Tag Archives: new zealand

5 Ways to get your Summer Skiing Fix

5 ways to get that summer skiing fix

It is a long wait between ski seasons in Europe. The wait is almost bearable if you’re are a resort worker. But for most of us who can only fit in a one-week holiday, it is 51 long weeks. So what can you do to get your skiing fix during the long hot summer months?

1. Indoor and Dry Slopesindoor ski

There are 100’s of these dotted around the UK, some big and some very small. You can find a full list of slopes on the Ski Club of Great Britain web site. There will be one close to you and they should have a small range of ski hire equipment too. In fact, why you are at it, you may as well take some non-skiing friends along and try and tempt them into taking it.

If you can convince them to come on your next holiday you will benefit from amazing group discount, which is time well spent.

 

2. Water Skiing and Wakeboardingwater skiing

Admittedly it isn’t the same. For a novice, it can be a bit like spending time on a slushy drag lift and it can work out costing a lot more than a week’s skiing.  You will also get wet. But if all that doesn’t put you off then it is a great way to feel that comforting leg burn that you get after a good day hooning around the slopes.

51 THINGS TO DO UNTIL YOUR NEXT SKI HOLIDAY

3. Head Down Under

You could probably fit the whole of Australia’s and New Zealand’s ski runs into the Three Valleys or even the Meribel Valley, (not an actual fact). Sadly we don’t offer catered ski holidays there and there is a long flight to consider. But that shouldn’t put you off. The skiing is actually very good in both countries.

What more could you want from a bit of summer skiing than to be carving down Kangaroo Ridge with a tinny instead of a demis.

4. Create a Ski Holiday at Home

Catered chalet breakfast

One way to make you feel like your skiing this summer without leaving the house is to take it turns to be the chalet host. To help we have prepared a guide on how to create a ski holiday at home.

5. Find a Glacier in Europe to go skiing on this Summer

There are some wonderful glaciers that are open for skiing during the summer. You could even pop over for the weekend. Our favorite is located just down the road from our spiritual home of Meribel, in Tignes. There is also a great one in Zermatt although it will take you about an hour to get to it from the resort.

 


 

Or you could just spend the summer reading ski magazines, watching snowboarding videos and deciding which chalet you will stay in this winter.


When Will They Ban Smoking in the Alps?

When Will They Ban Smoking in the Alps?

It has been announced by a ski area in New Zealand that there will be a complete ban on smoking. The area is called the Remarkables and this is no minor ban. In order to promote healthy living the ski area has taken the step of a complete ban. This means the whole Mountain is smoke free, this includes bars, lift queues, the slopes, chairlifts and even carparks. The company that runs the ski field says that there will be no designated areas for smoking at all.
cigarette-butt-snow-winter

This is a big move, but will it ever reach the French ski resorts. I have to confess that in my younger years I was a smoker. This coincided with the early part of my ski career when I worked in the Alps. This was when smoking was still allowed in pubs bars and resturants. I have since given up smoking and I am pleased to say that it was one of the best things I have ever done.

During my time in the Alps at the beginning of the century as previously mentioned, I used to smoke. As this is an honest blog I will confess, with much embarrassment, to my smoking behaviour in ski resorts. The mild confession is that I smoked in the bars in the evening. But it really is shameful to admit that I smoked in other places too. I would smoke in lift queues, on lifts and sometimes in cable cars. I now don’t smoke, although I am not a non-smoking evangelist, I do now understand and sympathise with the non-smokers that were around me.

Back then I, naively, took the when in Rome attitude. It seemed that everyone in France smoked. I even convinced myself that the attitude in France was that where there was a sign saying No Smoking it meant smoke more. Even though my smoking was clearly misguided, I still had a respect for the environment I was in and never chucked a but from a lift or dropped one in the mountains, but that is a different issue.

So what is the future of smoking in France’s ski resorts. Will there ever be an outright ban in French ski resorts and where there are no-smoking signs in queues and on lifts, will it ever be enforced? It would be great if it was! As a decommissioned chimney myself I can see how it is an antisocial activity. Who wants to be in a beautiful mountain setting, sun on face, enjoying the view from a chair lift, when you suddenly hear, click, click, shortly followed by a waft of smoke in your face.

My guess is that we are long way from witnessing a ban in the French Alps as it has been in the Remarkables in New Zealand. I doubt we would ever see a resort wide ban as it still is a popular habit in the country. There has been a noticeable decrease in antisocial smoking in ski resorts since the smoking ban was made Law. I am not suggesting that British people don’t smoke, but we are less culturally linked to modern smoking like the French appear to be. Although let us be honest it is much better to be a non-smoker in France than in an Austrian or Swiss ski resort. In Austria, smoking is allowed in pub and bars all the time. And in many Swiss night clubs, smoking is banned until 10 pm when smoking is allowed inside as they prefer cancer caused by passive smoking to noise pollution.

It could be argued that smoking is part of the romance of a holiday in France, the image of the ski instructor with a glass of wine and pack of Gauloises is still an associated part of the zeitgeist of ski lessons, true or not. We also still imagine that all French butchers are stood around with an apron caked in blood and a cigarette hanging from their bottom lip while the ash slowly burning slowly builds up. And it is hard to imagine a coffee shop in France without an army of smokers enjoying an espresso and a Marlborough. I am sure this isn’t a very good argument for smoking and is more of a digression than an impassioned plea for it to remain.

I would like to see a better plan for the stamping out of smoking in French ski resorts and I am pleased to see that resorts in New Zealand are making a stand and leading the way. Maybe the European resorts will take notice and start to clamp down on lift smoking and other forms of antisocial smoking. I am sure there will be many people that have stronger opinions in both camps and we would encourage you to post your views below.

While we await your opinions, we will leave you with one last fact from the New Zealand ban. The resort has no plans to enforce the smoking ban with fines and simply hopes that people will respect the initiative.