If you wan't to go skiing in Europe, espcially the Alps, there are a few considerations that you have to make. What do you want from your skiing holiday? If you go skiing in the Alps, you can go to these five countries: Germany, Austria, Switzerland, France, and Italy. Each country is special in it's own way. I don't know much about Germany, except that the ski resorts aren't all that big.

The Austrian ski resorts aren't all that big either, but what they may lack in size they compensate for in After Skiing. In Austria you'll get thrown out of the bars if you don't dance on the tables with your ski boots on. In France you'll get thrown out if you do.This is called gemutlichkeit (friendliness??).

Switzerland is primarily for people with much more money than I have access to (unless I change my carrier to bank robber). Italy is pretty cheap, so everyone can afford it. It's also filled with Italian food which a lot people will agree is a good thing. It's also filled with Italians.


A view of the Vallée Blanche glacier. A must do run in Chamonix.

 

 

I prefer France because the resorts are enormous (up to 600 km's piste (400 miles of connected runs)), and as natural consequense of this the queues at the lift are almost none-existing. This is very important to someone like me who have no queing abilities what-so-ever (I'm very naive and expects that if I act properly and decent in a queue everyone else will follow suit - this is, of course, never the case).

The site from Ski France offers excellent information about all the French resorts, as well as possibilities of making resservations and checking out the weather right now using web cameras.

This is what happens to a can of coke if you fall hard enough. Your ski boots get kind of sticky too if you carry it in your pants pocket!

 

I can recommend the following runs:

Vallée Blanche (The White Lady): A glacier run in Chamonix. You take the cable car to the top (I think it's the highest cable car in the Alps). Then you walk 300 meters down a narrow ridge with very steep drops on both sides. There are actually people skiing down these sides, but I guess that you'd have to be a little more than an average skier! After that you just ski down the glacies and if you haven't experienced glacier skiing before, this is absolutely magnificient. The ice is very blue, and there's enough of it to last quite a lot of gin-tonics. If you're like me (that's a fairly decent intermediate skier), the trip takes from about 10 in the morning to 3 in the afternoon. We didn't have all that much snow so our trip ended up some 10 km's from Chamonix. We tied the skis to our backs and climbed some ladders (about 50 meters). After that we had to walk about 20 minutes to a station where we could take a train back in to town. If there's lots of snow it's possible to ski all the way down to Chamonix. It's highly recommeded to go with local guide.

Piste Perdu (the Lost Piste): A run in a very narrow gully in Val d'Isere/Tignes. You go down the gulley with about 5 meter vertical rocks on each side. The gully narrows in until it's only about a meter wide. A this point you'll have to take of your skis, because the run is temporarily stopped by a small tunnel that you have to crawl through. After the tunnel there's a very nice run down to Val d'Isere through the woods. This run is not prepared in any way.

I forgot the name of this one, but it's in Val Thorens and runs from La Masse to Val Thorens on the back side of the La Masse. It's off piste, but most skiers should be able to get down (the top part is the absolute worst so if you survive that you'll easily get all the down). It's an amazing experience where you'll really sense the size of the Alps. Coming from Denmark where the highest point is about 120 m above sea level it doesn't take all that much to impress me though.

Glacier du Bouchet: Another great run in Val Thorens goes on the back side down into the fourth valley on the Glacier du Bouchet. From Val Thorens take the Cascade chair lift and run down to the Moraine lift. At the end of this lift take the chair to the top of the glacier. Take of the skis and walk along the back side of the ridge on the right. After about 15-20 minutes you'll get an entire valley almost to yourself! This run is also off piste.

Back to the first page

Hosted by www.Geocities.ws

1