J2Ski Forum Posts and Replies by J2SkiNews

An increasingly nervous Swiss tourism sector has had some relief as the Swiss National Bank has pledged to intervene to stop the Franc's value against the Euro going beyond 1.2 Francs to the Euro. At one point last month it had reached 1.1 Francs to the Euro as investors searched the world for a strong currency.

The result for Swiss skiing was that one of the Zermatt area lift passes (including Cervinia and a daily train ride to Tasch, so only really of use if you stay in Tasch) topped the world's most expensive ticket table at nearly GBP360 for a six day adult pass.

Almost every measure of Swiss skiing and tourism in general shows declines, often wiping out all growth over the past decade. 'Optional' items like ski school and dining out have both been particularly hard hit.

The British market is particularly under fire with at one point the value of the Franc against the pound up 40% on what it was 18 months ago.

But it's not all doom and gloom, the resorts and Swiss tourism as a whole are fighting back with Verbier one of the first to offer a swathe of deals including 50% off lift tickets up to Christmas.

Tour operators are also stepping in,

"We're just launching a 2-for-1 lift pass offer for almost all dates for Switzerland for this coming season." said Louise Newton of Inghams.

The lift companies that make up the increasingly gigantic 'Kitzbüheler Alpen' ski pass (www.kitzalps.com) around the famed Austrian resort have been announcing their news for 2011-12.

"Once again this year the lift companies are investing in snow making facilities." said Katharina Szücs in charge of media relations for the region, "But it's also important to build of modern lifts so more comfortable and warm gondolas and cable cars are a given.

The local Kitzbühel Ski Area slopes lead developments with a new 6 -seater chairlift Resterhöhe with canopy and seat heating - replacing the old chairlift Resterhöhe and the T-bar lift Moseralm.

The famed Streif downhill piste is being extended and pistes at Maierlbahn improved. The Hahnenkammbahn is getting heated seats and new trail groomers have been purchased.

There's more snowmaking for St Johann, while Fieberbrunn gets a new 10 seater gondola "Reckmoos Nord" again with heated seats
Finally Saalbach Hinterglemm is installing a new eight seat-chairlift - Reiterkogelbahn-Ost and there's a new eight passenger cabin gondola too, the Kabinenbahn Bernkogelbahn.

What may be the world's most expensive lift is being built on the Italian side of Mont Blanc.

Doppelmayr Italy has taken the biggest order in the company's history at 105 million Euros to build the replacement of the Mont Blanc cable cars on the Italian side of Western Europe's highest mountain.

Work on the new two-stage cable-car has already begun and is scheduled for completion by 2014at which point the old three-stage lift will be demolished. The lift links Courmayeur with the Pointe Helbronner at 3,500m over a 4.3km distance and rising in height by 2,140 vertical metres. The lift will move at a very fast nine metres per second with track ropes approximately 7 cm thick.

Glass and steel will set architectural highlights for the station buildings and the futuristic cabins. The stations are spacious and allows for views over the impressive mountain scenery by means of observation platforms.

The four cabins will each be round in shape and able to carry up to 80 passengers. Each will be completely glazed and rotate about their central axis during the ascent. Doppelmayr has already implemented this advanced technology in other famous locations including mountain Titlis above Engelberg in Switzerland but never before has a rotating cabin been used at such a height.

The new cabins will be a show piece of aesthetics and innovation. Thanks to the panorama glazing, the passengers can enjoy the 360 degree view without interruptions. The interior fittings will be of state-of-the-art design: heating elements integrated into the cabin floor and walls, sound system, and video screens.

On these screens pictures made by the camera that is attached to the outside of the cabin floor will be shown through a wireless connection. In addition, the screens show information such as weather data and event tips. Other features the high-tech cabin offers are air conditioning, adjustable LED lighting and intelligent sway dampers – to only name a few.

The new bottom station will be built in Pontal d'Entreves – opposite the ropeway "Val Veny". Despite being an aesthetic and spectacular eye catcher, the construction will blend in perfectly with the overall view. The station can be easily reached via the motorway and provides enough parking spaces – eliminating a problem of the existing station.

The mid station will be constructed near the old station and only be displaced by a few metres. Conference rooms and a restaurant complex are planned to find space inside. Nearby in Mont Frety, the legendary botanic garden can be seen – the most elevated in Europe.

