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All systems are go now for glacier skiing at Dachstein glacier.
The Dachstein glacier in southern Austria has re-opened for summer skiing this weekend, two weeks later than planned. A glitch following the replacement of the first steel cable installed in 1969, was responsible for postponed opening. As a result lift operators, Planai-Hochwurzen-Railways slashed season-ticket prices.
Continue reading ‘Dachstein summer skiing season opens following two week lift delay’
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This Austrian resort will be home to a new public pool complex this fall.
Zell am See recently announced that its new public pool complex will officially open this October just in time for the coming winter season.
Continue reading ‘New swimming pool at Zell am See scheduled to open for winter season’
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Valle Nevado's "I'm in a meeting"
The next time your boss calls to ask about your whereabouts, you can easily reply ‘I’m in a meeting’…that’s of course if you happen to be skiing down Chile’s Valle Nevado.
Continue reading ‘When in Valle Nevado, tell your boss ‘I’m in a meeting’’
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A new gondola that looks set to be one of the most architecturally spectacular in Austria is under construction at Solden.
Work on the mountain base of the new lift, up to the Gaislachkogl peak, began last summer to allow the concrete foundations time to set. The lift proper will be installed this summer ready to begin operation next winter.
Continue reading ‘New gondola on track for 2010-11 season in Solden’
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APT Agenzia Turistica Locale
Via della Torre, 11
Sauze d’Oulx
Piedmont / Piemonte
Italy
I 10050
Telephone: (122) 850380
Email: info@comune.sauzedoulx.to.it
Website: www.comune.sauzedoulx.to.it
Renowned for its lively atmosphere (although now quieter than it used to be) and high-value skiing, Sauze d’Oulx is also at one end of the rather tenuously linked Milky Way Circuit. Conditions permitting it is possible to ski all the way to Montgenèvre, France. Sauze d’Oulx claims to be the birthplace of Italian skiing, dating back to 1899.
Sauze d’Oulx, pronounced “Sow-zee-doo” was one of the most successful Italian ski resorts on the 1970s and ’80s, expanding rapidly. Located on a high sunny ‘balcony’ in the Susa Valley, the resort is surrounded by larch forest above. The trails cut down through this natural amphitheatre have an excellent snow record. Its success resulted from its large and varied ski area, linked to Sestrière, its lively night life and reasonable prices. The resulting growth has led to the construction of a large number of rectangular concrete apartment blocks, mirroring its French partner, Montgènevre, now lift-linked to Sauze at the other end of the long Milky Way circuit.
Although Sauze still has a delightful ancient heart of stone buildings, narrow streets and a cobbled square with water fountain, as well as locals prepared to dress in traditional attire for ancient festivals, these are all somewhat swamped by the newer developments all around. In recent years Sauze d’Oulx has matured to some extent, and although the resort is still one of the liveliest ski centres in the world, the occasionally unpleasant ‘rowdy’ element has moved on. It remains a very popular destination none the less, with most of the major international tour operators including it in their resort lists.
Skiing has been popular here for over a century and world champions like Piero Gros, a gold medalist of the 1976 Olympics, have been based here. Skiing first began on the local slopes at the end of the nineteenth century when a Swiss engineer, Adolfo Kind, taught skiing to locals and guests using wooden boards strapped to the feet.
Sauze d’Oulx, The Milky Way / Voie Lactée / Via Lattea, Piedmont, Alps, Italy, Grande Galaxie
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Societat Anonima d’Equipament Turistic-Esportiu de la Parroquia d’Encamp
Masria Pla 1 – 17 Botiges Fener 13
Andorra la Vella
Andorra
801060
Email: info@pasgrau.com
Website: www.grandvalira.com
Pas de la Casa, linked to Grau Roig, is the highest and sunniest ski resort in the Pyrenees with the best snow record. It gained its first drag lift in 1957 and has added a lift virtually every year since, now boasting 8 quad chairs, three of them high speed, and three six-seater chairs and a combined uplift of 46,175. Located by the French border it’s a lively resort with the ubiquitous duty free shopping. Because of it’s north facing position snow quality and quantity is virtually guaranteed from early December to mid-May, with computer controlled state-of-the-art snow-making providing back-up when required. The resort also boasted an FIS Approved Slalom Stadium.
Half a dozen of Andorra’s ski villages, including the best known resorts of Pas de la Casa and Soldeu, share a common ski area called Grandvalira. This is the name by which the ski resort prefers to be known – like a giant French resorts such as La Plagne and Les Arcs – one ski area with ,multiple base villages; however decades of being separate ski resorts mans many people still call the area by individual resort village names like Pas de la Casa and Soldeu.
But however important the name may seem to marketing people, the reality is that the experience is the same. Whichever village you stay in you’ll have access to a very big ski area, indeed now one of the world’s 50 largest as well as the biggest in the Pyrenees, and with some of the planet’s most up to date lifts too. These now straddle the border in to France as well as taking up a large swathe of North Eastern Andorra itself. The different villages are of course of different sizes and have different facilities, but the lift pass issued at each covers the full ski area between them all.
