 Poster: A snowHead
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Hi all,
I am welcoming any suggestions/opinions on which European Resorts would be good to choose for ski hol this coming season. The main criteria being that I easily get "the fear" on French Red Runs when Im tired and cold, or just generally. So I prefer less busy or more wide ones where I can stop for a quick rest or pick my route to one side whilst nutters hurtle past me.
Can anyone put their two penneth in on resorts I may like? I have been to Morzine/Les Gets/Avoriaz twice and love the variety of runs & can handle the steepness of the reds. I hear that Austrian resorts are steeper when categorizing reds?
Great thanks in advance!!
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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mildy,
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I hear that Austrian resorts are steeper when categorizing reds?
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I think you hear wrong, steepness of runs is usually resort specific rather than country specific in my experience.
If you prefer quiet runs rather than busy ones my general advice would be to go outside peak times. Then go to less well known resorts and go to the periphery of ski areas rather than the central bits.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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Don't get hung up on the colours! Villages in the same valley have different ideas about grading let alone different countries. It depends on what you like. In my (very limited!!) experience Austrian resorts prepare their pistes very well whereas some French resorts prefer "nature" runs for the more difficult pistes, ie lots of moguls. Steepish corduroy is less scary than slightly less steep bumps.
We love Westendorf and Skiwelt generally for vast areas of cruisy runs with lots of variety and lots of huts and stops. the whole place is set up around interesting piste itineraries, mountain prices are lower than France and people are generally very friendly. Similar large linked areas around Tirol seem to be much the same (Ski Amade, Zillertal, Skicircus etc)
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Brenta Dolomites (Folgarida-Madonna di Campiglio-Marilleva). Easy.
Wide, cruisey, blasty reds all over the place (plus plenty of blues and the odd decent black) and never seems overly busy. Good sense of travel, good variety, great food, not overly expensive, great attitude towards money-spending tourists  . Been twice and would definitely go again.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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Schladming has some wonderful routes across the 4 mountains between Pichl and Haus in Enns. You can easily stick to reds and blues to do it and never use a drag lift unless you really want to!  The Ski Amadé area stretching between St Johann in Pongau (starting at the outlying area of Alpendorf) and Flachau offers masses of choice in terms of reds and blue cruising with a superb modern fast lift system. Another smashing area to go to is the Hochkönig area (Maria alm, Dienten and Mühlbach) which lies between Bischofshofen and Saalfelden in Salzburgerland. Also the nearby areas of Saalbach-Hinterglemm-Leogang are a red-run cruisers paradise. All these areas are within an hours transfer from Salzburg Airport with excellent public transport links as well as competiviely priced taxi transfers.
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mildy, off the top of my head (and places I've been to...)
France - La Plagne, Les Arcs, La Rosiere
Austria - Lech, Zurs
Italy - Sella Ronda
Last edited by You'll need to Register first of course. on Wed 6-11-13 14:22; edited 1 time in total
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mildy, La Plagne or Flaine in France. Livigno in Italy
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La Rosiere with the link to La Thuile is another possibility.
Definitely agree with La Plagne (stay in Belle Plagne).
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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mildy, Espace San Bernardo, La Rosiere in France and La Thuile in Italy would suit you, lots of red runs that wide and long, the Italian pistes are especially well groomed and you get the bonus of some of the best scenary in the Alps.
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| Ivor Shed wrote: |
| mildy, Espace San Bernardo, La Rosiere in France and La Thuile in Italy would suit you, lots of red runs that wide and long, the Italian pistes are especially well groomed and you get the bonus of some of the best scenary in the Alps. |
Though you have to enjoy long windswept drag lifts to get between the two.
I agree they are pretty good for the skiing requested but not everyone enjoys the drags.
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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Les Arcs - huge choice of runs to cruise on, particularly the quieter ones above Vallandry and Arc 1600
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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I would ignore the colours - once you start to ski in the same place year after year it's amazing which runs magically change colour despite no obvious re-profiling of the run.
