“One of the highest resorts in the alps is a rather unnattractive little resort called Cervinia. Or if you are feeling brave Breuil Cervinia to give it it’s full French Italian name. It is twinned with the much nicer and far prettier Zermatt in Switzerland and on good days you can ski both resorts very well. In summer you would have thought that the place would be deserted except for a few mountain climbers and walkers and with the resort being under the shadow of the beautiful Matterhorn mountain (the picture at the start of the Paramount hollywood films), there certainly are plenty of both. However, Cervinia/Zermatt has a secret up their sleeves, well a secret that most of us don’t know about, but the ski teams of Europe certainly do. The glacier. Which means that you can actually ski all year round in Cervnia. It is not for the faint hearted, because mostly it is the most highly skilled and trained who are there, whizzing down the slalom courses or taking big air in the half pipe that is built each year, ensuring that their skills are not getting rusty.

Summer skiing in Cervinia

It is a wonderful sight to behold. Beautiful scenery, especially as high as the skiing here goes (circa 3500m), coupled with some of the most amazing skiers and snow boarders (with a few amatuers dotted around) all under a beautiful blue sky. The sun is out along with a lot of happy faces and generally lots of fun is being had all round with a good atmosphere. It is a surreal experience and one everyone should undertake at least once in their lifetime.

The upsides are the fact that you are skiing in August, the downsides are that skiing is from 7am until 1pm (the snow becomes too slushy after that) and it is still 41 euros for the (half) day, with only around five or six slopes to explore. But hey, skiing in sunshine, with people wearing t-shirts and shorts is fabulous and for this snow boarder who gets withdrawels during the summer periods it is a way of starving off the summer blues…

Oh, and if you do decide to go, don’t forget your walking boots, your mountain bike and your golf clubs (there is an eighteen hole golf course in Cervinia)…

What more could you want from a real summer break? Who needs a beach, grab your skis and your boards and go to Europe!”

Thanks for the great post Neil.

Resort choice

1.Make sure you’re aware of the ability levels of those you’re going with. If you’ve got beginners you’ll need to make sure you go to a resort that has a good number of blues and greens and similiarly if you’ve got lots of experts (or people who think they’re experts!) in the group you’ll need to make sure the resort you pick has enough challenging runs to keep them occupied for the week.

2. Check whether anyone has a fear of cable cars! In some of the smaller resorts the only way up to the pistes is via a cable car, and if, like us, one person in your group wont step foot inside a cable car then they’re going to have a pretty miserable week. We also have a friend that won’t use chair lifts, although that is a pretty extreme case and I don’t imagine there are many people out there like him, and so it’s important we pick a resort that has a few drag lifts on the lower slopes to keep him happy.

Accommodation

3. Be aware of your budget… Make sure you have a rough idea of how much people are prepared to pay for the holiday. This will make it a lot easier when you start searching for holidays and will heavily influence what kind of accommodation you can stay in.

4. Check the room layouts. If you’re a group of 4 couples then 2 rooms with 2 sets of bunk beds in each probably isn’t going to work! Also if you choose to go self catering and stay in an apartment then just check whether all the beds are in bedrooms or if 2 unlucky people will be expected to sleep in the lounge.

5. Location, location, location! If you’re the kind of group that like your apres-ski then your friends will probably be less than impressed if they arrive at the accommodation you’ve chosen only to find it’s half an hours walk from the nearest bar! Before you book it’s really worth checking exactly where the accommodation is located in resort so that there are no suprises when you arrive.

Booking

4. Think carefully about whether you want to book everything independently or through a holiday company. Booking your travel and accomodation independently can save you a few pounds but it can also heap a whole load of stress onto the person coordinating the holiday.  If you book through a holiday company they’ll do a lot of the hard work for you – this is especially useful if you have some people that want to travel by car, some that want to fly and some that want to go by train! Also, if you book independently more often than not one person will have to fork out for the travel/accommodation up front, resulting in days spent chasing up your friends trying to get them to pay you back, whereas if you use a good holiday company they will let each person phone up individually to pay their share.

5. Check out the group discounts. Many companies offer discounts for big groups and some of these can lead to big savings.  For example Crystal are currently offering up to 1 free place for every 5 people, and you can either choose to take the free place yourself as a nice reward for being the one that’s planned the holiday or you can share the savings out across the group so that you all benefit (I’d recommend the second option if you want to stay friends with the people you’re going with!)

When you’re there

6. Walkie-talkies! With the astronomic prices that companies charge to use your mobile abroad it’s a great idea to take walkie-talkies with you. You also get the added bonus of spending hours choosing call-names for everyone!

Grand Motte glacier

The funicular takes you from Val Claret to the Le Panoramic restaurant which is open all summer providing the ideal location  for a well earnt bite to eat and drink.

The lifts open at 07.15am so make sure you don’t drink too much vin rouge the previous night.  The top cable car is open and the drag lifts and two chairlifts are due to open, depending on conditions.   Last lift is at 13.00pm giving you plenty of time to try out other activities or catch up on your sleep.

For more information take a look at ski-tignes website.

Open Now

Northern hemisphere

Dachstein Glacier
Kaprun
Hintertux
Presena Glacier
Val Senales
Les Deux Alpes
Zermatt
Timberline

Southern hemisphere

Falls Creek
Mount Baw Baw
Mount Buller
Mount Hotham
Perisher Blue
Selwyn Snowfields
Thredbo Coronet Peak
Mount Dobson
Mount Hutt
Mt. Lyford Turoa

Opening Soon

Northern hemisphere

Blackcomb Glacier – 20 Jun
Val d’Isère – 27 Jun
Mölltal Glacier – 20
Jun Cervinia – 27 Jun
Tignes – 20 Jun
Saas Fee – 4 Jul

Southern hemisphere

The Remarkables – 20 Jun
Porter Heights – 26 Jun
Las Leñas – 20 Jun
Whakapapa – 27 Jun
Portillo – 20 Jun
Treble Cone – 27 Jun
Chapelco – 26 Jun
Rainbow – 4 Jul
Cerro Catedral – 26 Jun
Mount Olympus – 5 Jul
Cardrona – 26 Jun

Think that’s them all. We’ll bring reports through the summer skiing season of the conditions.