Andorra itself is a tiny duty free principality in the southern Pyrenees. It’s a country ideally suited to snowsports with its high snow sure mountains and almost Mediterranean. Its ski areas have seen constant development for many decades, growing from “Cheap and cheerful” in the 1970s and 80s to be increasingly sophisticated in the 1990s and since 2000 with modern lift infrastructure, ever expanding ski areas reaching world-class dimensions and resort bases moving up market.
Grandvalira came about in 2004 when the previously fiercely competitive resorts of Pas de la Casa and Soldeu, which had spread their ski areas across the mountains to meet each other, finally buried the hatchet and became a single ski area – Grandvalira. It has six key bases or access points, including Pas de la Casa, Soldeu, El Tarter, Grau Roig, Canillo and Encamp.
The largest of these is Soldeu which sits between Pas de la Casa and El Tarter. Soldeu is a typically lively, high value, friendly Andorran resort with a larger than average ski area. The biggest investor in skiing in the Pyrenées during the 1990s, the resort added a new eight seater gondola for the 1996/97 season and new hotels. Then for 1999-2000 the resort again made a huge investment with three new six seater chairs together with a second eight seater gondola. It continues to invest as part of Grandvalira today. Soldeu is a modern, dynamic resort set in dramatically picturesque surroundings. First rate for bumps and moguls – Soldeu is a regular venue for freestyle mogul comps.
The base at El Tarter is more traditional and many visitors choose to stay in the town of Canillo, 4km (2 miles) down the valley which has the lion’s share of the ‘off slope facilities’ in the area. Access to the resorts is simple with the Funicamp (mountain cable car) making the journey from Encamp, Andorra’s most central village, in 14 minutes up to the slopes – a journey which would previously have taken four times as long on a winding mountain road.
As well as being one of Andorra’s most popular ski resorts Pas de la Casa is also a border town – the gateway into the country from France. The name Pas de la Casa (literally Pass of the House) derives from the days when all you would have found there was a shepherds’ hut which served as a landmark for travellers crossing the River Ariege. Nowadays it is a busy border control manned by customs officers checking on the numerous visitors who come here either solely for the duty free shopping or to enjoy the variety of snowsports on offer. It is popular with the young French and Spanish too who frequently make the border crossing to enjoy the unrestricted nightlife in this unique Catalan snow-filled Tijuana.
The skiing at ‘Pas’ was first developed in 1957 by Francesco Viladomat, a local businessman, it started with only one draglift and gradually grew with more lifts introduced every year. Until 1976 the station was on one mountain only, the Peak of Envalira; by the 1980s it had spread to Monmalus and the Peak of Cubil up to the area of Cercle de Pessons and the Cortals d’Encamp.
Until the 1950′s Andorra’s economy centred mainly on the summer pasturing of sheep and cattle and the harvesting of tobacco, rye, olives and grapes while industry was limited to processing these products and the production of handicrafts. Since then tourism has taken over as Andorra’s main source of revenue, exploiting its scenic mountains and recognising the massive potential for wintersports. Due to the lack of customs duties and low or non-existent taxes, Andorra has become an important international centre of retail trade attracting millions of shoppers from all over Europe to its duty free haven.
The 1990′s brought dramatic changes to Andorra and its massive financial investments have brought Andorra’s sports facilities, both on and off the mountains, firmly into the 21st century.
Pas de la Casa / Grau Roig, Ski Andorra, Encamp, Haute Pyrenees, Grand Valira, Grandvalira
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Cranmore Ski Area
PO Box 1640, Skimobile Road
North Conway
New Hampshire
USA
NH 03860
Telephone: (603) 3565544
Email: info@cranmore.com
Website: www.cranmore.com
A key resort in the history of skiing in New Hampshire, with recent infrastructure improvements including a new quad chair and upgraded base buildings.
Cranmore is a friendly family ski area with a long and illustrious history as a ski resort. It has well above average facilities for a ski area of its size and has spent recently on improved lifts and other infrastructure. The resort has been owned by several major ski groups in recent year and has now settled in as part of the Booth Creek group which owns ski areas across the USA, including fellow New Hampshire centres Loon and Waterville Valley – which are included on a joint lift ticket with Cranmore.
North Conway businessman Harvey Dow Gibson cleared the first trails on the slopes of Mount Cranmore during the summer of 1937. Two years later, Hannes Schneider, arguably the most important person in the development of downhill skiing around the world in the first half of the Twentieth century (He brought skiing to Japan as well as being known as “the father of American skiing”) made his first turns on the South Slope and began a skiing revolution.
Part of Cranmore’s history began in Austria, Schneider’s home. An outspoken critic of the Nazis, Schneider was stripped of his influential title as head of all of Austria ‘s ski instructors after Hitler annexed Austria in 1938. After being placed under house arrest, Schneider fled to America and his new home of North Conway .
Gibson worked hard to bring Schneider to the Mount Washington Valley and saw him as instrumental in establishing Cranmore as a world-class skiing destination. Schneider received a hero’s welcome upon arriving in North Conway . Schneider and his entire family left the train and walked under an archway of ski poles, held by 150 schoolchildren enrolled in the Eastern Slope Ski Club Junior Program. After lunch, Schneider made his first turns at his new home. Using his natural skill and vast knowledge acquired in his years of teaching in Austria , Schneider developed a ski school at Cranmore and taught his Arlberg technique to students from across the globe.
Cranmore, New Hampshire, USA
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