Andorra’s Vallnord region has invested 10 million Euros in upgrades this winter, including a new detachable six seater chairlift for Arinsal.
Another new chair lift has been installed at Pla de la Tosa, above Pic del Cubil in Pal. This chair lift duplicates skiers transport capacity from Pal to Arinsal, Setúria or Coll de la Botella areas.
Money has also been spent on enlarging and improving the snowmaking coverage at all three areas including Arcalís and Pal, although with the huge snowefalls the area received ahead of the season, this has hardly been needed and is mostly buried under snow at present.
However there are 15 more snow machines in the Arcalís area (Portella del Mig and Basera trails, with a total of three more kilometres covered), 31 new snow machines in the Arinsal area (one more kilometre covered) and two more kilometers covered at Pal.
In Arcalis the Tunel trail has been remodeled and it has changed from a blue grading to to green (easy), gaining more room for beginners in the area that contains some of the most spectacular challenges of the whole region. The De la Portella trail has been widened in its narrowest part with snowmaking from Cap de les Portelles up to Planells.
In addition in the Pal area the Del Camí Inferior trail from Coll de la Botella up to Planell has been widened and there’s a new Freestyle area for beginners.
Arcalis also offers Speed Riding this season, an activity which combines paragliding with skiing, allowing people to ski on the best trails in Andorra whilst hanging from a paraglider.
www.vallnord.com

The winter has begun with great snow conditions in the Portes du Soleil ski area with a white blanket averaging 140cm (Nearly five feet) deep at 1800m.
There are new lifts, hotels and adventure activities on the Swiss side of the huge cross border saki area which connects more than a dozen resorts in France too with 650km (407 miles) of pioste between them.
However for gourmets the most exciting news will be that Champery’s “Atelier Gourmand” in Champéry, has received a remarkable 14 points out of 20 in the prestigious GaultMillau Guide. Julien Texier, the director of the restaurant is very happy to feature in the 2009 edition (www.lenord.ch)
Champery’s gourmet reputation has been further bolstered by the C21 Restaurant which offers fine dining for the 21st century with innovative and mouth-watering cuisine. The ground floor of the Restaurant du Centre has a bistrot, a wine and tapas bar with an impressive choice which will satisfy all tastes. The delicious tapas are created by Denis Martin, who’s restaurant in Vevey (Lake Geneva) was rewarded 18 points

With the year quickly coming to a close we were glancing through our statistics to see what our readers liked the most. Since this was officially the first complete twelve month calendar period that we have complete statistics under the new format we decided to publish our first annual compilation of top ski stories for 2008.

1. Extreme skier John Nicoletta dies during competition
The story to top based on the number of visits to the site this pas year dealt with the unfortunate death of John Nicoletta while competing in in an extreme ski event in Alaska last April. Our heartfelt condolences still go out to John’s family and friends as he was really a talented extreme skier and at 27 he had his best years ahead of him. We hope you are looking down on us and carving some wicked runs in the big sky John! Rest in Peace.

2. Shapes in White Snow Carving Contest in Ischgl
Our second story and we are surprised by this is about a snow carving contest at Ischgl ski resort…

3. Snow Mountain project slated for Houston
This one is pretty amazing. We first posted this story in July 2007 and it sent our traffic through the roof. We were actually surprised to see the numbers rise by so much in the middle of the summer. Yet this story managed to stay ranked among our most popular throughout the year, placing number 3 for 2008.

4. Serbian Government to invest 40 million euros in Kosovo ski resort
This story generated the most reaction from our readers around the world. In fact the postings continued for weeks when we first posted this story in April of this year. We thought we were being spammed to death…

5. James Blunt sees Svindal and Aaufdenblaten win Verbier H 5
Stories 5 and 6 are related. We received a lovely invitation from the organizers of the Verbier H5 last spring and we unfortunately had to turn it down due to conflicting assignment schedules. But this is a great story of the international community coming together at one of Switzerland’s premier resorts to raise funds for the Right to Play Charity.

6. High Five Charity in Verbier: Stars to Help Children
This was the initial story we published on skirebel.com to support the Verbier H5

7. New Fashion from Nike this Fall…
Need we say more…now if we didn’t have at least one fashion story in the top 10…we’d start to think that our loyal readers might be a tad unfashionable – wouldn’t we?

