J2Ski Forum Posts and Replies by SwingBeep

bald-eagleman wrote:Unfortunately because of some complex EU regulation a french registered company like snowcabs can't do an internal Italian transfer..ie Turin to Sauze.

This has nothing to do with EU regulation. Passenger transport cabotage (the transport of passengers between 2 places in the same country by a transport operator from another country for the purposes of hire and reward) is illegal in many European countries.

If you are transported from an airport to a ski resort in the same county in a foreign registered transfer company vehicle your journey is illegal. If the vehicle is stopped by the police the driver will be fined and you will not be allowed to continue your journey and will have to make alternative arrangements.

Over the last few weeks, the police here in Canton Valais stopped 4 foreign registered vehicles that were carrying out illegal transfers between Geneva airport and Verbier https://www.policevalais.ch/communiques-pour-les-medias/val-de-bagnes-lutte-contre-le-cabotage-quatre-conducteurs-interpelles/

The Sauze d'Oulx tourist office lists 7 local transfer operators https://sauzedoulx.net/travel-information/ Sauze Taxi, Milky Way Taxi, Central Taxi and Zambello Taxi have websites so you can book directly with them and cut out the middle men. The tourist office website also has detailed info on how to get to Sauze using public transport https://sauzedoulx.net/travel-information/public-transport-to-sauze-doulx/

There was a German language article about the EES on the Swiss news site Watson recently https://www.watson.ch/international/schweiz/947920565-neue-einreiseregeln-im-schengenraum-drohen-warteschlangen-am-flughafen

Zurich airport officials told Watson that it currently takes 24 seconds to check travellers from third countries without a visa requirement i.e. USA, UK, etc. Upon the introduction of the EES this will increase to 93 seconds for first-time entries and 67 seconds for subsequent entries. After they have been photographed and fingerprinted at one of the electronic kiosks travellers will be asked by a border guard about the reason for their journey and stay, the border guard will then assess whether the answers are credible. They will also check whether the travel documents are genuine, recognised and valid and whether the photo in the passport matches the person standing in front of them.

If you are planning to stay with friends or relatives, it would be a good idea to get them to send you a written invitation, hand signed and dated, in one of the official Swiss languages.

To ease the delays, the Zürich Cantonal Police, who are responsible for border checks at Zurich Airport, have been given the go-ahead to recruit an additional 41 border guards to carry out the checks. As Switzerland is currently experiencing a severe labour shortage, it's thought that they may struggle to find enough suitable candidates.

Border control at Basel and Geneva airports is carried out by the Federal Office for Customs and Border Security (FCBS), they are not planning to increase the number of border guards. The introduction of the entry/exit system will be implemented with existing staff. For the introductory phase, the airports will be "moderately supported with internal resources". An on-call team will be available to deal with special cases.

A section of the road to Saas Fee was destroyed by a landslide last Thursday so Saas Fee can only be reached by helicopter at the moment. The authorities say that it will take until Wednesday at earliest to rebuld the road. Until then there is a helicopter service from Stalden to Saas Fee, which costs CHF 140 each way. This webpage will be updated when the reopening date is known https://www.saas-fee.ch/en/about-the-holiday-region/news

The link from Cervinia to Zermatt closed on Sunday and isn't scheduled to reopen until 26th October. Since Zermatt banned high level ski racers from training on the glacier in May there have been far fewer racers training in Zermatt's summer ski area than usual and more racers training at Saas Fee. If you take a look at this pdf https://www.saas-fee.ch/fileadmin/user_upload/documents/Bergbahnen_Sommerski/Sommerskigebiet_2024_ENG.pdf you can see that recreational skiing at Sass Fee is confined to the 2 runs marked in red.

This could prove to be very expensive for the FIS. The organizing committee has a 5-year contract with the FIS to run the Gran Becca races. There are long term sponsoring and TV contracts in place.

Keep in mind that the EU's much delayed automated Entry/Exit System (EES) https://travel-europe.europa.eu/index_en is due to start operating in October.

As yet there isn't much information on how it's going to work. Apparently, they are planning to introduce an app to speed up the process, but it doesn't look like it will be ready in time https://traveltomorrow.com/app-designed-to-speed-up-new-eu-border-process-may-not-be-ready-in-time/

If the don't manage to sort out the bugs before the start of the ski season, there could be lots of delays.

There is a beginner's area (Wolli Park) next to the Sunnegga funicular station, there is also an easy slope down to the Eisfluh chairlift. There is also a beginner's area at Riffelberg in the Gornergrat sector, where there is also some pleasant intermediate skiing.

The cheapest ski rental is likely to be via Ochsner Sport, a nation-wide chain of sports shops. Their Zermatt branch is at Bahnhofstrasse 46. They have a website, but it's not in English https://www.ochsnersport.ch/de/shop/cp/dienstleistungen/ski-snowboard-vermietung.html and you can only reserve 5 days in advance.

Most rental shops will carry junior rental skis, extra days beyond the quoted periods are charged at a reduced rate. 19 days rental will be close to the seasonal rental price.

There are lots of lockers https://www.matterhornparadise.ch/en/experience/skiing/ski-locker I wouldn't leave boots in them overnight as they probably won't dry out.

The excavator in the photo above is on the Valtournenche glacier, which is in Italy, not the Theodul glacier; it's being used to fill in the crevasses. Ski area operators are legally obliged to make the groomed runs safe; if they weren't allowed to fill in the crevasses, there would be no skiing on glaciers either in summer or in winter. Zermatt has 3 excavators that are used to fill in crevasses, and Saas Fee has 4.

The snow depots were built on the race course; there isn't enough space at the side of it, and they would have had to move the snow off the piste and back onto it, which would have taken longer and used a lot more diesel.

20 Minutes is not a Swiss TV programme; it's a free newspaper / news website that derives its income from advertising. It's owned by the TX Group: https://tx.group/our-companies/.

Officials from the Cantonal Building Commission inspected the site last week and found that the Gran Becca race course lies entirely within the ski sport zone. However, a small part of the groomed slope in the vicinity of the men's race starting area on which safety netting is installed is outside the ski sport zone, as the netting is only temporarily installed, the CBC has decided that it may remain in place. Therefore, weather permitting, the Gran Becca downhill races will go ahead as planned.

Unfortunately, there is no mention of the SnowXperience park in the podcast. In the podcast you said that the concrete for the lift stations was flown in using a helicopter, due of the quantities involved this would have been prohibitively expensive.

When they started to build the Matterhorn Glacier Ride I lift they built a material ropeway that runs from Laghi Cime Bianche up to the Klein Matterhorn. The concrete for all 3 lift stations was mixed in a batching plant at Laghi Cime Bianche and transported to where it was needed in a skip. The ropeway was also used to transport all the other materials and the lift components.



There is a render of the SnowXperience park on the Zermatters ski school website https://www.zermatters.ch/index.php/en/touch-snow as you can see it's located directly in front of the lift station in an area that was already snow free in June when the photo above was taken.