Category: Articles

Canada
1st October 2014 / Articles /

Try cat skiing: poor man’s heli-skiing

CAT skiing is not for the faint-hearted. It doesn’t take us long to work that out.

“Avalanches occur frequently in the alpine terrain . . . staff may fail to predict whether the alpine terrain is safe for skiing. Hazards include ice and snow cornices, trees, tree wells, tree stumps, creeks, rocks, boulders, deadfalls . . .” says the yellow waiver-release form we’re handed after we clamber into our Snow Cat, a giant, tank-like contraption usually used to groom the pistes.

We look at the forms, and then at each other. “What’s a deadfall?” asks one of our group, a little nervously.

“A deadfall is basically a tree trunk that’s fallen down and is hidden under the snow — can be nine inches high round here. Let me tell you, you’ll know about it if you come across one of those,” says Glenn Noel, owner of Blomidon Cat Skiing. His company has been offering trips in Snow Cats on the Blow Me Down mountain range in Newfoundland, on the Atlantic coast of Canada, for a decade.

“But don’t worry! We won’t be going into any! Just follow me, you’ll all be fine!” We look at each other again. We look at Glenn. Glenn, 50, exudes mountain-man Canadian calm, with his goatee beard and mirror shades. He assures us that accidents are “extremely rare” and that he’ll take us to “gentle bits”. We sign on the dotted line.

And then we have one of the most exciting, varied, and downright different day’s skiing most of us can remember.

For those who haven’t heard of it — I hadn’t before staying there last March — Humber Valley Resort is a swanky (but good value) new chalet resort on the west of Newfoundland.

And “cat skiing” is a form of skiing in which you are taken to the top of an isolated mountain using a Snow Cat and then ski down again and again, using the Snow Cat as a taxi to take you to the top each time.

The great thing is that you get to explore unusual terrain, often with untouched powder snow (unfortunately, not on our visit as it was a bit icy), just like you do when you go heli-skiing — except that it costs about a third as much.

While you might expect to pay about £50 a run on heli-skiing trips, the cost of cat skiing comes to about £140 for ten runs, plus a nice picnic lunch with fresh sandwiches, salads and hot chocolate thrown in.

We chug up the mountain, which is a 40-minute drive from Marble Mountain, the main ski resort in Newfoundland, with 175 acres of “skiable terrain”; rather limited for ad- vanced and good intermediate skiers, even though there are a couple of cracking black runs.

That’s one of the reasons cat skiing has taken off — skiers round here are desperately in need of some kicks.

We soon get them. After 20 minutes we’re at the top, staring out across fantastic snow-covered peaks, with gullies and steep bits and pretty sections through small pine trees.

It feels like our own private mountain. The sense of peace and isolation is like nothing I’ve ever experienced on a ski trip. The sky is a startling cobalt blue. There’s not another soul, nor any sign of human activity, in sight.

In the distance is the grey-blue shimmer of the Bay of Islands, which connects to the Atlantic Ocean; Captain James Cook passed through these parts in 1764 on an early charting expedition.

We pause to take pictures and then we’re following Glenn down a beautiful, nice-and-easy section that takes us through a gulley and on through pine trees to where the Snow Cat is gleaming in the sun. It only takes a few minutes — and we have to be careful on the icy parts — but it’s exhilarating skiing: a wonderful feeling of taking on a mountain as the mountain actually is, not how a ski resort management team has designed it.

We go down a few more runs, the Snow Cat dutifully taxiing us upwards, chugging powerfully up incredibly steep slopes — you have to wear a seat-belt in the back cab or else you’d fly off your seat.

For lunch we stop by some pines and crash out on the snow, munching crayfish sandwiches and drinking hot chocolate. Keith, the second guide (who takes up the rear to make sure everyone is OK), tells us that “it’s pretty much impossible to get helicopters up here” because of wind from the ocean on the peaks. He’s also wearing cool mirror-shades — proper sunglasses or goggles are essential in the bright light. “When we started there were six people doing this in North America, now there are 36,” says Glenn. “But we’re the only people east of the Mississippi doing this. You can be lower intermediate to expert — we’ll set up trips to suit you. We had one of the best extreme skiers in the world here the other day: he had a ball.”

So do we. After an afternoon of what seems like fantasy skiing, on slopes you normally only see in flashy ski videos, we drive back to our flashy chalets at the Humber Valley Resort, just round the corner from Marble Mountain, feeling like Very Satisfied Skiers.

