Verbier ski resort in Switzerland is going to be home to a star studded cast of international ski and snowboading talent as the Verbier High Five by Carlsberg kicks off it’s 9th edition this weekend.
Continue reading ‘Verbier H5: World Domination to end in Verbier as the White Circus Begins’

(Fort Mill Times) When former U.S. Ski Team member A.J. Kitt looks at the children on the Bear Creek Race Team, he sees a lot of himself.

The ski area I grew up at is no bigger than Bear Creek,” said Kitt, who got his start on the slopes more than 30 years ago at Swain Resort near Rochester, N.Y.

A new firm based on a low-cost airline model is offering low-cost ski hire – but ruffled feathers are now evident in the Alps
(TimesOnline) Is ski hire a rip-off? It’s a question on many skiers’ minds this season, following the launch of Ski Republic (www.ski-republic.com), a company that has slashed the cost of hiring skis and boots in the French Alps.

Back in 1982, the year after he stepped back from the World Cup circuit, Whistler’s Dave Murray established a series of winter ski camps to share the joy of ski racing with the public. The camps evolved, focusing less on racing and more on fun and fundamentals, until Murray succumbed to cancer in 1990.

In the village of La Villa, part of the Alta Badia resort in Italy’s Dolomiti Superski, remote heating reaches over 250 buildings (that’s virtually all of them) through a 15,000 metre pipeline that, thanks to a power of 7000 KW, carries water at a temperature of 85 degrees.
The remote heating plant reduces dependency on oil and makes for a notably more “livable” environment by reducing the emission of harmful substances into the atmosphere. Instead of oil the system burns woodchip waste from existing saw mills in the area.

As previewed at the start of the season, Taos in New Mexico, one of four US resorts that still banned snowboarders, has opened its slopes to all after its final ‘skiers only’ day starting next season.
Thousands of boarders from around the US descended on the resort at the weekend to welcome the end of what is popularly regarded as ‘Alpine apartheid.”
The remaining ski areas still banning boarders are Alta and Deer Valley in Utah and Mad River Glen in Vermont.

Fernie ski resort in British Columbia has surpassed the 10 metre (33 feet) snow marker this winter and is claiming to have received more snow than any other major Canadian resort.
Although this makes the 2007-8 season a good year, the achievement is not hugely out of the ordinary for Fernie which has an 875cm (29 feet) snowfall average anyway.
Currently Fernie has received 1009cm (33.6 feet) year-to-date and the resort has a 350cm (11.7 feet) snowpack, having received 79cm (31 inches) in the past week alone.
www.skifernie.com