Skiing Holiday Reviews
(23 Apr 2004): Arrived on 10th April 2004. Snow was fantastic for that time of year. Plenty of runs and no long queues for the lifts. There is an English ski school called Masterclass which meets at le lac blanc restaurant every morning. It is not much dearer than the ESF but the lessons are much better. Masterclass specialises in intermediates and the class sizes never exceed 8 people. Through them, my sons came down a black run at the end of their first week on snow. Definitely recommend them.
(18 Jan 2005): I have skied Chatel since my childhood and seen the development of some fantastic inter-valleys cooperation. Unbelievable amount of ski acreage, one pass allows you to ski in 5 different resorts, hundreds of miles of skiing interspersed with lovely chalets, towns, slopeside cafes and a cosmopolitan atmosphere. Here in Washington, I serve on the Mt Baker ski patrol and dream about my upcoming yearly trip to Chatel in March. Chatel, try it, you'll love it!
(1 Mar 2004): This is by far the sickest resort i have had the chance to visit and i have now returned four times and each time it just gets better. The best way to explore the area is to buy the espace killy lift pass, this will give you the chance to fully explore the vallies in the area which include the infamous val d'isere and le fornet. However if the pass is to much the tignes local pass will still provide you with more than enough pistes to play on for a week, also the of piste opertunities are endless. Tignes itself is set above 2000m so the snow conditions are always very good. There is also a bus service that links val and tignes so if your wanting to get messy in a great venue for a night out go give dicks tea bar a once over.
(21 Dec 2004 ): Well, i went to vars in dec 2004, hotel looked like a giant shed, but it wasn't so bad room number 12 i bet the staff r amazed they can finally c the colour of the carpet lol, the slopes r too far from the hotel especially when u have to take your ski's there and back 4 times a day, slopes quite good, but the big downer for me was the huge metal stairs outside the hotel u have to walk up bout 6 times a day propa killed me legs by the end of the trip,go to vars and if you want risk Hotel Franou lol only messin have fun!!!! i wana go back!!!!
(2 Feb 2002): Visiting Sestriere whilst staying in Sauze d'Oulx last week, I have to say that I think the beginners slopes are very good - with several button lifts feeding an incredibly wide slope. Then there are some lovely wide easy blues down to the gondola to Sauze with fast lifts back up. Don't let the piste maps fool you - although there are masses of reds, beginners (especially first-timers) are really well served. However, Sauze is not so good as the single nursery slope at Sportina is narrow and crowded, the twin two-man chairs are slow and the blues are much more difficult leading to many falls!
(28 Mar 2002): Brixen is a nice town to go shopping to or to go in plenty of restaurants. There are some nice ski resorts near by. The nearest is Plose, it is the biggest (31km) in the ski pass Eisacktal and has a very good slope, which is 9km long. Another resort is the "Gitschberg" near "Meransen". This has 30km of slopes and has 6 cosy huts. My tip is the "Zasslerhutte and the Bacherhutte". From the top of the mountain (2500m) you have a fantastic view. The third resort is "Jochtal" near "Vals". It is a small resort with 3 slopes into the valley. Two of them are very steep, one of these is the I think the steepest I've been on. The third new slope has a medium difficulty.
(4 Apr 2003): I've just returned from a season working as an instructor at cypress ski school. Cypress is the best mountain on the North shore in terms of terrain variety, the blacks when open are good fun, if not a huge challenge (though "MOONS" is steep and tight thru the trees at the top). It's a good place to learn to ski, there is a large number of crusin' runs, but as someone else said they can be busy on sunny days, wear a helmet... The backcountry is limited cos of some huge terrain traps, experts/locals only. My slightly biased view is that the ski school is great, lots of super keen ski/board instructors from all over the world (I'm English) who are all under the guidance of a slightly wild Romanian called Dan, he's almost tame... There are loads of deals and offers on passes, meaning you can ski loads for very little cash. If your local to Vancouver or just visiting, go on up, the foods crap but the skiing is good!
(Canada, 2000): Grouse Mountain's conditions are sketchy at the best of times, but it does have a few highlights. It is served by regional transit and it is only 15 minutes from downtown Vancouver. It has great views of the city, it's open day and night, it has an outdoor ice rink, good restaurants and it's the only local hill to install a new detachable high-speed quad chair for 2000-2001. I recommend visiting Grouse at night, particularly on a clear night. The night is quiet, the views are incredible with the city lights and it's inexpensive.
( 23 Feb 2004): Aprica is a great resort, ski instructors are excellent and speak fairly good english. Our instructor was Carlo. We went down the black run within 5 days and coped with it ok thanks to him. The downpoint of my trip was the hotel, Serenella. Its crap. There was a horrible drain smell in one of the rooms, several doors fell off, we sat down on a bed and it snapped, the food had unidentified hairs in it!! and the staff tried to trick us into thinking the water in the bottles was bottled water, but we made a mark on it and the same bottle was there the next day!!! If you were to stay in another hotel, i would really reccomend aprica, there is lots to do including bars, taboggoning, ice skating, restaurants, swimming and much more... The only thing i can say is go there, its gr8!!
(17 Oct 2004): Civetta is a fantastic resort to learn in and for beginners, with lots of very long gentle slopes linking areas of increasing difficulty and nothing very challenging at all. The odd steeper bit on the runs is very wide so no problems for beginners doing big traverses. Spend a week here and you could teach yourself to ski!! It's part of a much bigger dolomiti superski area so your pass lets you go to all the more challenging neighbouring areas as well. The views are amazing in all directions and the weather tends to be sunny on more days than more northerly areas. The runs are at just the right balance between crowded and deserted, but don't expect a huge social scene locally, this is a country area. Food is good and very cheap though.
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