The Thomas Cook International Top 50 Ski Resorts

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Introduction

When I was 30, a friend who edited a ski magazine asked me if I would like to visit the Swiss resort of Haute Nendaz. I dutifully packed my (former) wife and two eldest daughters, Melissa and Samantha, into the car and set off.

Having skied once before – on a school outing when I was 16 – I was confident that I would quickly master not only the slopes of Nendaz, but also those of neighbouring Verbier.

On the first day, I suffered bruised and possibly cracked ribs, but this did not deter me from attempting a difficult run under the cable-car at the end of the day. To my humiliation, my skiing was so bad that an alarmed ski patroller, watching my wild attempts to turn, decided to rescue me in one of those dreaded “blood-wagons”. I was determined to learn properly.

Over the intervening years, I have enjoyed some wonderful adventures in the mountains of every continent, sharing the delights of 730 resorts with a handful of colleagues who have become close friends. I have also had the enormous privilege of skiing – sometimes alone, sometimes accompanied by two or three friends – with some of the world’s greatest guides and instructors.

‘There is no experience on earth that I know of that compares with being high in the mountains with a few close friends, being shepherded down huge, sunny and silent snowfields by a caring and skilful mountain guide’

Men like Daniel Hansjacob, who scared, enthralled and cajoled our party by taking us down our first couloir in Val d’Isère, and the (late) Jean-Marc Boivin, who skied impossible descents like the Matterhorn and Les Drux (Chamonix) and parapented from Everest. It was Jean-Marc who introduced me to heli-skiing, and whose colleague Jean-Paul Ollagnier, with noble assistance from the brawny Eddie Laxton, rescued me from a crevasse on the Italian side of Mont Blanc. Men like Josef Mallaun from St Anton, twice winner of the World Powder 8 Championships in Blue River, British Columbia, taught us the most meticulous snow-craft during some quite astonishing days of powder skiing – some from a helicopter – and introduced us to one of the most challenging runs in the Alps: the steep descent off the Valluga’s north face down to Zürs.
Then there was Giles Claret-Tournier of Chamonix, who cut footholds in the seracs with his ice-axe and lowered us by rope down ice-walls as he took our small group down the Vallée Blanche – normally a “tourist” run – by such an exotic route on such an exceptionally beautiful day and in such enthralling conditions that we shall remember it for the rest of our lives.

There is no experience on earth that I know of that compares with being high in the mountains with a few close friends, being shepherded down huge, sunny and silent snowfields by a caring and skilful mountain guide.

My choice of resorts in this book reflects this. I have tried to be as up-to-date as possible with details of runs and lifts, but, like glaciers, ski resorts are constantly on the move, and every year runs are opened and new lifts are added.

‘On those magical days when the sky is cloudless, the space is infinite, the mountains stand out in jagged, gigantic magnificence, the snow is perfect, and the sun warms the chilled mountain air, merely being there can be a quite mystical experience’

The selection of resorts is very much a personal one, and you may well have your own ideas about what should have been included. I have chosen resorts that excite me either because of their dramatic scenery or their exhilarating skiing – preferably both.
These resorts are places that inspire. And, on those magical days when the sky is cloudless, the space is infinite, the mountains stand out in jagged, gigantic magnificence, the snow is perfect, and the sun warms the chilled mountain air, merely being there can be a quite mystical experience.

© Arnie Wilson