- Skiing RSS Feed

The snow that saved the ski season

Fri, 23 Mar 2012 12:00:01 GMT

When does the ski season end? The smart answer is never, because resorts with a glacier on their ski area can offer "winter" sports virtually all year round, and because in the southern hemisphere there's a winter going on while we're having our summer.

Vail resorts ride the ups and downs of the ski market

Sun, 18 Mar 2012 00:00:01 GMT

There has been a succession of North American ski resort empires through the decades. The American Skiing Company (ASC) rose to prominence in the 1990s, ultimately owning 10 resorts coast to coast before collapsing in 2007. Intrawest (intrawest.com), which grew to even greater dimensions out of the phenomenally successful Whistler Blackcomb resort in Canada, expanding across the Atlantic to France, and even running an indoor snow centre in Madrid, was sold for $2.8bn (£1.8bn) by its founders in 2006, just before the property crash hit.

Las Vegas Ski & Snowboard Resort: Gamble on skiing in Nevada

Fri, 16 Mar 2012 12:00:01 GMT

Tell people you are going on a ski trip to Las Vegas, and in my experience you can expect one of two responses. The first is the puzzled frown of someone who suspects that you may have turned over two pages at once; the second is the half-smile of a person who has just been told a joke that they don't understand. Both are reasonable responses. Who on earth would consider skiing in the Nevada desert? It is as absurd as going hill-walking in the South China Sea.

Canada: Skiers make tracks for Le Massif

Fri, 09 Mar 2012 12:00:01 GMT

Le Massif, 73km north-east of Quebec City, is a most unusual ski resort. For a start, it's topsy-turvy: arrive by car at the resort base, and you'll look in vain for the mountain, the lifts and the skiing – because the "base" is the resort's highest point, from which the slopes drop down a steep valley.

What lies beneath the pistes of St Anton

Sun, 04 Mar 2012 00:00:36 GMT

There is snow in front of me, covering the main ski slopes of the resort, and there is snow behind, on the opposite side of the valley. Looking up, the flakes whirling out of the sky tickle my eyelashes; looking down I can see the great bastions – some of them one-and-a-half metres high – created by snow ploughs clearing the roads. There is snow everywhere, in fact, covering every surface. But curiously the most significant accumulation is invisible. It is the snow beneath my skis, which according to the illuminated sign at the lift station, is 5.81 metres deep.

Flying high in Iceland: Fresh tracks are the norm when heliskiing on the Troll peninsula

Fri, 02 Mar 2012 12:00:00 GMT

There should be a clue in the name, yet this country of year-round snow and 5,000ft mountains remains off the radar of most skiers. As I stood atop an unpronounceable summit on northern Iceland's Troll peninsula and gazed across row upon row of anvil-topped mountains stretching towards the Arctic, the relative isolation and utter wildness of the area made it easy to understand why so many of these peaks have rarely, if ever, been scoured by ski tracks.

Mammoth: The real McCoy of ski resorts

Fri, 24 Feb 2012 12:00:00 GMT

Real-estate funds and other investors have become very keen on US skiing recently. Although the Canadian company Intrawest – once the leader in the field – is now down to its last four US resorts, Florida-based CNL Lifestyle Properties has splashed out on 15 of them (including Crested Butte in Colorado) for reasons no one that I have talked to can wholly explain. Powdr Corp of Park City in Utah has acquired nine, including its home resort and Copper Mountain in Colorado; Entertainment Properties Trust now owns 11 (mostly very small) and the blue-chip Vail Resorts, also on the acquisition trail recently, has seven (mostly very large).

Avalanche kills three near Washington resort

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 00:00:01 GMT

Three people are dead and as many as eight missing after an avalanche near a Washington state ski resort.

More snow in the Alps means fewer last-minute bargains

Sun, 19 Feb 2012 00:00:01 GMT

It's difficult to believe that only a little over two months ago we were worried that the Alps were heading for another winter of lacklustre snow.

Bear with Bern for Swiss skiing

Fri, 17 Feb 2012 00:00:00 GMT

On the flight from London City Airport to Bern last week, I settled down to read Mostly Mary by Gwynedd Rae, a light classic of children's literature. I have read it before, but not for half a century. On first reading, this book and the others in a series about a family of bears living in the bear-pit at Bern had considerable impact on my world view. You could keep your Paris, New York and Berlin; the place I most wanted to visit was Bern, for the bear pit.

Tignes and toddlers go well in the spring

Sun, 12 Feb 2012 00:00:47 GMT

Sometimes, the fantasy of what constitutes a good family ski holiday seems to have come straight from the Wham! video for “Last Christmas”: big jumpers and playful snowball fights. However, the reality for those with pre-school children tends to involve snotty noses and screaming tantrums on the nursery slopes. (And that’s just from the parents.)

