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.
More than 40,000 people have signed a petition protesting against the planned expansion of Vitosha ski area in Bulgaria.
Increasingly vocal environmental campaigners said that the proposed expansion of the ski runs and lifts, with resulting deforestation, was illegal, when it submitted the petition to the Bulgarian government this week.
The protests began in 2008 when lift operator Vitosha Ski reportedly cleared about two hectares of mountainside for new lifts and runs. It plans to expand the ski area by about 60 hectares, felling 33,000 trees in the process.
The French football team is finishing up a stint of altitude training in Tignes before a series of frendlies leading up to the world cup.
They’ve spent the last week at the French ski area, and tomorrow they will face Costa Rica. They’ll play Tunisia on the 30th and China on June 4th as well.
The French team training in Tignes takes place every Spring, but is particularly important this year as some World Cup matches will take place in Johannesburg, at an altitude of 1800 metres (5,900ft). Other teams are training in Alpine ski resorts too, including the Japanese team in Saas Fee.
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.
Laax ski area in Switzerland will be the future location for Europe’s first indoor freestyle training centre.
The leading Swiss freestyle resort has announced plans for the facility, which it says will be the world’s second such facility, following Woodward at Copper in Colorado. Woodward uses Snowflex artificial surface slopes among its facilities for year-round training in freestyle technique.
But that’s all the details we’re going to get for now. The resort says more information won’t be released until later this year.
The longest artificial tubing slope in Europe was completed in record time at the Senda Viva park in Spain this spring.
The 340m (1,115ft)-long slope was made by Artificial ski, snowboard and snowtubing manufacturer Neveplast. It contains several turns and more than 72 parabolic elements for maximum tubing fun.
Along with supplying the “Tubby” slope itself, Italian-based Neveplast also advised the park on planning and supervision of works for the ground preparation.
Chairlift near the Steinbergkogel area in Kitzbuhel
Austria’s Kitzbuhel resort is adding two new lifts for next winter, a 10 passenger cable car and another eight-seater chairlift.
Lift manufacturer Leitner reported that the leading Austrian resort of Kitzbuhel ordered the chair lifts.
The new Maierl gondola will be Austria’s first ten-seat gondola, and will replace a double chairlift and a drag lift on the route.
The 2.7km (1.7mi) long lift will take users up more than 671 vertical metres (2,200 ft) and transport 2,400 passengers per hour. It will also offer heated seats.
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