New Ski Lifts for the New Ski Season.
Love Lifts Us Up Where We Belong.
pop quiz: the lyric above is from what song and artist? clue: featuring Dick in his ‘ski’ Gere (sic).
The quest of ski resorts to make themselves bigger and bigger by building new ski lifts and links to their neighbours goes on unabated.
That said, Christoph Schrahe has a lot to answer for. He seems to have thrown every ski resort on Earth into a bit of a spin by comparing their published length of pistes to his own measurements on the ground.
If you’ve read the reports you’ll have seen that some ski resorts ‘fess up whilst some resorts squirm and claim a different method of calculation. And, would you believe it, some were even accurate.
For the 2013-2014 ski season some of the new ski lifts I’ve read about include:
Lech >> Warth-Schrocken
Ski Alberg, which includes St Anton, Austria has become a 340km ski area. This makes it an even bigger draw for off-piste freeskiers – powder heaven, thanks to the new Auenfeldjet link.
Lenzerheide >> Arosa
Lenzerheide is a high altitude resort in Graubunden, Switzerland. This link creates 225km of piste in an effort to attract many more skiers. Lenzerheide becomes part of one of Switzerland’s 10 biggest ski areas.
Grimentz >> Zinal
Skiers were slow to discover the old fashioned and charming ski area of Val d’Anniviers in Switzerland, that was until the 3.6km cable car, capable of carrying 825 skiers an hour, opened. It created 105km of groomed piste, plenty of off-piste and freeride routes.
St Johann in Pongau >> Waldring/Flachau
Snow Space Salzburg has replaced two old ski lifts in St Johann and upgraded the infrastructure to take full advantage of the impressive G-link, Wagrain. St Johann’s 120km of piste is now connected on the snow to Ski Amade in Austria’s South Tirol.
Folgaria >> Fiorentini
Alpe Cimbra has built three new lifts, this will see the reopening of Fiorentini in Italy. As a consequence, the piste map will have five new piste runs added to the 100km of pisted ski area.
Mont-Saint-Anne >>
Skiers in Quebec, Canada will have access to the whole mountain thanks to a faster, longer lift which creates a much larger ski area.
Ischgl >>
Skiers will be able to explore previously untouched parts of the mountains of Ischgl thanks to a new 2.5km lift that will take 5.5 minutes. It provides a new red run as well as access to a freeride deep powder slope and fabulous views of the surrounding peaks.
Just a Sample of New Ski Lifts being Built.
All over the World, operators are building faster and bigger lifts to replace older infrastructure. Snow lovers can take advantage of new ski passes many of which cover more than one ski resort. New ski passes are being introduced thanks to co-operation between neighbouring ski resorts. But these are different stories.
