J2Ski Forum Posts and Replies by SwingBeep

I don't think there has been any official summer skiing on the Italian side for quite some time The Swiss topographical maps show that there was a drag lift on the Valtournenche glacier between 1982 and 1987, but it is not shown on the 1988 edition, and as you can see even in the 1980s the glacier ended a long way from the cable car station at Laghi Cime Bianche.



In some years there is snow cover down to Laghi Cime Bianche until around the beginning of July, but I don't think they mark, prepare or patrol the piste.

The "Gran Becca" https://www.zermatt.ch/en/Media/News/Events/Gran-Becca-The-new-course-in-the-World-Cup-calendar race course doesn't follow the same route as the existing pistes across the glacier so they will have to build a new piste during the summer. Any crevasses along the route will have to be filled in with snow that's currently lying on the glacier. On the Italian side they will also be able to use the snow from last season that they covered up near the bottom of the glacier. If it is cold enough in October the section from the end of the glacier on the Italian side to Laghi Cime Bianche will be covered with snow from the newly installed snow making system. Hopefully there will be enough natural snow to make the place look wintery.

There is an IDE snowmaker at Trockener Steg that is used to make snow to cover the track from the end of the Theodul glacier to the lifts at Trockener Steg at the beginning of October. It usually takes around 2 weeks to cover the 700m long track. If there is enough water they could also use it to make snow for the downhill course, but transporting it up to Plateau Rosa would be a challenge.

Zermatt claims to have 21 km of pistes in the summer ski area, but several of them are only used to get to and from the lifts. Most skiers only use the pistes adjacent to the 3 parallel drag lifts. Zermatt also claims to offer year-round skiing, even though visibility on the glacier is good at the moment and there is very little wind all the lifts are closed.

The glaciers in the Alps are having a hard time at the moment, you might be able to glean some information on how the summer skiing season might pan out from this article on the Austrian TV news site https://orf.at/stories/3272859/

It used to be possible to ski down to Laghi Cime Bianche and to Trockener Steg in summer, but not anymore. The piste map on the Cervinia website is very misleading, it shows the spring, summer and autumn ski areas, the lifts and pistes shown are not all open in summer. I have outlined the extent of the summer skiing area in yellow.



Looking at the state of the glacier at the moment (there looks to be about the same amount of snow on it as there normally is in August) it's difficult to see how they are going to manage to scrape together enough snow together to build a downhill course by the end of October.

Your welcome J2Ski news. It does seem a bit odd especially as the deal doesn't seem to include any property in the Andermatt Reus development, only around 50% of Vail resorts income comes from the sale of lift tickets. The 110 million only covers the cost upgrading the infrastructure in Sedrun sector, upgrading the Gemsstock sector has not been mentioned. The construction of 4 new lifts in the Gemsstock sector was foreseen in masterplan (to date only 1 has been built) and a 3S gondola feeder lift from to Göschenen to Gütsch is also planned. These will have to be financed at some point so it is indeed "hard to see how they're going to get much back".

70% of the apartments sold to date have been bought by Swiss people and a lot of them are rented out, any owners able to spend enough time there to make a season pass worthwhile will certainly buy the Epic Pass as it's about 40% cheaper than the current season pass.

A lot of European skiers who only ski for a week or two each season are very price sensitive, if the feel that a lift pass is overpriced they will go elsewhere. I don't think there is anything in Swiss law that would prevent them putting up the price of lift passes, but if they increase the price of the lift passes to the same level as they have in their US resorts Swiss and other European skiers will simply go somewhere else, there's lots of choice.

As US tourists only accounted for 2.5% of Andermatt's overnight stays in 2019, there should be some scope for increasing the numbers by adding Andermatt to the Epic Pass.

Samih Sawiris never intended to run the ski area. Originally the plan was to get the Swedish ski area operator Skistar to run it, but due to delays they pulled out and eventually invested in St. Johann in Tyrol, which doesn't appear to have worked out as they recently pulled out.

