Where to Ski And Snowboard -

Decent skiing in sunny Valais

6th February 2011, by Chris Gill

Riederalp in the Aletsch Arena on Saturday morning

This is the fourth evening of my Swiss trip, and my first blog. Site editor King isn’t going to be pleased. And now we’re in a cute little resort where the wifi facilities are a bit flakey, so I have struggled a bit to post this. C’est la vie.

To business. First things first. Sorry, no: there is no sign of new snow. Since our arrival in Valais on Thursday, the sky has been more or less pure blue, and this morning’s forecast is for more of the same until at least next Thursday, 10 February. These resorts have had no significant snowfall since Christmas. Nevertheless, we had good piste skiing in Crans-Montana, and even a worthwhile off-piste expedition – more on this later. And here in Riederalp, part of the Aletsch Arena area, conditions are distinctly better - excellent in places; I guess they got a bigger dump in December.

Of course, sunshine rather than snow quality is what brings people to south-facing Crans-Montana; glitzy Crans, in particular,  attracts more Gucci-clad Milanese than GoreTex-wearing Mancunians. But it has another side - a proud racing heritage; the junior world Alpine championships have occupied the famous Nationale piste for the last week.

We’re doing this tour by train. As keen readers of this site may recall, I’m not a registered fan of rail travel to the Alps. Let me know when I can get on a TGV at Bath Spa and get off in Bourg St Maurice or Martigny. Until then, EasyJet from Bristol or Swiss from Heathrow look likely to remain my favoured means of travel.

But what about travel around the Alps rather than travel to them? In particular, what about travel around Switzerland, where the great majority of resorts can be reached by train. Well, so far so good. We had a poor connection in Brig yesterday on the way from Sierre to Morel, and the 10-minute ride from Brig was short of luggage space, but otherwise we’ve quite enjoyed our travels. Mind you, we’re not carrying skis but renting them in each resort.

The Aletsch Arena area has been something of a revelation. I’m hoping for fewer infants on the slopes after the weekend, but in other respects the day was excellent. Views across the Valais to the Matterhorn are fab, and the famously long Aletsch glacier can be admired from three or four spots on the ridge that separates it from the slopes. Next stop Zermatt, where I expect world-class wifi along with world-class everything else. 

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