J2Ski Forum Posts and Replies by J2SkiNews

Kitzbuhel At Night

The Kitzbühel Alps region – which has offered an ever larger amount of ski lifts and runs on one pass since last winter – is seeking to highlight just how big it is by promoting a 50km long 'tour' of the area that can be made over one or two days by anyone staying in one of the many resorts that now participate in the pass.
The 'TransKITZalp' route takes skiers or boarders through the Wilder Kaiser-Brixental ski world and Kitzbühel ski resorts beginning in the village of Itter in Tyrol and ending up at Mittersill in the Pinzgau region of Salzburg, taking in the two provinces and the ski areas of seven resorts en route.
Instead of skiing down the same slope several times a day, the tour takes skiers over 12,000 metres of altitude and across 50km (31 miles) of pistes. At the end of the day you can take the ski bus back or there's an option of staying the night in Pass Thurn then returning along the same route on skis next day.
The Kitzbüheler Alpen AllStarCard lift ticket in question covers more nearly 1,100km of piste in 10 ski areas in the wider ski association area. This includes the ski areas of Kitzbühel, the Wilder Kaiser-Brixental region of the SkiWelt – the largest single area with 250km of lift-linked piste, the Saalbach-Hinterglemm-Leogang ski circus – Austria's most popular ski area, Zell am See and the neighbouring Kitzsteinhorn glacier above Kaprun, at the St. Johann in Tirol/ Oberndorf ski resort, in Waidring and Fieberbrunn, the Wildschönau and the Alpbachtal.
Altogether 350 cable cars and lifts are included and just over 250 mountain restaurants. The pass costs 217 euros for 6 days (children 108 euros).

Aiguille du Midi at Chamonix

After several months of planning Chamonix's lift company and tourist office have got it together amd launched a new lift pass that's valid on the ski pistes during the day, and in the resort's off-slope sports facilities too.
The new 'Cham'Val' pass allows anyone who buys a Chamonix Le Pass or Mont Blanc Unlimited lift pass valid for three days or longer receives a card that gives entry to Chamonix's swimming pool, ice rink, Alpine museum, the Espace Tairraz, the Maison de l'Alpage as well as the mountain museum (Musée montagnard) in Les Houches during the period the ski pass covers for a small additional fee of two Euros per day (up to a maximum of 30 Euros).
The pass is being trialled this winter by the Compagnie du Mont Blanc and Chamonix town hall to see if it leads to better and simpler usage of the resort's assets.
The pass can be bought in person in Chamonix at the Leisure Centre, the Espace Tairraz, the Alpine Museum and the Les Houches tourist office.
The pass is also being used as a test product to look at how Chamonix can better serve the predicted future growth of its "non-skier" and "part-time-skier" market during the winter season.

A campaign launched in parts of France, Italy and Switzerland to highlight the dangers of drinking too much alcohol in ski resorts, particularly at altitude, is being partially extended to Bulgaria.
Plovdiv and Sofia airports, the key gateways to the main Bulgarian ski areas of Bansko, Borovets and Pamporovo will feature large warning posters in their Arrivals halls and posters as well as beer mats with the same warning will appear in the resort's bars, restaurants and hotels.
The 'Think Before you Drink' initiative is being launched by the UK's Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO) with the objective of reducing the danger of a tragedy occurring.
"Our colleagues in the Alps have run similar campaigns in the past. This will be the first time we have done this in Bulgaria and it's aimed at the thousands of British nationals on skiing trips to Bulgaria this winter." Jon O'Shaughnessy, HM Consul in Sofia was quoted as saying by local media.

The biggest lift-served vertical in North America, since Revelstoke took the coveted title from Whistler two seasons ago, opens today when the new resort in British Columbia opens up its full top-to-bottom skiing potential for the first time this winter.
The storm cycles are building up over the Aleutian Islands in the Pacific Ocean which is good news for West coast North America, parts of which have already received three metres of snow this winter. The storm picks up moisture and mixes with cold air moving south resulting in heavy snow.
As a result skiers and boarders will be skiing the full 5,620 vertical feet, the most continuous lift-serviced vertical in North and South America. At the same time skiable terrain will double with the opening of the Ripper Area.
Grooming for The Ripper Area was completed before the snow began to fall earlier this week which means classic powder has been building up here over the past 48 hours.
"This area is expected to be a hot spot over the weekend. You can anticipate knee-deep, untracked powder. The Ripper Chair will open as soon as there is clearance from avalanche control but in the wider area the avalanche risk is listed as considerable therefore Greely Bowl continues to remain outside of the ski area boundary." said Revelstoke's VP/COO Rod Kessler, adding,
"Our mountain operations team have become quite accomplished at ensuring our openings are deep and untracked and this weekend is shaping up to be another spectacular experience in the Selkirk Mountains. You don't want to miss out on what's become some of the best early season powder-laden terrain in the world. It's not just the quantity of the snow, it's the quality. The snow dries out across the desert of Interior BC and builds up across the Monashee Mountains to dump in the Selkirks."