8. Czech Company plans 2km indoor slope in Abu Dhabi
We find it intriguing that there seems so much interest with skiing in oversize ‘freezers’. However, as snowsports evolve and the entertainment around continue to do so, this story captured the interest of our readers in the ever memorizing expansion of Abu Dhabi.

9. The Hottest Place on Earth? Real Estate Sales Soar in Revelstoke
The darling of Canadian ski resorts and perhaps one of the most revered projects opened in December 2007 to much acclaim from an enthusiastic community. Watch this place grow. Revelstoke Mountain will most likely outpace the ultimate Canadian Jewel, ‘Whistler’ within the next decade. The ski resort has already beat one record…it achieved the highest and longest vertical of any ski resort in North America when it expanded its lift capacity this past season…look out world here comes Revelstoke!

10. World lift ticket price report for 2008
If you were an avid skier or snowboarder, then you’d want to pay attention to this report, unless your head was buried on a beach somewhere. The annual lift ticket study published the highest price and best value tickets for the experience… check it out, you’d be surprised by the results.

So there you have it… our first annual compilation of top-10 ski stories from Ski Rebel Magazine. Thanks for a being a part of the overall experience and being so loyal to us in 2008. We look forward to bringing several enhancements to the site in 2009 and increase your overall experience. Stay tuned and tell your friends to visit us…

Very warm temperatures and some heavy rainfall has unfortunately meant there’ll be no summer skiing at Whakapapa in New Zealand this year.
Despite daily grooming work to keep snow on main trails and the Valley T-bar line over the last few weeks, the summer melting has been just too much.

Despite our best efforts the last few days have been a losing battle. The guys have worked really hard over the last few weeks to push snow around but in the end the snow we have is just melting too fast. We haven’t had a freeze for quite a few weeks and, with more warm rain in the forecast, we really didn’t have any option,”

said a resort statement.
With the call made to cancel summer skiing, the grooming crew has concentrated its efforts on building an epic snow sliding park at the back of New Zealand’s highest restaurant, Knoll Ridge Chalet. There’ll be toboggans for hire so the young and the young at heart can still come and enjoy the summer snow.

The pound’s fall in value against the euro means that lift passes in European ski resorts are now cheaper if pre-booked from the UK in pounds than bought over-the-counter in resorts in euros, a survey reveals.
Comparing euro lift pass prices in a selection of resorts skiers shows that skiers can save up to 10% by pre-booking in the UK, according to Crystal Ski.
A week’s ski pass in the Paradiski area in France costs €243, £230.38 at the tourist exchange rate of £1 = €1.0548. A pre-booked pass through Crystal Ski would cost £206, a saving of £24.38 or 10.58%.
Buying a week’s pass to France’s popular Three Valleys in the UK would save £19.31 and one to the Espace Killy, covering Val d’Isere and Tignes, £20.67. There are also significant savings against the Swiss franc, with a week’s pass to Zermatt in Switzerland saving almost £14.08 per person.

We are able to save our customers money because we bought our currency in advance at advantageous rates”,

said Crystal Ski managing director Mathew Prior. “One of the benefits of travelling with a large tour operator is that customers are protected from sudden changes in things like currency. For instance, hotel and chalet prices which were negotiated by us a year ago are now fantastic value compared with what you would pay in euros in a resort today.”
Holidaymakers with other companies should check with their tour operator.

What a difference a week makes, as five new or extended lifts in Europe and North America have meant some big changes to some of the world’s leading ski areas, at a combined price tag of more than 100 million Euros.
Continue reading ‘New lift modernizations change face of leading ski resorts around the world’

Despite economic challenges and the strong dollar, Wildcat Mountain in New Hampshire is expecting to buck the apparent trend of declining skier numbers heading West from Europe this winter. In fact the resort is gearing up for one of its busiest seasons of international visitors seen in some time, especially school groups.
“This is a positive aspect to the season that can help to stabilize known business volume,” said Group Sales Manager Brian Chamberlain.

Business booked for this season has increased greatly and as a portion of our resort’s totals skier visits will now contribute four times as many international visits as has been seen in previous seasons.”

Continue reading ‘US Resort is expected to host more European visitors in 2009′