Newfoundland is a strange place to go skiing as there’s not a massive amount to try at its main resort. But if you do go — and it’s only a five-and-a-half-hour transatlantic flight from Gatwick — you’ve got to try cat skiing.

Don’t waver on the waiver form . . . give it a go.()

Need to know

Getting there: Tom Chesshyre stayed at the Humber Valley Resort (0800 4049251, www.humbervalley.com) which has three-bed chalets for a week from £569pp, flights included, based on four sharing.

Cat skiing: Blomidon Cat Skiing (001 709 783 2712, www.catskiing.net) offers seven-hour trips from £140, lunch included.

Ski passes: Marble Mountain (www.skimarble.com) has passes for £21 a day.

Ski and boot rental: £12 per day from the Marble Mountain ski shop.

Ski school: Marble Mountain has ski lessons from 8.30am-4.30pm, with passes and equipment included, for £35. Great for families.

What else to try: My Newfoundland Adventures (www.mynewfoundland.ca) offers ice climbing, snow kiting (being pulled across a frozen lake on skis by a kite) and snow-shoeing trips.

Getting about: Hertz (0870 8448844, www.hertz.co.uk) has a week’s fully inclusive four-wheel-drive car hire from £266.

Reading: The Shipping News by E. Annie Proulx (Fourth Estate, £7.99); Canada (Lonely Planet, £15.99).

Further information: Canadian Tourism Commission (0906 8715000 — 60p-a-minute brochureline, www.travelcanada.ca).

First published in The Times, January, 2007

Le Portetta
1st October 2014 / Articles /

Laid-back skiing in super-cool Courchevel

Le Portetta

Le Portetta

On the terrace, women in thermal tops with sleeves rolled up were sunbathing, drinking coffee and watching kids bundling down the tiny nursery slope. The sun beamed brightly — perhaps too brightly — as there was only a thin strip of snow on the twisting pistes; we were travelling in late March and there had been an unusually warm spell.

To the left, we could see pines and jagged rocks running up the steep face of the Dent du Villard (2,284m). It was calm. It was quiet. It was sunny. And there wasn’t a celeb around. “We don’t have them here. No Carla Bruni, no Sarkozy. They go to 1850,” said Nicolas Dumont, the director at Le Portetta, the slick sister hotel to Lime Wood, in the New Forest in Hampshire, which is, paradoxically, where so many famous faces can be spotted these days. Le Portetta is a super-cool, but also super-discreet, hotel in Courchevel 1650, whereas the bustling resort of Courchevel 1850, 200 metres up the mountain, attracts names such as Roman Abramovich, Victoria and David Beckham, and Eminem.

“You don’t get all the bling bling. You don’t get people flashing their money and trying to be the richest man of the week,” Dumont said. What you do get is a growing number of discerning skiers — including many of the in-the-know Paris set (excluding the Sarkozys) — who have stumbled upon perhaps the most charming and relaxingly stylish place to stay within the Three Valleys skiing area. While much of the world’s biggest ski area is swamped, either with Russians with roubles to blow or mass-market package tourists, Courchevel 1650 seems somehow to avoid the worst of the crowds. It feels like a secret spot, with just a handful of cosy tavernas and reasonably priced pizzerias.

Le Portetta is definitely the place to stay. Last winter, the hotel had its first season after a major refurbishment; it now has a basement spa filled with candles, a sauna, steam room and relaxation room, and offers treatments such as massages, pedicures and facials.

Almost all the walls throughout the hotel have been decked out in smart wood panels. There are open fires and more candles in the downstairs lounge, with its pale brown velvet chairs, exposed beams and antler decorations. Efficient staff in waistcoats and white shirts take orders. It’s as though you’ve entered a very posh (yet laid-back) log cabin.

And quite apart from the sheer comfort of the hotel, there’s its location, right on the slopes. Courchevel 1650 is home to some of the finest blue pistes in the Alps, suiting intermediates, and beginners on the fringe of becoming intermediates. It’s a great place to learn to ski and to get better after a first trip; it’s also excellent for children.

The best place to eat on the slopes is at the bottom of the “Pyramide” run, so named because the peak at the top is an almost perfect pyramid shape. The Bell Air outdoor café, with its picnic tables overlooking the pistes, is friendly and low-key, with reasonably-priced hot dogs and drinks — a far cry from some of the upmarket (and very over-priced) restaurants at Courchevel 1850.

