Where to Ski And Snowboard - 20th anniversary edition launched

20th anniversary edition launched

9th September 2014, by Abi Butcher

The 20th edition of Where to Ski and Snowboard was launched last night

Where to Ski and Snowboard was officially launched last night — 20 years since the first edition was published.

Tour operators, ski journalists, long-standing readers and contributors, advertisers and friends gathered last night for the launch of the skier’s bible at the National Liberal Club at Whitehall Place in London. As well as celebrating our 20th birthday, we celebrated 10 years of skiers heading to CGH’s luxury residences across the French Alps. Click here to buy your copy.

Instead of our traditional “guess the resort on the cover” competition (too easy this year, everyone knew it was Val Thorens), we had eight special awards.

We wouldn’t be able to compile the same book without our readers, and over the years thousands have send us reports on their skiing trips. While we are grateful for them all, we last night honoured four long-standing supporters. Tanya Booth, who has blogged for us, sent in reports from all her trips and had 30 of her photos printed in the book, was awarded a bottle of champagne, as was Alison Biden who has won a free book for her valuable reports every year since 1994. Two oother top report filers, Guy Senior and Alan Shepherd, also won a bottle of champagne each for their incredibly valued contributions.

Editor Watts and Editor Gill then turned their attentions to the ski resorts about which Where to Ski and Snowboard is devoted. Those of you who have already bought and read our 2015 edition will know that we announced some Anniversary Alpine Awards for the most improved resorts.

Last night, representatives from Kitzbühel, Austria picked up their award for sorting out the “shockingly bad peak-season queues” reported in 1994, including the “laughable” hourly capacity of the Hahnenkamm cable car — just 380 people.

France’s most improved resort was Tignes-le-Lac, which picked up an award for turning around the “seriously inhospitable” area. Val Gardena won the award for Italy’s most improved resort, having polished Selva, Santa Cristina and Ortisei and their lift and snowmaking systems over the past 20 years.

In Switzerland, Verbier — which last night announced that it has reunited with Nendaz, Veysonnaz and Thyon to once more make up the 4 Vallées ski area — won most improved resort. In 1994 WTSS moaned at length (in a special feature panel) about the shortcomings of this popular resort: serious queues, overcrowded pistes, poor grooming, shortage of snowmaking, shortage of easy pistes, poor signposting and piste maps. “The resort has come along way since then,” reads this year’s book.

And finally, Where to Ski and Snowboard assistant editor Mandy Cook won an award for her hard work and timeless patience with Editors Watts and Gill, reader queries and dedication to the book since it launched. Mandy is leaving us over the winter season — and the whole team are incredibly sad about her departure. Mandy will be much missed.

For more details on how to buy your copy, click here.