prevent cancer and assist in people's recovery post diagnosis (http://www.ski4cancer.org) Chris Learoyd, owner of Alp Leisure Ltd, wanted to support Ski 4 Cancer through this event and commented, "Like many families cancer has touched our lives profoundly as we lost our sister-in-law, Helen last year to lung cancer. Helen always enjoyed coming to the mountains in Courchevel and after she passed away Kevin and their three youngsters came out to spend some time with us in one of our chalets. We believe the wonder of the mountains and the joy of learning to ski helped, which is why we are very happy to support Ski 4 Cancer." |
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New Zealand's ski areas have celebrated the start of autumn with still more snow along with spectacular natural phenomena. The country is celebrating one of its best seasons in memory and several resorts have now extended their opening period in to the latter half of October because the snow is still deep, and still falling. Mt Ruapehu was actually caught in a blizzard yesterday and around two dozen skiers and boarders had to be rescued from the slopes by groomers and snowcats. In the end the resort reported 35cm (14 inches) of fresh snow and celebrated with a great sunset. 
There was more fresh snow at Treble Cone too, but here the most phenomenal image was taken of the aurora there last night (pictured top). Other areas reporting significant fresh snow included Mt Hutt, which has already announced an extended ski season. Once the snow stopped falling and the clouds lifted today was reported to be a perfect clear ski day with fresh snow.  |
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(image credit: SNCF) The team behind an independent website promoting rail travel to ski resorts has put together figures showing, they say, that it can be significantly cheaper to go on a skiing holiday by rail, rather than flying. "While train travel might be more comfortable, relaxing and environmentally friendly, it is often assumed to be far more expensive than flying," said Daniel Elkan of SnowCarbon.co.uk , "However our research has revealed that in many cases the opposite is true – with train travel giving significant savings over flying." The research compares return fares from London to six ski resorts in different ski areas of the French Alps for each week between 19th December 2015 and 2nd April 2016. Three journey options were compared, for adults and for children (aged 4-11), with or without skis, starting at either Gatwick Airport or St Pancras International rail station, and ending at the Alpine accommodation door. The three options considered were first an EasyJet flight + shared taxi transfer, second daytime travel on the direct Eurostar Ski Train + private taxi and third daytime travel on the new direct Eurostar service to Lyon + local train + private taxi. A first example of the research results found that a family of four with two children (aged between 4 and 11), but travelling without skis, would pay a total of £1,956 for return air travel to La Plagne at Easter. Travelling on the direct Eurostar Ski Train instead, they would pay £1,132 – a saving of £824. Travelling via Lyon, meanwhile, would cost them only £756 in total. In a second example a group of four friends travelling to Meribel on 9th January, two with skis and two without, would pay £972 in total to fly. Travelling on the direct Eurostar Ski Train would cost them £788, while travelling via Lyon instead would cost £644. A third example was travelling to the resort of Les Gets at Feb half term, a family of four with kids aged between four and 11, travelling without skis would pay £2,882, in total to fly. By contrast, travelling on the new train route via Lyon would cost them only £1,252 – less than half the price. Air travel for a Christmas escape did show air travel slightly cheaper for an adult couple, both bringing skis who'd pay £630 against £674 if they opted for the direct Ski Train, but travelling via Lyon would cost them only £466. Calculated over the whole season, the average weekly cost for an adult travelling by plane to Alpe d'Huez, without skis, is £240. This compares to an average cost of £202 for adults travelling by train, via Lyon. The full research, with prices for every date for all six resorts, can be seen here: www.snowcarbon.co.uk/train-guides/insider-tips/plane-versus-train-price-comparison Additional resorts will be added to the research in due course, to add to the data resource. "This research provides a useful snapshot-comparison of the costs and is quite an eye-opener," added Daniel, "Unfortunately, the myth that it's always cheaper to fly, combined with an over-complicated rail-ticket system, results in thousands of skiers flying in the mistakenly belief that they are saving money. The reality is that skiers frequently end up unwittingly paying extra for a big dose of airport tedium – when in fact they could be pocketing savings and sitting in comfort on the train." Snowcarbon, in partnership with rail-booking site Loco2.com, has created a web page that shows daily updated prices for every week of the ski season, at a glance. http://www.snowcarbon.co.uk/train-guides/insider-tips/live-direct-train-prices |
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WOW air is offering tickets from £99 including taxes to Boston this winter. Flights from Gatwick travel via Reykjavik in Iceland, to the gateway airport for ski areas in New England. The fares are available on selected dates between 1 October and 15 December 2015 and from 10 January to 10 March 2016. But if you need more than hand luggage for your ski kit - there will be a baggage fee on top. The company believes that its low prices on the route year round has been responsible for reducing prices market-wide between London and Boston by 14% The service was introduced in March and the company reports consistent average load factors in excess of 90% ever since. "Modern travellers are smart travellers. They prefer to spend less money on airfares so that they can spend more on experiencing their destination," said Skúli Mogensen, owner and CEO of WOW air, "We are thrilled to be able to make transatlantic travel accessible for people who otherwise would not be able to afford it. We made a promise to keep offering low fares and these new £99 fares are proof of this." Flights from Reykjavik to the USA are operated using WOW air's fleet of new Airbus A321 Extended Range aircraft. The airline's Airbus A320 family aircraft carry passengers from London Gatwick to Reykjavik on the first leg of the journey. www.wowair.co.uk |
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The newly merged Fieberbrunn and Saalbach ski areas will become Austria's largest this winter, overtaking the Skiwelt, according to an independent study. The size of the newly merged area, due to open following a €47m spend on the new "Vierstadlalm-piste" and a 10 person gondola, dubbed "TirolS", and other improvements, has been verified under a new digital mapping 'Seal of Approval' for ski areas launched by German company Montenius Consult. The new seal is the brain child of Christoph Schrahe who has been rocking the world of ski area statistics for the past few seasons by uncovering wild discrepancies in how area sizes are measured. These have been taken very seriously, particularly in German media, but in the UK they've also been referenced by the Where To Ski and Snowboard guide book and by the Daily Telegraph. "To award the seal, we use the method of measuring the length of all snowsport runs based on the centre line of the piste and ski routes - the centre line is always in the middle between the left and right hand side edges of the piste," said Schrahe. Previously Schrahe had exposed the fact that some resorts measure wide runs several times or measure the zig zag pattern of a skier down their slopes. Many had no correlation between the numbers they quote and the reality and still don't. Unusually Montenius Consult found that the two ski areas in this case had actually underestimated their size. Skicircus Saalbach Hinterglemm Leogang had advertised 200km of piste, but Schrahe found they actually had 217 kilometres and that Fieberbrunn had 53km rather than the 40 kilometres claimed. "The result of Schrahes calculations are of the highest value for the lift companies and tourist destinations of the extended Skicircus. The overall size of a ski area is today a predominant factor for guests when choosing a ski destination" commented Helmuth Thomas, Managing Director of the Saalbacher Lift Company, who also stressed, "By merging with the Lift Company of Fieberbrunn, not only is the Skicircus the largest, but also one of the most diversified ski areas in Austria. Both sides bring their individual strengths to make an unbeatable offer from skiing on well groomed wide pistes to Snowparks, Pow-Aireas and the internationally renowned Freeride area of Fieberbrunn." http://www.pistelength.com |
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