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Les Menuires in the 3 Valleys has announced it hasinstalled a new six-seater chairlift for the coming winter.

The €4.2m, six-seater, easy-access Reberty chairlift is seen by the resort as completing the connections in the Les Menuires and Saint Martin ski lift network. Replacing the old Reberty bucket lift (built in 1983 with a capacity of 600 people/hour), it has more than four times the capacity of the old lift, and offers skiers a new high-speed way to get back from the Masse as well as a direct access to the Becca ski area, BK Park and the fun Acticross zone.

Also new in the Les Menuires ski area this winter will be a DVA park which will be created at the top of the Roc des 3 Marches gondola. The DVA (an Avalanche Victim Detector) avalanche transceiver is an essential security tool for all those who leave the marked ski area, and it is essential to know how to use it effectively with a shovel and probe - the DVA park is where you can learn the skills involved and practice.

A final new addition, accessed from the new Reberty chairlift and created in partnership with the French Ski Federation, is a new automated video system Les Menuires has set up on zone 1 of the BK Park. The principle is simple: Choose between two modules (a bump or a rail), then login to the terminal at the entrance of the BK park with your ski pass and then an automatic video of your visit is then taken with several cameras.

On a screen at the bottom of Zone 1 BK Park, you can watch your performance straight away and then by entering your mobile phone number, you can receive your free video by text message with an offer to share it on Facebook and Twitter. The video is even set to music.

The World Military Winter Games will be staged in Annecy, France, from March 25 to 29th next year.

There's a long history off association between snow sports and the military; with military training being a major factor of the growth of the sport in the early years of the twentieth century, and ex-military personnel were leading players in the building boom of new ski resorts like Vail in the USA and Meribel in France.

More recently 56 of the 258 medal winners at the last Winter Olympics in Vancouver had military training.

The World Military Winter Games will see nearly 1,000 athletes from 40 countries including some of the world's top competitors in their respective disciplines— gather for this celebration of sporting excellence and friendship between peoples.

It's only the second time the Military Winter World Games have been staged after the first in Aosta in 2009. They now take place every four years and precede the Olympics by one year.

Six major sporting disciplines will be showcased at the Games.

After the official kickoff at an open-air ceremony on the shores of Lake Annecy, the action will move to venues in Annecy, Chamonix Mont-Blanc, Le Grand Bornand and La Clusaz. Competition will be fierce, for the 1,000 athletes from 40 countries who gather in Haute-Savoie will be among the world's best in their specialties.

"The ideal of promoting friendship through sport made eminent sense, and we had no hesitation about getting behind the initiative," says Christian Monteil, President of the Haute Savoie,

"It's also an opportunity to showcase the history of our region," adds Monteil. "The region was a stronghold of the French Resistance and has strong ties with the military as the historic home of several elite combat units."

Austria's Stubai Glacier is aiming to open for its autumn glacier ski season any day now and is looking forwards to unveiling some new lifts for 2012-13.

The Stubai Glacier has invested about 12 million Euros in two new chairlifts, an eight-seater chairlift, Rotadl and the quad chairlift, Daunjoch.

The resort now has 26 cable cars and lifts operating on Austria's largest glacier ski area.

The Rotadl chairlift will have heated seats and a pull down weather-protection hood.

The Stubai Glacier also plans to unveil a new black slope "Daunhill" which is scheduled for completion by mid November, if not earlier.

And finally a new chapel has been built anchored in ice and rock, the Chapel Schaufeljoch

The total investment in the summer of 2012 is approximately 15 million euros.

Davos is offering free lift passes to anyone arriving in the first five weeks of the season to ski between 16th November and 23rd December 2012.

The deal is that if you book a stay at one of the participating hotels direct through www.davos.ch or www.klosters.ch you receives one free ski pass per night for the Jakobshorn and Parsenn ski regions.

"The Davos Klosters answer to the weak euro and low dollar is: Ride for free," said a resort statement.

Last winter of course there was little snow in the Alps until the start of December but Davos is reporting that while other resorts struggled to open, they were offering snow sports from October – 2011, albeit cross country skiing.

For five years now Davos has been snow farming which allows an early start to the season on the Flüela 1.4km long cross-country ski circuit high in the mountains.

Last spring, around 46,000 cubic metres of snow were stored under a layer of wood chippings and this will again be used for the run in the Flüela valley at the end of October.

There are not reportede to be any plans to save any to spread on the downhill slopes if we get a repeat of autumn 2011 however.

(Like these, but bigger)

Megève experts Stanford Skiing (www.stanfordskiing.co.uk) – who differ from most operators to the classy French ski area in that they actually have more the a dozen staff on the ground in resort – has reported that the resort will introduce what's believed to be the first horse drawn ski lift in a French resort for more than 80 years.

Two of Megève 's three ski areas have long been linked by cable car, but the third (Jaillet) is a 10 minute walk, or short bus ride, from the centre. But this year, twelve person horse drawn calèches ("a kind of horse drawn carriage thing") will take skiers to and from Jaillet. The giant calèches are being especially built for their purpose.

The new service will be available only to skiers/boarders and will run every ten minutes from the bottom of the Calvaire ski run (which descends from Mont D'Arbois into the town centre and is right next to our chalet/hotel Rond Point).

"It'll be brilliant to have Jaillet linked up to the other ski areas and all without any damage to the environment of Megève," said John Kinnear, Stanford's Managing Director.

Sorry should have made clear - replacement of Prodains.

An opening date has been given for the long heralded new cable car that will link Mrziner and Avoriaz in the French Portes du Soleil – and unusually it's right in the middle of the ski season.

The new lift, which uses three cables or '3S technology' to combine the benefits of a cable car and a gondola will be operational from 15th February 2013.

The lift will rest on two cables like a cable car for maximum stability, but will move continuously around the circuit like a cable car, with seating for 35 in each of the cabins, giving an overall uplift capacity of between 2000 and 2400 passengers per hour.

Ascending 580 vertical metres at an average speed of just over seven metres per second it will arrive in Jean Vuarnet square in Avoriaz in just four minutes, and with new top station built partly underground, skiers will arrive at ground level. So faster, with more capacity, more confort and better passenger flow than the old lift it replaces.

Another major new attraction at Avoriaz is already open in advance of the coming ski season however. The giant Aquariaz indoor water park opened in July.

Super-cool Swiss resort Laax has commissioned the famed German car designer Porsche to create the chairs on a new six seater lift the resort will open this winter.

The new six-seater chairlift will run from Treis Palas to Crap Masegn and is one of two new six-seater chairlifts currently under construction at the famous ski resort, which is due to open its glacier ski area for the season on20th October, 2012. The other new six seater will run from Plaun Lavadinas - Fuorcla da Sagogn.

Along with a cool look thanks to the efforts of the Porsche Design Studios and a pull-down weather protection hood, the individual chairs on the new lifts are reportedly to be able to rotate so that people can look out sideways to admire the scenery without needing to trouble to tilt their heads.

There is also reported to be some solar power association with the new lifts, but that is yet to be clarified.

The new lifts are the second and third five new detachable 6-seater chairlifts and one detachable skilift being installed over three years in an investment of CHF 54m and based on a master plan created for the long term.