At a height of 3,500m above sea level and near the Pointe Helbronner, the new top station will be built – equipped with a huge observation platform and a breathtaking panorama view on the Mont Blanc massif: Dente del Gigante, Grandes Jorasses, Vallée Blanche and the Mont Blanc (4,810 m above sea level). Due to the restricted space conditions, the station is being designed in terraces.

From the top station, a new elevator in the rocks leads downwards to the mountain shelter "Rifugio Torino". Up until now, the shelter could be reached by means of a small ropeway and a tunnel with stairs. The construction of the new elevator and the connecting tunnel is a work-intensive effort: the elevator well has a diameter of 7 meters and a difference of height of 70 meters. Ultimately, 130 meters of rock must be drilled through.
While building the new lift, special attention will be paid to efficiency and sustainability in order to keep the energy consumption as low as possible. Thus, materials with high thermal insulation capacities are used, as well as photovoltaic installations and a heating system with heat pumps for heat recovery. This shall approximately reach the standard of a zero-power building.

The bottom station in Pontal d'Entreves even fulfills the criteria for a so-called "active house": More energy is generated than consumed.

Anyone who has ever fancied skiing one of the world's largest and most spectacular ski areas, across from the stunning Matterhorn, linking Zermatt to Cervinia, but has not yet done so, can now enjoy the freedom of the pistes virtually by touring the slopes online.
With a Zermatt lift ticket now by far the most expensive in Europe thanks to the strength of the Swiss franc, and when ought in the small village of Tasch down the valley to include a daily rail link to Zermatt, the world's most expensive, it will come as a relief to some that the service is free-of-charge.
It's all thanks to Street View in Google Maps.
"With the help of Google Street View, our guests can - at least virtually - skim down the pistes and enjoy fabulous views of the Matterhorn between holidays," says Daniel Luggen, Resort Director of Zermatt.
Non-skiers or those who have had enough of the heat in a city office, can now cool down with one mouse click - all thanks to Zermatt's large fan community.
With a public vote, in February 2011 the Swiss population selected its favourite ski area from 30 regions and decided which ski region should be filmed first from the Street View snowmobiles.
Around 37,000 people cast their vote and Zermatt was chosen as the favourite ski region – thanks to Zermatt fans!
A survey from March 2011 shows that 53% of all people in Switzerland have used Street View at least once. Street View is also an important tool for planning travel inside and outside Switzerland.
The 25% access from abroad shows the popularity of Swiss pictures on Google Maps. Some 1000 Swiss companies, including Switzerland Tourism, have already integrated Google Maps into their websites.

Les 2 Alpes (doesn't look much like this at the moment...)

It's the last week of the summer ski season, for what it is, in the Alps. Only nine ski areas have been open through August – the lowest number ever and the first time northern hemisphere summer ski area numbers have been in single figures since summer skiing gained popularity 30 years ago. That total drops still further to 7 entering September.
Warm weather closed Norway's three glacier ski areas early, months ago, and with temperatures predicted to be back at 40C in valleys in parts of the Alps and Dolomites early next week, the handful of ski areas are only really scraping through, with glacial ice shining through snow patches thawed by the sun.
Chamonix probably made a wise decision earlier this summer by deciding to join German, Austrian and Swiss glaciers in putting a cover over part of its glacier to try to slow the melt. That's due to come off in October before the first big snowfalls (hopefully).
In France it's the last weekend of summer skiing at Les 2 Alps which says it has between zero and 1.2m (four feet) of snow cover. That's better than Tignes which says it has only 30cm of snow cover and is planning to stay open another week before closing for a fortnight. It was (snow permitting presumably) then re-open in late September and be the only French resort open for the best part of two months.
In Austria it's a similar snow cover story at the year-round Hintertux ski area and the re-opened Molltal glacier. They should both be staying open through September and the autumn, joined in late September by more Austrian glaciers for their Ski Opening festivals – with new season gear tests in the daytime and a beer tent in the evening – Pitztal, Stubai, Solden and Kaprun are usually all participants.
Switzerland's Saas Fee and Zermatt are due to stay open too but are also seeing rapidly diminishing snowpacks – last reported at 60 and 90cm respectively – both down a good six inches on the previous week.
In Italy the small summer ski areas of Passo Tonale and Val Senales will remain open after this weekend, the last one for Cervinia until it re-opens in the autumn.

