SKI WITH SUNWEB

With all of us feeling the pinch … but needing our seasonal snow fix in the mountains, ski holiday specialists Sunweb have raised their game even higher when it comes to offering the best value in ski holidays. The company offers a vast choice of destinations, and one top tip for paying less but still enjoying a first-class ski holiday is to opt for a less well-known ski resort and try to avoid peak periods. Do that and Sunweb offer prices as low as £150pp for a week in a self-catering apartment … and that’s including your lift pass! If you want to splash out and live it up a little, their 4★ equivalent options start from just £300pp a week. Sunweb give you the opportunity to book all or part of your ski holiday, although typically if you do book the whole package through them you’ll save the most money overall. In all cases your lift pass is included in the price. Flexible departure periods are available which allow you to design your trip your way. Sunweb offer ski holidays departing the UK on any day of the week with durations from three to seven nights. You may even find you save so much you can afford a second (or third?) trip! Sunweb are so confident that they’ll offer you the lowest prices when you’re doing that ski holiday search they even have a lowest-price guarantee if you find it cheaper.

NEW PODCAST EPISODES EVERY WEEK

GIACOMO BUZIO TRAIN WITH AN OLYMPIAN Two-time Olympic gold medallist and five-time World Alpine Ski Champion Ted Ligety has partnered with Carv, the world’s first training system that measures skiing in real time via sensors in your ski boot that work wherever you’re skiing. Together, they have developed a

Tnew programme called “Train with an Olympian”, designed to help skiers of every level transform their technique, with personalised coaching from Ligety along HE W the way. The digital coaching programme will share secrets of the perfect ski turn.HITE OUT

YOUR ULTIMATE GUIDE TO SKIING

PEAK OF TASTE

Courmayeur Mont Blanc is welcoming the return of their renowned culinary events this winter, to complement their high-end ski offering. The famous Italian ski centre is hosting its delicious culinary month, Peak of Taste, in March. More than 10 culinary events will take place across the gastronomic resort, and Courmayeur is inviting guests to meet and eat at altitude with some of the most prolific chefs in the region.

SNOW RACE IN DESERT

Twenty years ago, there were no snow slopes in the desert, but following the ratification of the desert kingdom of the United Arab Emirates as an Associate Member of the International Ski & Snowboard Federation (FIS), Ski Dubai has now hosted its first FIS-accredited international ski competitions with initial events including the UAE FIS National Alpine Championships and the Para Alpine Asia Cup.

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IGLOO VILLAGES BEING BUILT

Iglu-Dorf, the company that runs igloo villages you can stay in above five ski villages, is currently building its accommodation for 2022/23 with the themes of “Deep in the Forest” for Zermatt, “Fairytale Forest” for Davos Klosters, “Contemporary Art” for Gstaad, “Elements of Arts” at Kühtai near Innsbruck and the “Magic of Birds” for the Zugspitze above Garmisch in Germany. Most igloo villages open on Christmas Day this year and stay open to Easter. They always book up quickly, with weekends in particular selling out fast. This year there’s a new extra attraction, the Mystery Igloo at Gstaad, where visitors aim to solve a number of cool winter puzzles as a team, working against the clock to piece together the clues and solve the mystery. You have just 45 minutes to find lost Myrddin!

RUGGLI PETER MAIER

LAAX OPEN ADDS FREESKIING

Europe's most prestigious snowboard contest, the Laax Open, will open its doors to freeskiing this winter. Taking place at 2,252m above sea level, the contest will see 300 riders from all over the world compete at the FIS World Cup from 1822 January 2023. “Laax committed to freesking early, hosting the European Freeski Open from 2006-2011 and 20142016, so it was natural to include them in the Laax Open,” explains event director Donald Nader.

PEAK DESIGNATED FOR TOURERS

Ski touring is the trend for 2023. SalzburgerLand region’s Ski amadé resorts have opened 28 designated touring routes allowing guests to safely navigate a beautiful peaceful ascent to a point from where they can choose a thrilling on- or off-piste descent. Zell-am-See-Kaprun has named Ronachkopf its first ski-touring mountain and launched marked ascents on the Kitzsteinhorn Glacier. Fuschlsee, Obertauern and the Salzburger Saalachtal areas have instructor trails for initiation.

WORLD’S ONLY RENTAL APP

British ski tech brand Alto.Ski has partnered with Skiset to create, they say, the world’s only app where you can rent skis across Europe directly from your phone. Alto.Ski already has a pay-as-yougo ski pass function but is building more services so skiers have a one-stop-shop for all their needs, from accommodation to insurance, rental to lift passes. Skiset has over 500 stores across Europe offering rental at the very best rates.

Alto.Ski

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PAR DRY SLOPE APPROVED

A long-planned dry ski slope project at Par near St Austell, Cornwall, has been given the green light by local councillors. The plans for the dry ski slope, to be called the Altitude Snow Park, were first announced in 2018, but the landowners since had to solve multiple planning issues before finally getting the go-ahead to start construction. Dubbed “the biggest ski and snowboard slope in the South West“ the centre will feature beginner, intermediate and advanced-level runs. Delays have included the need for archaeological surveys of the site, and there have been a number of revisions made to the original plans to gain approval. Altitude Snow Park will be the first in Cornwall and will be built at a time when the number of dry slopes in England is on a gradual decline.

OLD SKI LIFT RE-BORN

Despite the current popularity of ski touring, with people hiking up slopes to earn their turns, human beings have been looking for mechanised ways to get up the slopes almost as soon as they learned to ski down them. One of the earliest forms of lift, before the first cables pulled T-bars and Poma lifts, was the sledge tow – essentially a big sledge yanked uphill by a cable. This type of lift has all but disappeared, but Notre-Dame-de-Bellecombe in the Val d’Arly region of the French Alps, between the Aravis, has recently restored a cable-drawn sled that first operated on Christmas Day, 1937, and ran until 1948 when it was replaced by a drag lift. Now totally restored, you can once again use the sled in the centre of the resort.

VAL GARDENA’S NEW PISTES

Skiers arriving at the famous Italian resort of Val Gardena this winter will find two new ski runs waiting for them, including a new black piste. The new “La Ria” black run begins at the top station of the Dantercepies cable car and drops down the mountainside with a maximum incline of 52% and 310m of vertical drop. The other new trail, Pilat, was formerly an off-piste route through a rocky forest from the Seiser Alm to Ortisei but has now been carefully prepared and developed to become a spectacular downhill slope cutting through woodland. The trail features plenty of bends and turns over its 4,760m length, dropping 778 vertical metres and offering unique views over the entirety of Val Gardena.