Often we can find ourselves on a luxury ski holiday just sticking to the pistes, where we feel safe and comfortable. And while we have already brought you a list of the Top 5 Off-Piste Experiences, you might be wondering what other ways you can broaden your horizons when on two planks. In this entry to the Ultimate Ski Bucket List, following on from the Top Nightclubs in Ski Resorts, we turn our eyes back to ski adventures. We’ll look at 5 of the best ski experiences, activities that will push you out of your comfort zone, improve your skiing, and most importantly, help you look like one of the best skiers on the mountain.
Skiing is ultimately about having fun, and while each of these ski experiences have some challenges to entry, they are all sure to help deliver amazing experiences with memories to last a lifetime. Read on to discover new skiing activities for your next luxury ski holiday to the Alps. I promise they will enhance both your skiing and your holiday…
An ultimate luxury ski experience for the ultimate luxury clientele. Heliskiing is a luxury ski experience like no other. With heli skiing you don’t need to worry about ski passes or lift queues. You’ll be treated to a wondrous helicopter flight past breathtaking mountain backdrops, before being deposited at the top of a mountain. Then you have entire slopes of fluffy, untouched powder to enjoy on your way back to the helicopter, which will pick you up and let you enjoy this ski experience all over again.
It should be noted, you’re not left completely to your own devices. Ski guides will be there to mitigate risks with choice of slopes and areas to ski in. And the helicopter will land before you get skiing. There will be no recreating the scene from The World Is Not Enough where James Bond drops in from a hovering helicopter onto the snow. As far as ski experiences go, heliskiing is as close to feeling like James Bond as you can get. With the added bonus of being free of a henchmen shooting at you while you ski.
Heliskiing in Europe does come with some limitations. You don’t have carte blanche to hop in a chopper and head off to any mountain you like. The best places for heliskiing in the Alps are Switzerland and Italy. In glamorous ski resorts like Verbier, Zermatt and Cortina, you have a wide variety of options for heliskiing. In Switzerland, you can fly past iconic peaks towering over 4,000m to make fresh lines through the snow. Whilst Cortina and the Dolomites offer stark landscapes of shear cliffs and snowy forests. Not a simple choice to make for your next luxury ski holiday.
With heliskiing in Austria, you are a bit more restricted. There is only one place you can go heliskiing in Austria and that is in the Arlberg. Fortunately, the Arlberg is home to some of the best ultimate luxury chalets in Lech, which is the perfect base for some heliskiing adventures.
Heliskiing in France is actually banned. But that doesn’t mean you will miss out on this pinnacle of ski experiences when on a luxury ski holiday to France. From resorts in the Tarentaise, heliski operators will fly you over to Italy to experience dreamy untouched powder. Evolution2 are based in La Rosière, but will fly you from ski resorts like Tignes, Val d’Isère, Courchevel and Méribel. Heliski operators in the Portes du Soleil and Chamonix Valley will likely take you into Switzerland instead.
Some ultimate luxury chalets, such as Chalet Fenice in Cervinia, Chalet Mont Blanc in Megève, and Le Chalet Mont Blanc in Chamonix even feature their own helipad.
If you want to earn those turns through fields of fresh powder, in place of the swift transportation of a helicopter flight, ski touring might be best suited for you instead. Ski touring is one of those ski experiences where the reward is what you make of it. Using special ski equipment designed for ski touring, you put what are known as “skins” to the bottom of your skis, to help prevent sliding. During the touring part of ski touring, your rear bindings are either not attached or fixed to the ski, allowing your heal to release, making it easier to walk uphill. You can fix the rear bindings down again for alpine skiing once you go back downhill. This a popular choice as most people are not expert telemark skiers, particularly through deep snow. Although telemark skiing is an appealing option if you have the ability. In resort, any good ski shop should be able to sort out the specialist equipment for ski touring holidays, including necessary avalanche gear.
