Ah Courchevel or lots of other places with Skis!
Yes that’s true 
I am getting a price for 212 Euro a night double occupancy 1/2 board At a Thermal Sauna Hotel. I put in for Monday 19 Dec through the 21 Wed night.
I have to check on the snow conditions that time of year.
That dosent seem too bad.
Peter wrote:
In fact I doubt many (or any?) people do a fly to ski as a day trip, despite claims, because the days are short in the winter and you have to climb out of the place in daylight.
Done many over the years but the most challenging part is often the landing back at home. It is night, it is winter and quite often the Alps have great sunshine while Germany north of them has got bad weather. Key is to stop skiing while still in good shape and rather have a snack instead of the last run to preserve human performance as you have to nail that night IFR landing at home later on.
Wisely spoken Sebastian.
My problem is my airport is Day VFR which means unless its March skiing the day of departure is not probably possible.
Peter wrote:
Otherwise, crazy 2-4 hour transits are common in skiing, with (IIRC) Wengen/Grindelwald leading the market at 4 trains each wayYou have to be fair on Aosta too, where there is no public transportation towards Cervinia or La Thuile. If you would take a taxi from Bern Airport towards Grindelwald, you would be much faster. Aosta-Cervinia or Bern-Grindelwald are both 1 hour by car/taxi.
Thank you.
The Aosta – Cervinia (or presumably Aosta – Le Thuile) taxi is about €110, which most would regard as reasonable, relatively.
Sion seems a great location in terms of the number of ski resorts but for some reason always proved to be a problem. I think it’s a combination of not much intermediate skiing (CH is largely “advanced skier” territory) and accommodation.
Also UK pilots need customs+immigration; in the winter the extra time wasted on a stop somewhere eats a chunk out of the day. And same going back.
Yes, Switzerland is indeed more a place for advanced skiers, but there are some good places with lots of blue slopes too. Zweisimmen-Gstaad for example, which is great for beginners as well. The typical Swiss atmosphere makes it a unique experience. Crans-Montana has some nice slopes for beginners too, but it’s a very expensive place and not that great compared to 4 Vallées, Val d’Anniviers, Saas Fee or Zermatt.
Sion is a full international airport, including both customs and immigration during opening hours. It’s actually one of the cheapest Swiss airfields, especially for international arrivals and/or departures. Saanen and Buochs offer customs and immigration too, but only PPR, and they let you well pay for it.
Did a ski trip to Zermatt last season, flying into Sion. The taxi one way is going to set you back at least 400 CHF. Car rental is not less expensive if you stay more then a couple of days. Didn’t look at public transport. Taxi rides are extremly expensive in CH.
Taxis costing 300-400 are actually the norm, and loads of people travel as a group of 3-4 and get a big taxi and spread the cost. Unfortunately that is not likely to work for a fly to ski; we can just about sync arrivals for tomorrow’s meetup at LFAT
Ski transport is a mega hassle scene. In most cases the only anywhere near economical transfers are via shuttle buses (which are ~1/3 of a taxi cost if you ski alone) but they run almost entirely weekends-only. I once got one mid-week (Corvara); he didn’t turn up, and I had an interesting experience with Italians trains, and a €250 taxi at the end Hence nearly everybody does this stuff weekend to weekend. But most people won’t do a fly to ski like that because the chances of getting a sync with wx is minimal.
I’ve flown the TB20 to Sion. It’s beautiful there. But ski-wise, as Frans suggests above, the locations are a mixed bag unless you are a good skier, and of course all Swiss (in fact most “Germanic” countries near the Alps) are great skiers. And for great skiers everything is easy. You can ski at 4pm when the slopes are completely trashed. And everywhere you find “baby slopes” which make everybody say that every location is fine for beginners (read the hundreds of posts in this thread for example) but as I found out that is not the reality, because once you can even half ski you don’t want to be on a baby slope with babies all over it In fact you don’t want to be on any slope with small children on it. You want somewhere with really well groomed wide runs, like this (Cervinia – nobody does it as well as the Italians)
and not like this (Wengen, 5m wide and narrowing to 3m in places)
Of course the above were chosen to make my point (as a beginner/intermediate blue/red skier) but by the time you are paying thousands and going to huge hassle, you want some level of predictability. That’s why most “airline skiers” keep going back to the same place every winter. They book the hotels a year ahead! For a fly to ski to work, you need a super location, super flexibility, and 10 other things.
Crans-Montana and others came up here before a lot but I’ve never heard of Zweisimmen-Gstaad. I would not go back to Zermatt (to ski) even if somebody paid for it
Peter wrote:
There are exceptions e.g. St Johann (where someone claimed you could just walk) and Zell am See (a very short taxi; I did that in 2016).
No taxi needed in Zell am See either. From the airport to the Areit ski lift, it’s about a kilometer.
As a day trip, it’s not feasible for me from the North of Germany, but I’ve done this as a weekend trip, starting Saturday morning and returning Sunday evening.
