Glacier skiing is in full summer swing in Italy once again.
Looking to cool off in Italy this summer? Your are just in luck, following the re-opening of the country’s third glacier, Val Senales this past week. It joins Passo Stelvio and the Presena glacier above Passo Tonale, which had one red and one black run open at the weekend but it likely to close in the near future. However, Cervinia will re-open a week on Saturday for summer skiing and boarding keeping the Italian choices up at three.
Colorado’s Copper Mountain and Italy’s Val di Fassa have topped a list of the most satisfying ski vacation destination this season.
The numbers come from a poll conducted by TUI Ski, the company which owns Britain’s largest ski tour operator Crystal, as well as other leading brands Thomson, First Choice and Flexiski.
Copper Mountain in Colorado is the most popular overall, although as the company sends a limited number of clients there, the verdict is not based on the number of passengers. The company believes Val di Fassa would probably triumph if the number of forms returned was factored.
During a long day on the slopes of Speikboden resort in Italy, skiing world renowned record addict Oliver Kern set two new world records.
He managed to total 60,874 vertical metres (200,000 feet) skied in one day, and in the process 5,550 (18.210 ft) vertical meters during one hour.
Along with the two world records, by the end of the record day, the 36-year-old German had skied a 5.5 km long run 58 times as well as additional slopes adding up to a total of 361 kilometres (226 miles) skied. Kern also took the 2,887 metre long gondola with a difference in height of 1,022m 58 times as well four additional chair lifts making a total of 520km (325 miles) in the gondola and on the slopes.
An artists' rendering of the SnowVolution rotating disk slope
Some new designs coming from British and Italian companies could mean a future with no ski lift lines and endless ski runs 12 months a year.
The British SnowVolution machine is a snow covered rotating planar disc up to 300 metres (985ft) in diameter, inclined at 25 degrees, divided into four to six concentric rings each 15-30 metres (50-100ft) wide.
The rings rotate independently in either direction at tangential speeds of up to 15 metres/per second. Adjacent rings rotate in the same direction, and with a separating static or stationary ring, the remaining rings rotate in the opposite direction. Skiers and snowboarders are spread across the whole width of the disc giving high levels of utilisation.
Games organizers on a recent visit to the site: Val Aosta, Italy.
Seven hundred military athletes from 40 nations will face the snows to compete for the victory in the first Military World Winter Games this spring.
For six days at Val d’Aosta, Italy from March 20th to 25th, the whole valley will be marked by a brilliant display of uniforms from different national army, navy and airforce staff that are competing in Nordic skiing, biathlon, downhill skiing, climbing and short track.
Events will be staged in the villages of Brusson (for the biathlon), Cogne (Nordic ski races and ski orienteering), Courmayeur (climbing and short-track), Gressoney-Saint-Jean (women’s giant slalom and slalom), Flassin of Saint-Oyen (Alpine skiing), and Gressan (men’s slalom and giant slaom).
An Italian-based artificial surface ski slope manufacturer has launched a new division manufacturing carpet lifts.
Snowsun Srl is now manufacturing the ski belt carpet lift, 100m (330 feet) long and 60cm (two feet) wide and installed it in Sardegna in Italy. The carpet lift has a modular design with three metre sections and can thus be any length between 50 and 150m long. The lifts are for use with its slopes or with any artificial or regular snow slope, indoors or outdoors.
The new Pancheron lift. Cervinia is connected by piste and lifts to Zermatt across the border in Switzerland.
Italy’s Cervinia ski resort has made a major investment of 11.5 million Euros into a state-of-the-art new chairlift.
The new Pancheron six-seat lift, which has all the latest safety features, departs from the top of Cretaz near the arrival station of the Cretaz chairlift, and has an hourly uplift capacity of 3,000 people. The lift rises 512 vertical metres (1680ft) from 2,438m (7997ft) above-sea-level to 2,950m (9676ft), providing access to an expanded Cretaz sector.
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