While you might think that alpine skiing is all about heading downhill, ski touring is a ski experience that will certainly change your perspective. Athleticism is key to this ski experience. You are likely to be walking up hundreds of metres of elevation, at altitude, on any given day of touring. Ski guides are highly recommended, as they will have the best knowledge of tours for you and your group’s ability and experience. Ski touring doesn’t require the need for a lift pass, although you can utilise lifts to reach some routes and avoid too much of the touring aspect before gliding back down through off-piste powder. It’s a particularly special experience at sunrise.
Places like Chamonix and Megève can offer you incredible routes, with the stunning Mont Blanc Massif scenery surrounding your ski adventures. On the other hand, Val d’Isère offers you some of the best lift-accessed off-piste skiing in the Alps, if not the world. This means there are plenty of amazing tours to enjoy on the fringes of the Vanoise National Park.
For the ultimate challenges, ski touring in Switzerland is probably your best option. One of the most famous ski tours in the world, the Haute Route, takes you from Chamonix in France to Zermatt in Switzerland. An epic 6-day tour through backcountry wilderness and a must for the ski bucket list. Similarly, there are incredible tours past some of the highest peaks in the Alps in getting from Zermatt to Saas-Fee.
Of course, ski touring is one of those ski experiences that can be had wherever you go. Ski touring in the Austrian and Italian Alps are equally incredible experiences. Walking uphill with mesmerising mountain peaks as far as the eye can see, before floating over fluffy fields of glistening powder; it’s an unbeatable ski experience like few others.
Bumps, or moguls, can be the bane of any skier’s day. You may see them on the piste as mounds of powder that form towards the end of the day. But true moguls are mostly found off-piste or on marked itineraries. Mogul skiing has a high level of difficulty to it. Diving right in and taking them on without any idea as to your tactics is not the best course of action. While there are many awesome things to see and do on the mountain, you don’t get many ski experiences better than truly nailing a tricky field of moguls in front of a watching crowd.
If you want to impress all your friends, or even just strangers on the chairlift, there’s nothing I’d personally recommend more than taking a moguls skiing masterclass. Once you’re confident with skiing about the mountain, you may think you no longer need a ski instructor. But hiring one for the purpose of teaching you how to ski bumps could be one of the best parts of your ski holiday.
Like any new skill, it’s unlikely to happen overnight. This ski experience will test your fitness to your limits. I’ve personally dedicated hundreds of hours of my life to improving my bumps skiing. Everything from quick feet rotation drills on the piste, skiing ridge lines between piste markers and rut lines off-piste. I’ve learned about different lines and tactics in the moguls, and skiing run after run of bumps until my legs feel like they’re going to fall off. And I know I still have a lot of improvements still to make. But the reward when it finally starts to come together is ultimately worth it.
Moguls of one kind or another end up forming in almost every ski resort. If you want the best variety, you’re going to want to go to resorts with the largest ski areas. Luxury resorts like Val d’Isère, Zermatt, Verbier, and any resort in the Three Valleys all benefit from sizeable ski areas of hundreds of kilometres, meaning you will find moguls of all sizes on differing gradients of slope on which to practice. Additionally, the Portes du Soleil is another of the largest ski areas, where you will find one of the most renowned runs in the world with the infamous Swiss Wall. Some of these top tips for skiing the Swiss Wall can be applied to any types of bump skiing.
Another ski experience involving moguls can be watching the best in the world. The Boss des Bosses event is an annual inter-resort competition for bumps skiers, whose most recent edition was in Verbier.
Ski racing is another ski experience that deserves a mention. You may have seen it on TV, the likes of Mikaela Shiffrin delivering a technical masterclass through slalom and giant slalom courses. Or the famous Hahnenkamm in Kitzbühel, the men’s downhill on the Streif. In fact, being a spectator at one of these events made it into a previous entry of the bucket list series, for best non-skiing mountain activities. However, not only watching, but taking part in the exhilaration of racing through a course in the fastest time possible is one of those ski experiences worth having.