Even though the snow was tricky during our visit — icy in the morning, good for a couple of hours and then slushy — the pistes were beautifully maintained. And it was fun to pop over to Courchevel 1850 every now and then, passing the mini airport with its helicopter pad for the wealthiest VIPs, to see the champagne corks in the snow, the leopard-print ski outfits and paparazzi photographers (but no celebs that we could see).

But it was even better to return to Le Portetta, to stroll around the little run of shops (with its down-to-earth grocery shops and cafés that seem to be used by locals as well as tourists), and to have an après-ski tipple in the log-cabin lounge. At sundown, all was quiet on the slopes of the Dent du Villard. The streets were almost empty. And it felt as though we (almost) had the Three Valleys to ourselves.

NEED TO KNOW

Getting there

Tom Chesshyre travelled with Original Travel (020-7978 7333, originaltravel.co.uk) which has a week’s half-board at Le Portetta in Courchevel 1650, including return flights and transfers from £1,500pp. A “loft” room, with your own kitchen, is from £1,500pp B&B, based on four sharing, with flights and transfers included. Le Portetta (00 33 479080147, leportetta.com) has half-board double rooms from £149pp.

Further information

Courchevel Tourisme (courchevel.com)

ALSO IN THE THREE VALLEYS…

Meribel You can ski through from Courchevel to Meribel, one of the most British resorts anywhere in the Alps, with a great selection of restaurants and lively nightlife. To go in style, Purple Ski (01885 488799, purpleski.com) offers La Petite Pia, a luxurious chalet sleeping eight, with four bedrooms with en suite bathrooms. A week’s half-board is from £952pp, based on two sharing. Champagne and wine is included, but not flights and transfers.

Courchevel 1850 For a taste of the Courchevel 1850 glitz without breaking the bank try Crystal Ski (0871 2312256, crystalski.co.uk), which has a week’s B&B at the two-star Hotel Olympic from £559pp, including flights and transfers. The three-star Hotel Les Tovets is from £885 for a week’s half- board, including flights and transfers.

Courchevel 1550 This resort is known for being good for families on a budget — and it is directly below Courchevel 1850, while Courchevel 1650 is tucked away to one side. Ski Power (01737 306029, skipower.co.uk) offers a week’s half -board at Hotel Chanrossa, a traditional Savoyarde chalet hotel 15m from the foot of the slopes, from £299pp. Flight and transfers included.

Le Praz At 1,300m, Le Praz has a low-key village feel, and is reached by steep intermediate and expert runs, so not the greatest for families. Ski Power (as above) offers a week’s half-board at the modern Chalet Veronique, near the lake at Le Praz, from £291pp, flights and transfers included.

La Tania This small resort, set amid wooded slopes at 1,350m, opened just before the 1992 Winter Olympics and is known for being good value and quiet. Thomson Ski (0871 9710578, thomsonski.co.uk) offers a week’s self-catering from £375pp, based on four sharing, with flights and transfers.

Val Thorens Another resort that you can reach from Courchevel, this is Europe’s highest resort at 2,300m. It’s popular with young skiers and claims to have the highest pub in Europe, The Frog and Roastbeef. Ski Europe Online (01350 728869, skieuropeonline.co.uk) offers a week’s half-board at Chalet Abricot, 25m from the pistes, from £609pp, with flights and transfers.

Orelle This small mountain village (which few people have heard of) has just 400 inhabitants, though it’s linked by cable car to the Three Valleys beneath Val Thorens. Zenith Holidays (01737 852242, zenithholidays.co.uk) offers a week’s self-catering at the Residence Le Hameau des Eaux d’Orelle from £183pp, based on four sharing and a Eurotunnel crossing.

First published in The Times, December, 2011

Loft room at La Portetta

“Loft” room at La Portetta

View from hotel

View from hotel . . . not much snow

Halfway up the mountain

Halfway up the mountain . . . still not much snow

View from the slopes at Courmayeur
1st October 2014 / Articles /

Ski Italy – for the sunnier side of the slopes

View from the slopes at Courmayeur

The view from the slopes at Courmayeur (more pictures at end of article)

Dark clouds billow on the far side of Mont Blanc — a blizzard must be settling in Chamonix. But here on the Italian side of Monte Bianco we’re bathed in sunlight. At cafés in the narrow lanes of the pretty resort of Courmayeur, fashionistas from Milan wear shades while sipping coffee and cioccolata, soaking up the rays.

