Our 3 Favourite Ski Resorts

Well being in an office with male and female skiers, this created some real debate! Many names were thrown into the hat for the favourites category, with Aspen, Chamonix, Meribel, St Anton, Val d’Isere, Val Thorens, Verbier, and Whistler the main culprits.

Whistler was one of the first to be added, with generally good snow conditions , awesome back bowls, and a great lift system, especially now Whistler and Blackcomb have been linked, so it was soon pencilled in.

The second consensus was St Anton, if you haven’t been you are missing out, big time, as this resort has it all. Great snow record, awesome skiing (the mogul fields off the Valluga mean that even the macho skiers won’t leave disappointed), but all this is only half the story. St Anton is a skiers place, not pretentious (ignoring of course Lech and Zurs) and like Chamonix attracts great skiers by the day, but leaves Chamonix miles behind with its social side (Compagnie du Mont Blanc take note). Somehow Visitors to St Anton can not only drink a ‘yard’ for breakfast (generally on the way home from the night before actually), they can do so at lunch, on the way down the slopes, pre-dinner (assuming they even bother with dinner) and after It is this that sticks out in St Anton, it is all well natured, but from the moment you hit the mountain bar on the way down, you just know its going to be painful in the morning! But this is probably why it is so mesmerising, like a drug, the following day you say no, but there you are again, enjoying its captivating atmosphere.

So the third, Chamonix, well no actually, a huge bias in the office of course towards this resort, with probably the best off-piste in the world and a great ski town, but this is a ski in ski out site and we all acknowledged, that despite huge investment recently, the lift system still isn’t quite there yet. Also the spread out nature of the resort means that mixed abilities can end up skiing in very different areas. Verbier was also discarded, surprisingly easily in fact, another great resort but doesn’t quite offer enough ‘skiing’, and the cost of the nightlife makes one’s mortgage payments seem a ‘walk in the snow park’! So Val d’Isere then? Afraid not, too pretentious was the verdict, great skiing but more a place to be seen than to ski! Meribel did however come close, and so did its brother Val Thorens, with some of the most extensive skiing in the world, but none of which we felt was that memorable (old age possibly creeping in and becoming forgetful) . So Aspen it is, well nearly, if the town had more character it would have probably been there, but there was a distinct unease that we were forcing a third and we weren’t really quite convinced. That was until someone through Chatel into the mix and there we are. It is worth noting here that this might be a wind up as I can occasionally be a little disparaging towards this region, so not my choice as never skied Chatel to be honest, but what I am told is that this is a beautiful resort with great treee line skiing and on powder days offers some of the best untracked powder trails through the trees you can experience. Still not convinced, well nor I am quite yet so I’m now off to ski it in December so as not to be the only one in the office that thought anything in the Portes du Soliel should be confined to the ‘resorts for others’ file!!