The London Show

The Metro Ski and Snowboard Show (metrosnow.co.uk) returns to Earls Court in London this autumn for a five day event from Wednesday 19TH to Sunday 23rd October. Long gone is the era of the 10 day show in November, this year the event is sandwiched between the Scottish Ski Show in Glasgow at the SECC the previous weekend, and the British Ski Show at Birmingham's NEC the weekend after.
Along with the usual resort and country stands, equipment retailers and shows there'll be a few evenrs to look out for. New for this year the Show is supporting beleaguered UK athletes at a grass roots level by raising awareness for all that we have to offer here at home for winter sports. Show goers can check out the local scene with GB team appearances, dry slopes and charity organizations.
In addition the UK's best riders are set to come face to face on the Trespass Hip Kicker each day of the show in front of industry professionals and the show's audience
The K2 Highest Ollie Tournament returns for 2011 and will see visitors of all ages testing the limits of the latest K2 equipment as competitor's battle for the highest Ollie. New for 2011 The Pierre & Vacances Petanque Piste will give people the perfect opportunity to try out the age old French summer favourite in a snowy setting.
And the Land Rover Fashion Show & Brand Arena showcasing all the latest styles in snow sport apparel for the 2011 winter season complete with break dancers, base layers and giveaways that we're told are, "so hot they're cold."
The London show is open from 11am on weekdays and 10pm at weekends. It's open to 7pm on opening day and Saturday, 6pm on Sunday and 10pm on Thursday and Friday. Tickets are £10 in advance for adults or £14 on the door.

30 Years of Snowboard Competition

Remember when snowboarding was the cool new snow sport set to overtake skiing in terms of participant numbers by the mid 1990s?
That was before skiing re-invented itself with shaped skis that got skiers in to the terrain parks and running their own version of boarder cross races, the imaginatively titled – skier cross.
Well the oldest American snowboarding competition turns 30 next winter. The 30th Anniversary staging of the US Open will be happening at Stratton in Vermont where Jake Burton started it all (assuming you don't believe the tales that others had the same idea before him, just less successfully). It's the longest running snowboarding competition in the world.
To celebrate, Stratton, which itself turns 50 this year – it was only just out of teenage when boarding arrived – has announced the launch of Burton's pilot Experience Snowboarding program, described slightly vaguely as an, "all new 360 degree approach to learning snowboarding - the sport and the lifestyle at the resort."
To celebrate its 50th season Stratton will be cutting four new blue-square (intermediate) trails in its Sun Bowl and adding an additional terrain park to Big Ben.

In a surprise move the Big Snow Festival (www.facebook.com/thebigsnowfestival) has abandoned its roots in Andorra where it was first staged two winters ago, and moved 1000 miles or so East to the other side of southern Europe and the top Serbian resort of Kopaonik.
The Big Snow Festival is one of several British run week long festivals each Spring which mix skiing and boarding with music, dancing and generally having a good time. In the Big Snow Festival's case there's a particularly strong onus on the music side of things and in its first year 80% of festival goers were first timers to snowsports. Many returned for the second event last March in Arinsal.
Kopaonik is an interesting choice. Not currently in any mainstream UK tour operator's brochure, it was a very popular destination for Crystal in the early 1990s when still part of Yugoslavia ahead of the Balkan wars when it was dropped. The company re-introduced it after the second Balkan War ended but then dropped it a few seasons ago citing operation difficulties. That was just at the time that the resorts owners were carrying out a Bansko-like investment in fast lifts and other infrastructure improvements. Kopaonik, at an altitude of 1496m, today offers ski-in, ski-out accommodation, 62km of alpine ski runs and 23 chair lifts and provides venues for The Big Snow Festival parties.
The Big Snow Festival, which is staged from the 23rd to 29th March, has also joined forces with EXIT Team, the creators of the EXIT festival in Novi Sad, Serbia, one of the leading music festivals in the world.
"We are really excited about our new home in Kopaonik. The resort is beautiful and the perfect setting for The Big Snow Festival. By teaming up with EXIT Team, we can most certainly promise our fans a memorable experience for 2012. The line-up is currently under wraps, but you can be sure to expect big things!" said Festival organiser, Deborah Milroy.
Seven night packages to The Big Snow Festival are on sale now at www.nomud.com from £449 per person. Packages include return flights, airport transfers, seven night's accommodation, six day lift pass and Big Snow Festival wristband providing access to all the action and entertainment. Flights are available from London Heathrow, Luton and Manchester airports flying to Belgrade.