It is quiet. We imagine the bustling queues for ski lifts and the swirling snow in Chamonix and Tignes, and thank our lucky stars we’re in Italy.

Courmayeur and its neighbouring resort La Thuile, both in the Aosta Valley, pride themselves on being calma than their Gallic neighbours, a 25-minute drive through the Mont Blanc tunnel. They also make a lot of their sunshine: being south of the great mountain, the resorts often enjoy brighter days.

That’s not to say there’s a shortage of snow. On the morning after our arrival, 20cm has dropped, the sun miraculously breaking through. We take a gondola from the village to the start of the main slopes (no queues) and switch to a chairlift to a far-off mountain-top, from where we are soon traversing down intermediate runs.

The scenery around Courmayeur is second to none, with jagged peaks all around, the great bulk of Monte Bianco looming large, and slopes clad with thick pine forest. The skiing is just right — for those who are not looking to be pushed to the limit on black runs. This is confidence-building territory, with wide, uncrowded, steep-enough pistes.

Courmayeur’s cool cats from Milan aren’t into rushing about too much. But they are into a good lunch. We ski down to a charming grey-stone chalet housing Château Branlant, and settle at a wooden table in an alcove near a crackling fire.

A smiling waitress delivers a selection of starters for our group of five friends. First come delicious cured meats and salamis as well as thin slices of lardo (cured fatback), a local delicacy and surprisingly tasty. Spinach tarts and quiches are next, accompanied by sweet chestnuts, fig bread dipped in honey, and grilled cheeses with walnuts.

After mains of fresh pasta with ragu and mozarella, haunches of roast lamb, and breaded veal Milanese-style (which appears to mean “covered in cheese”), we amble to our skis for a leisurely afternoon on the slopes.

You eat well in Courmayeur. We can also recommend Pierre Alexis 1877 (down a back street near the elegant church and full of locals), as well as at La Terrazza (with delicious pizzas) in the heart of town. And the restaurants are as good in La Thuile, a smaller resort just a short drive away.

The next day we head off for a morning’s hard skiing. We strike lucky. Even though the fresh snow is a day old, hardly anyone has skied the off-piste powder, just away from La Thuile’s main slopes. We take run after run (again no queues), led by Rab Bickerdale, a Scottish-born ski instructor with a maestro di sci qualification and an outfit made for the resort by Armani. “In Chamonix all this powder would have been skied by 10am … yesterday,” he tells us. “It’s a battle getting to the best bits.”

That’s the joy of this pair of lesser visited Italian resorts; they can feel at times as though they’ve opened just for you. After a long ski, covering 3,600m of vertical descent with a top speed of 79kph (according to the incredible app, Ski Tracks), we find ourselves at the slope-side Maison Carrel.

We dine on slices of cured hams and lardo, followed by gnocchi with smoked ham, brandy and poppy seeds, and ravioli with a cheese fondue sauce accompanied by chestnuts and honey. Outside the sun is beaming on the bellissimo scenery. The “other side” of Mont Blanc is a delight.

Need to know

Tom Chesshyre was a guest of the Ski Club of Great Britain (020-8410 2022, skiclub.co.uk/freshtracks), which has a week’s chalet-board in Courmayeur from £849pp, with instruction, flights and transfers included. It also has a week’s half-board in La Thuile from £795pp, with off-piste instruction and transfers, but not flights. EasyJet (easyjet.com) has return flights to Turin from £66.

Where to eat In Courmayeur, try Château Branlant (chateaubranlant.com), on the slopes, two courses from about €25; Ristorante Pierre Alexis 1877 on Via Marconi (0039 0165 843517), has two courses from about €20; La Terrazza (ristorantelaterrazza.com) on Via Circonvallazione, has €10 meals. In La Thuile, Maison Carrel (maisoncarrel.com), on the slopes, has two course for about €20; Ristorante Pepita Cafe (0039 0165 883047) on Frazione Entreves has good pastas from about €20 for two courses.

Further information Aosta Valley (aosta-valley.co.uk), La Thuile (lathuile.it); Pré-Saint-Didier spa (termedipre.it) is a brilliant spa complex close to Courmayeur; day passes €44.

First published in The Times, February, 2013

Lunch at Chateau Branlant

Lunch at Chateau Branlant

« First‹ Previous161718