Boarding Weardale

The English Alps don't actually exist, but we do have the Pennines and the Lake District and it's a little known fact that there are half a dozen 'club fields' for skiers and boaders operating reall ski lifts across Northern England.
Facilities at these slopes are fairly basic, which could be why you haven't heard of them, and although maintained by a die hard club in each case that pays their annual fees come snow or rain, like Scotland's ski areas they've been having a rather good time of it the past few winters and the last few weeks too.
Weardale's club field on Swinhope Moor (www.skiweardale.co.uk) on the dales of Country Durham is one of the best equipped with a kilometre of runs groomed by their own trail groomer and two drag lifts to get you up the slopes.
Non-members are more than welcome for a small consideration of £20 a day and there's a buzzing après ski scene at the Black Bull at Frosterley (www.blackbullfrosterley.com).
You can even have a complete English ski holiday by booking in at four star farmhouse Newlands Hall (www.newlandshall.co.uk) between your days on the slopes, they'll do bed and breakfast from £30 per person per night.

If you can't wait to get to the slopes after landing in Geneva this weekend, there's no need to spend hours stuck on the motorway down to the French Alps, why not ski the slopes of Geneva city itself instead?
The famous French/Swiss ski gateway city opens 'SkiVille' today, described as a 'skiing extravaganza' located in the centre of the cities old town it is open from 6pm nightly.
Essentially the city has re-created an Alpine village in the centre of town with the aim of making winter sports " accessible to all" and at the same time offering lots of fun to kids.
The ski slope has a not-to-be-sniffed at 40m vertical, served by an electric powdered rope tow. The ski run descends the city Promenade de la Treille and Geneva Ski School will provide lesson. The slope is created from ice shavings from a nearby ice rink and there's also a full après ski programme.

While Switzerland is reported to be considering joining France in making heliskiing illegal, or at least initially dramatically reducing the number of spots where it's allowed, Italy is actively promoting its own heliskiing opportunities.
The Aosta Valley which runs along the French border in the West of the country is a particularly popular spot for heliskiing, allowing resorts like La rosier, across from les arcs in France to claim to be the only French resort to offer heliskiing, as skiers can take the lifts from there and ski over the border to La Thuile to board their chopper.
There are Heli-bases at Cervinia, Courmayeur, Gressoney, Valgrisenche and La Thuile giving access to untracked powder fields, great tree skiing and stunning scenery. Numerous routes are available for most ability levels. Some of the most challenging are from the "Piton des Italiens" which give access to routes from the peak of Mont Blanc. These are accessed from Courmayueur (www.heliskicourmayeur.com) with a maximum group size of four.
The heli ski season kicks off next month. In Cervinia it last from 10th January to 15th May 2011 (www.heliskicervinia.com) and in Gressoney from 15th January to 25th April 2011 (www.guidemonterosa.com). Valgrisenche offers heliskiing from 1st January to 31st March 2011 (www.heliski-valgrisenche.it).

Alta Badia

The Dolomiti Superski region is one of the world's most successful. Taking 25% of the Italian market it's 50 or so ski areas spread across a dozen valleys have been working together for nearly 40 years now, since the early years of commercial computer usage allowed them to create a common lift pass. Even today, while a few areas do offer more than its 1,080km (725 miles) of piste on one pass, few are as flexible, usable in any part of the vast system for even just part of a day.
The huge ski area includes many famous name resorts, and its Sella Ronda circuit, which continues around the giant Sella Massif for some 23km, with valleys like Fassa, Badia and Gardena radiating off it, it may be the world's second biggest lift-linked ski area with about 500km of inter-connected runs.
It isn't the cheapest lift ticket in Europe, indeed its one of the most expensive in Italy, but at least there are hundreds of millions of Euros ploughed back in to state of the art new lifts and extensive snowmaking each winter, now covering most of the slopes.
This winter Cortina d'Ampezzo has a new quad chairlift "Roncato/Socrepes" on the Tofana slopes which replaces the old lift and increases capacity on the route to 1,800 peoples per hour.
In the Kronplatz sector a new 10 passenger gondola "Gipfelbahn" on Brunico's side of the ski mountain is area's second with heated leather seats and a massive 4.000 people per hour capacity.
In Alta Badia the new "Pre Ciablun" quad chairlift will connect the "Arlara"-summit station with the "Braia Fraida"- intermediate station and a second new quad, the "La Rüa" chairlift replaces the previous triple chair with a transportation rate of 2,200 people per hour.
Val Gardena has an impressive new funicular lift "Rasciesa" bringing a dramatic improvement on the old single chairlift – one of the few that had still been operational - above Ortise. It connects the area to the "Seceda" lift's mid-station and to the toboggan run back down to Ortisei and can transport 800 people per hour.
Finally in Valle Isarco a new six-seater chairlift "Rossalm" in the Plose sector replaces an old lift and increases passenger capacity on the route to 1,700 people per hour.