Of the 149 million Swiss Francs 110 million will be used to install more snow making equipment, replace older lifts in the Sedrun sector and modernise the restaurants. Not all of the projects approved in 2013 have been completed yet. In return for this Vail Resorts will get a 55% stake in Andermatt-Sedrun Sport AG, the company that operates the ski area, the ski school and the Gleis 0 sports shop.

The other 39 million will go to Andermatt Swiss Alps AG, the company that owns the hotels and apartment blocks in Andermatt Reuss and the golf course, Vail Resorts won't be getting anything in return for this payment. This will enable Sawiris to build more property, due to the Covid-19 pandemic there has been a surge in demand for property in the mountains, as Andermatt Reuss is exempt from Switzerland's laws on foreign ownership and second homes he will probably be able to sell property faster than he can build it.

It will be interesting to see how Vail Resorts gets on, they won't be able to operate the ski area in the same way as they operate their American resorts, Switzerland's hospitality and ropeway sectors are highly regulated and as soon as they propose any expansion of the ski area they will be hit by a load of objections from the environmental organisations.

Other foreign companies have invested in Swiss ski areas, but have for the most part failed. The Compagnie des Alpes bought stakes in Verbier and Saas Fee in 2000 / 2001 but pulled out less than 10 years later. In 2014 a Czech billionaire property investor bought a 51% stake in the Crans Montana lift company, but soon fell out with the locals, rumour has it that he wants to lease the area back to the local council.

You are right to be concerned about the snow conditions, Christmas / New Year often coincides with an increase in temperatures, this year it rained up to 2500 metres in the region where I live.

As well as the snow conditions I would also be concerned about the crowds, the Christmas / New Year weeks are the busiest of the season.

We gave up skiing over Christmas / New Year years ago as it simply isn't worth the bother.

I have never been there, but Serfaus-Fiss-Ladis https://www.tyrol.com/regions/a-serfaus-fiss-ladis/family-winter?listId=705bbca402f8912ff0a994789493f725 is supposed to be good for families, but it's probably a bit too far from your preferred airports.

From 1 March 2022 Italy will eliminate the country lists https://www.salute.gov.it/portale/nuovocoronavirus/dettaglioContenutiNuovoCoronavirus.jsp?lingua=english&id=5412&area=nuovoCoronavirus&menu=vuoto from that date the rules regulating entry into Italy will be standardized, no matter where you are traveling from the following will be required:

– a Passenger Locator Form (PLF) in digital or paper form;
– a Covid-19 Pass (vaccination certificate, recovery certificate or negative molecular or antigen test certificate.

The new rules will remain in force until at least 31 March.

Once there you will still need a 'Green Pass' to access most services https://italygreenpass.com/super-green-pass-requirements-chart/

Glad to be of help. The Italians are generally pretty bad at conveying information, if you go to the English version of the Cervina website https://www.cervinia.it/en and scroll down until you get to "how to get here" you will see that the information on how to get there hasn't been translated into English and there is no mention of the shuttle service listed on the Aosta Valley tourism website I linked to above.

According to reports in the local press the number of foreign tourists has fallen by 50% during the pandemic, so you would think that they would be doing all they could to make travel to the ski resorts as easy as possible.

"From December 4h, 2021 until April 10th, 2022, on Saturdays and Sundays, a transfer service is available from/to Turin Caselle airport to the thalweg municipalities of Aosta Valley (Pont-Saint-Martin, Verrès, Châtillon and Aosta). The cost for one way is €25.00. A "door to door" service "I'll take you to your Hotel / Resort" is also available to the ski resorts, the cost of which is €80.00 for up to 5 people on the same booking. The service is paid online by credit card. Reservations are required and must be made at least 72 hours before the ride to/from Caselle on the website https://www.transfervallee.eu/shuttle/"

https://www.lovevda.it/en/coming/by-plane/airport-transfers