Off piste and into the spa: Austria's Bad Hofgastein offers far more than skiing

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 11:30:00 GMT

Past the town's cross-country skiing track, a little further on from an icy-looking pond peppered with hardy ducks, steam was rising from the valley floor. A series of low-rise modern buildings, large windows brightly lit against the surrounding mountains, awaited me, grouped around a striking dome and a simple glass box.

Sochi: All white in this Black Sea ski resort

Sun, 05 Feb 2012 00:00:01 GMT

High above Sochi, the Caucasus Mountains sparkled with snow. Russia's new Olympic ski resorts have been opened to pioneering punters ahead of the 2014 Winter Olympics, and on this glittering January morning Ilya Sergeevich and I were among the few thousand to test out the slopes of Rosa Khutor, which has even made it as far as Crystal's ski brochure.

Fire and ice: Strap on your snow shoes and explore Mount Etna

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 00:00:01 GMT

There is one vital ingredient to every snowshoeing trip. And that's snow. Pulling back the curtains of my hotel room window, I gazed out at the sheer slopes of Mount Etna. There wasn't a flake to be seen. Did Luca, my guide, have some bad news? "Don't worry," he said, while loading our snowshoes into the van.

The safe ski guide

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 00:00:01 GMT

Earlier this month, the 29-year-old Canadian freestyle skier Sarah Burke died from injuries sustained in a training accident at Park City in Utah. Tests revealed she had 'irreversible damage to her brain due to lack of oxygen and blood after cardiac arrest,' according to a statement released by her publicist. It is a tragic case that once again has brought the potential dangers of skiing to the public's attention, much in the same way that actress Natasha Richardson's death from a head injury after she fell while taking a skiing lesson did in 2009.

Snowed under in Switzerland: Saas-Fee is delightful despite a little too much of the white stuff

Sat, 28 Jan 2012 00:00:01 GMT

A family skiing holiday is all about balance – and not just in the obvious ways. But let's start with them anyway. Obviously, everyone should be trying to stay upright on the slopes. For that there's ski school. In Saas-Fee, the exquisitely sculpted resort at the heart of Switzerland's narrow Saas Valley, there are three to choose from: Optimum (swanky green gear), Eskimo (powder blue) and the Swiss Ski School (red and white, naturally). Given the destination, the Swiss version seemed most appropriate, although my instructor, Robert Fuller, later turned out to be from Essex. As I say, there's a balance to be struck. His homespun acumen would come in very handy. Meanwhile, my two sons, aged nine and six, were assigned a local who would have them carving neat turns on the nursery slopes in no time.

Snowed under in Switzerland: Saas-Fee is delightful despite an abundance of the white stuff

Sat, 28 Jan 2012 00:00:01 GMT

The 10 Best ski apps

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 00:00:01 GMT

(1) iTrailMap3D

£2.99

Hit the lodge after a hard day's skiing, grab a beer and compare your routes and tracks with your friends using this 3D map and tracking app. When you get home, you can export the info to Google Earth.

Snow Report: Austria's welcome still warm... after 50 years

Sun, 22 Jan 2012 00:00:01 GMT

I'm proud to say that my mother was one of the first package holiday tourists to venture abroad soon after the Second World War, when leisure travel began to lower its costs and thus widen its appeal beyond the upper classes.

Traveller's guide: Late-season snow

Sat, 21 Jan 2012 00:00:01 GMT

If you go by the calendar, the northern hemisphere ski season runs from early December to early April. In reality, the average skiing "winter" straddles winter and spring, two seasons with vastly different conditions and offering vastly different ski holidays.

Switzerland: The original and the best

Sat, 21 Jan 2012 00:00:01 GMT

Yes, skiing can be dangerous. But just at the moment even walking along the main shopping street in Davos seems tricky. Above the shops bursting with Bogner jackets and tasty baked treats, massive snow drifts are heaped like Nigella's leftover mash, cascading over the eaves of the resort's flat roofs. One good sneeze and the whole thing could blow.

Sweden: Go wild in winter

Sat, 21 Jan 2012 00:00:01 GMT

Who says a cross-country ski holiday is nothing but unrelenting hard work? At the end of day two of a week-long cross-country ski tour through the vast wilderness of Arctic Sweden, I was doing nothing more exhausting than sitting in the warmth of a sauna knocking back a chilled beer.

Music in the mountains

Sat, 21 Jan 2012 00:00:01 GMT

Whatever effect the economy and snow conditions may have on ski holiday bookings, one niche sector appears to be booming – festivals in the mountains.

Snow joke: altitude with a touch of attitude

Sat, 21 Jan 2012 00:00:01 GMT

What's your agenda for a winter-sports holiday? Possibly little more than skiing or boarding, a few associated snow-sport activities, eating and sleeping, plus socialising in bars and nightclubs. But if you fancy something different, perhaps some film screenings, evenings of stand-up comedy or live rock music out on the slopes, there are ski resorts where you'll find each of those things, and more.

Ski news: the season so far

Sat, 21 Jan 2012 00:00:01 GMT

Snow fall