Skiing down through a set of gates might seem like a simple task. But one thing we often take for granted on the slopes is the luxury of choosing where we turn. Being forced to make a turn when it’s not comfortable is something that does wonders for many aspects of skiing. Everything from balance and positioning to timing and tactics on the slopes get challenged when ski racing. And best of all, especially as you work your way through giant slalom gates, the adrenaline is unmatched.
Skiing a good slalom or giant slalom run requires a high-level of technical skill. Whilst skiing Super-G or downhill takes a large amount of bravery. Or foolishness, depending on your outlook. There’s good reason why Alberto Tomba, one of the most technically gifted Alpine skiers of all time, never raced downhill.
You may be thinking that it might sound like one of the most exciting ski experiences, but how accessible is ski racing? Often when pistes are closed for racing, it is for race clubs or events, and not open to the general public. But truthfully, with a bit of research, you can find courses to race all over the place. Lots of resorts have “stade” pistes, designed to set gates up on. On some days of the week they might set up a course open to the public for a nominal fee. Similarly, there are plenty of courses set up along the side of runs. You can make your way down with your friends and receive a time for your run.
Additionally, some resorts will have open race days to members of the public. Val d’Isère, for example, sets up an open event down the red run into La Daille most weeks. If you want to go all in and experience a week-long race camp, you would be best in a glacier resort. For example, up the Theodul Glacier at the very start of the season. It might also be the best time for some good deals on luxury chalets in Zermatt or Cervinia too!
The snow park can undoubtedly be a daunting prospect. From park features you’re unsure how to tackle, to kickers that send you higher than any natural cliff drop. It can certainly be a nerve-wracking ski experience heading into the snow park for the first time. I’ve already delved before into the psychological aspect of conquering nerves on the piste. But what about conquering nerves in the park? Especially when the risk of injury is so much higher?
The best advice is to start small. Snow parks will often identify the easier features, in the same way that they colour-grade runs on the piste. This will give you the best chance to build confidence on easier jumps before you work up to harder routes. Once you do, you’ll soon recognise how heading to the snow park is one of the best ski experiences you can have.
There’s something about the joy you get flying through the air on skis after sending it off a big jump. Then watching yourself back on video and realising it was a lot less time than it felt in your head. And that’s before you start to bring in tricks to the mix. We wouldn’t recommend going for a backflip without prior experience. But crash mats and airbags exist to help you get to that point. As do specialist freestyle ski schools who’ll take you from bunny hops to backflips in no time.
Maybe your daredevil days are past you. Or you have a family with young kids not quite ready to send off into the snow park yet. Thankfully, this doesn’t have to be one of those ski experiences limited to the most athletic of us. Plenty of resorts feature fun parks with more forgiving features and elements for all to enjoy. The Stash in Avoriaz, for example, is an eco-friendly snowpark for skiers and snowboarders. It has the accompanying Lil’Stash, a fun forest ski adventure for children.
Similarly, there are other ski experiences out there to replicate the fun and excitement of heading to the snow park. Pond skim events are an increasingly popular pastime for late spring skiers. Here, you get to mix on-the-snow gliding with water-skiing as you slide over pools of water. Pond skims can be an immense amount of fun, and tricks are heavily encouraged. Just be prepared to take a swim when things don’t go to plan.
Another fantastic way to replicate the ski experience of the snowpark is through bungee jumps. The Tignes Bun J Ride lets you fly off a ski jump of 30m, with bungee cords to safely catch you before you reach the ground.
Hopefully this entry in the Bucket List series has given you some more inspiration for your next luxury ski holiday. If you want more information on any of the ski experiences mentioned, or need an idea of which resort or chalets to stay in on your next ultimate luxury ski holiday, simply speak to one of our Ski Specialists. Either give us a call on +44 1202 203653, or send us an email.
Blue Skies Lifestyle Ltd, established in 2005, is an online luxury ski holiday agent that specialises in finding clients the perfect luxury ski chalet in France, Switzerland, Austria and Italy. We feature an extensive portfolio of luxury chalet accommodation and luxury ski hotels that are ideal for group and family luxury ski holidays.