For example, Creux in Courchevel has just been turned into a Blue this year (from a red) - which is undoubtedly a marketing ploy to make people think that there are "easy" ways off the top of Saulire.
For what it's worth, the group I often holiday with have really enjoyed La Plagne in the past as a resort that suits everyone with an abundance of blues and reds.
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Great, will make a note of all the suggestions for my search!
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You know it makes sense.
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I'd also add Via lattea area in Italy/France (Sestriere, Sauze d'oulx, Claviere, Montgenevre). Lots of fairly empty, wide cruisy pistes, nice mountain huts serving tasty Italian fare, villages range from ghostly quiet to moderately lively.
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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La Plagne was great for cruising around on blues (some of which are hideously flat and some are surprisingly steep). However, there aren't all that many "easy" reds. Les Sources (I hope I got that name right) and Inversens are quite nice cruisy reds, but many of the others are pretty vicious (Kamikaze, Harikiri, the 2 runs down into Champney, Combe).
On the other hand, the 3V seems to be overrun with fairly cruisy red runs
(Disclaimer: It's possible my skiing had improved between visiting La Plagne and the 3V).
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Poster: A snowHead
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Add Canazei to your list. Mostly red runs but in bowls so wide as you like and a lovely windy red back to town. Plenty more available around the Sella Ronda (with the added variety of the glacier, tree lined runs and wide motorway styles), which is easily accessible from here. Also some nice reds down the Val di Fassa, a 10 min free bus ride away.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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magicrichard, Creux now blue? Some years since I've been there but my recollection was it was a pretty decent red. Not a good run for a blue slope skier as reasonably steep and sustainedly so. Courchevel gonna be the new Val d'Isere?
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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| mildy wrote: |
Hi all,
I am welcoming any suggestions/opinions on which European Resorts would be good to choose for ski hol this coming season. The main criteria being that I easily get "the fear" on French Red Runs when Im tired and cold, or just generally. So I prefer less busy or more wide ones where I can stop for a quick rest or pick my route to one side whilst nutters hurtle past me.
Can anyone put their two penneth in on resorts I may like? I have been to Morzine/Les Gets/Avoriaz twice and love the variety of runs & can handle the steepness of the reds. I hear that Austrian resorts are steeper when categorizing reds?
Great thanks in advance!! |
Back to OP: from description above, should you not be asking for advice re resorts with nice blue runs?
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Cervinia. Home of the easy cruising motorway red.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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mildy, Les Arcs has lots of more cruisy reds and quite a few blues that should perhaps be reds, but are blues because they are wide. I have found the differences huge between resorts and how they rate their runs.
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You'll need to Register first of course.
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A quick hijack. How would those experienced bods on here rank the blues/reds in Tignes compared to other resorts? Easier/harder than others in France or Andorra?
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How long have you been skiing for mildy, I'd avoid La Rosiere if you've had a few weeks under your belt you might find it limited and I didn't find the lift system to be great relative to other places I've skied.
Cervinia is a good shout, to me the definition of cruisey runs. Sella Ronda is a good suggestion too, but it can get busy in places. La Plange has plenty of blues but some of the reds are pretty steep and challenging as someone else mentioned. I think the connected resort of Les Arc would be the better resort for what you're looking for. I like allot of the resorts in the Aosta valley but with the exception of Cervinia if you like a large resort with a sense of travel they're relatively limited. Pila is one that I find ideally suited to intermediates.
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jellybabe, I think blues/ reds in Tignes definitely harder than the equivalents in most other resorts (though Val d'Isere even harder)
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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mildy, sounds like you might also want to think about avoiding busy weeks too. For my twopence worth how about Les Contamines in France or Cervinia in Italy, but plenty of good suggestions above.
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Peanuthead - thank you, at least it wasn't my imagination. The first green the kids went down seemed more like a red in Andorra to me. I thought it was just me! Trying to plan various trips (I've only skied 9 days total) and am a slow learner. So excited I can't stop looking at webcams and surfing ski sites.
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