Les Carroz began offering delightful chocolate spas for chidren

The traditional French ski resort of Les Carroz, has a reputation for being family-friendly, but the village which is part of the huge Grand Massif ski area has gone a step further by introducing fun spa days for children aged six and over.

Continue reading ‘Alps resort offers chocolate body wrap’

Les 2 Alpes opens up for business June 16th

Les 2 Alpes is ready to launch the biggest snowpark when it opens up for summer skiing and boarding on June 16th.

The French high alpine resort is once again going to be the first to open for the summer and will offer 1,000 m vertical (3,280 ft.) descents starting from an altitude of 3,600 metres.

Continue reading ‘Les 2 Alpes expands snowpark for summer business’

Afri-Ski is trying to lure football fans to head off skiing during the World Cup

With soccer fans gearing up for next month’s World Cup in South Africa, two ski areas are hoping to ride the promotional wave by promoting skiing and attracting a few extra tourists.

Afriski and Tiffindell ski resorts are making a big promotional push to football fans by enticing them to combine their journey with a ski vacations.

Southern Africa’s two ski areas are due to open a few days before the World Cup finals kick off in South Africa. The ski slopes are some hours from the football grounds, but a snow and football holiday is a realistic possibility.

Continue reading ‘South Africa puts the push on skiing during World Cup’

The renowned Garmisch-Partenkirchen ski area in Bavaria.

It’s going to one heck of a winter in Germany’s alpine ski region of Upper Bavaria.

In addition to being one of Europe’s up and coming ski destinations, Bavaria’s ski areas will host a plethora of major competitions this upcoming season, giving tourists many excuses to visit the historic region.

The 2011 FIS Alpine World Ski Championships will be held in Bavaria’s famous Garmisch-Partenkirchen ski area from February 7th till February 20th. Garmisch-Partenkirchen last hosted the World Championships in 1978. It also hosted the first Olympic alpine skiing competition at the 1936 Winter Olympics.

Garmish has invested heavily in preparing for the World Championships, including the creation of a second downhill slope to compliment the famous Kandahar downhill, and the addition of several new cable cars and chair lift.

According to the mayor of the town of Garmish, Thomas Schmid, the ski resort has invested about 60 million Euros ($80m) for the event, and another 42 million Euros ($57m) has been spent to speed up the train from Munich to Garmish for 2011. The train is well-known because skiers can take the train from Munich with their skis on, because it stops 200m from the bottom of the ski hill. The train ride takes about an hour and a half.

Continue reading ‘German Alps look forward to epic ski season’

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Recent cold temperatures have allowed Perisher ski resort in Australia us to fire up the snowmaking system for winter 2010.

The country’s biggest resort, located in New South Wales, has more than 150 snow guns covering the resort’s key runs.

“Mother Nature even came to the party this week with some light natural snowfalls, and with more snow predicted for next week we are hopeful of a good cover of snow for the opening weekend on June 12,” said a resort statement.

Continue reading ‘Australia’s Perisher starts snowmaking early’

A fresh spell of cool weather amazingly brought new snow to Scotland for the mayday holiday period and continuing cold weather means even more snow is still possible.

Cairngorm Mountain above Aviemore is now the only Scottish ski centre still open for snow sports and it reported 2.5cm (an inch) of new snow earlier this month. The centre has received 141,000 skier visits to date, more than double the 65,000 skier visits in 2009, recovering from worst season on record in 2007. So far the centre has been open 133 days open since the end of November 2009.

Several hundred skiers enjoyed the fresh powder as Cairngorm entered its seventh calendar month of continuous operation in one of its busiest and most successful seasons in memory.

Continue reading ‘Scotland’s miracle snow season continues, somehow’

Avoriaz village in the French Alps.

A massive expansion of Avoriaz ski resort in France that will create two totally new resort districts gets underway this month.

Each district will include several new accommodation complexes, and that’s not all. Avoriaz is also building a large new water park and a spectacular new lift to replace the cable car link between the resort and Morzine in the valley below. Much of the new development will be completed in time for the winter after next, so December 2011.

The two new resort districts will be called Crozats and Amara. Between them they will add nine new Maeva and Pierre and Vacances residences containing more than 40 new apartments.

Continue reading ‘Huge expansion of France’s Avoriaz gets underway’