UFO Info Week-End

Those who care to take the risk will be rewarded by a big broad and beautiful ski area interestingly split into several sectors with

Those who care to take the risk will be rewarded by a big, broad and beautiful ski area, interestingly split into several sectors, with some very long top-to-bottom runs when conditions allow. The only flaw is that the low altitude (675m) means unpredictable weather and snow conditions on the lower slopes.Flims-Laax, SwitzerlandLike Crans-Montana, Flims-Laax presents a problem for holiday-makers booking well in advance: its skiing is roughly south-facing, making snow conditions vulnerable to the sun in high season and later. And at present you get a bonus: an exchange rate that makes prices on the spot attractively low.The skiing here is what locals might call “awesome” – long runs of every standard through forests to the villages, topped by wide-open bowl skiing above the tree-line, including some famously challenging chutes. You still get the usual North American benefits of comfortable, spacious accommodation (in tastefully purpose-built villages) and high standards of service. With a vertical drop of 1,600m, it is North America’s biggest ski area, and the scenery has the drama that many Europeans miss in the American Rockies. But in total there is a lot of skiing to be done – the nursery slopes and progression slopes are among the best you could hope to find.Crans-Montana, SwitzerlandCrans-Montana is a deeply unfashionable resort with no mountain-village atmosphere. And its skiing has an important drawback: it faces directly south, which makes it even less reliable for snow than other resorts.

So it’s a place for a mid-winter holiday (before the sun gets too strong), to be booked at short notice.Why go at all? Well, the ski area is an extensive and appealing one for intermediates who like mountain scenery – the views across the Valais are superb – and the run from the top of the skiing at Plaine Morte is spectacular. What’s more, this winter the old queue-prone cable-car serving it will be replaced by a new super-gondola, so you’ll be able to ski it more than twice a day. Nursery slopes and cross-country trails are excellent, too.Whistler, CanadaThe appeal of Whistler – or, to be strictly accurate, Whistler-Blackcomb (the combination of two adjacent but separately run resorts) – is that it approximates to a major European resort. Skiing is something you do at a relaxed pace, not worrying about the lack of connections between the several sectors. (The lift pass, for example, works out at about pounds 90 a week, which is well below what you can expect to pay in Austria, France or Switzerland.)Cortina is a complete winter resort, with plenty to do off the slopes, from ice-skating, curling and riding to serious shopping (this is fur- coat country, and no mistake).

With the rest of the Alps getting more and more expensive, even the most fashionable resort in Italy will seem good value this year. Although these villages all look messy (or worse) from the road – and from the ski area – they all have attractive old quarters with the traditional, modest hotels and atmospheric restaurants that you expect to find in other parts of France.Cortina, ItalyCortina is not everyone’s cup of tea: super-keen piste-bashers, in particular, should stay away. But if you like the idea of long lunches gazing at some of the most stupendous mountain scenery in Europe, put it on the shortlist. Along its foot runs a road linking a long series of villages, from Briancon in the east (a sizeable crossroads town), through Chantemerle and Villeneuve to Monetier, and on over the Col du Lautaret to Grenoble. Such places tend to offer rather limited skiing, but Serre Chevalier is an exception – a big area spread across a north- facing mountain range, with the additional advantage of including a lot of woodland skiing, making this a great resort for bad-weather skiing.Serre Chevalier is the name of the mountain, not the resort. Genuinely easy blue runs are few, as are genuinely challenging pistes, but there is plenty of off-piste that doesn’t get skied out, as it would in more macho resorts.Serre Chevalier, FranceWith France’s big-name international resorts now looking extremely expensive, this might be a good time to try a less well-known place used mainly by the French themselves.