On my way back from St. Moritz, the obvious suspects for Saturday without an extensive detour were:
a) Arosa/Lenzerheide
b) Flims/Laax
c) Bivio
d) Savognin
The latter two were preferable due to being directly alongside my driving route. I ultimately decided on Savognin, keeping in mind the excellent day I had there in March 2019. I remember being impressed by its significant size for a local's hill (at 4.5 miles x 3 miles, a bigger footprint than Breckenridge) and how much they could expand the lift-served terrain both inside and outside the current perimeter, if fiscally and environmentally feasible.
Due to a family medical emergency in NJ that had me on the phone getting regular updates, I wasn't able to go to their operations page, where I would've learned that they were still in early-season ops mode, even on a weekend in mid-December. None of its four t-bars were in operations, which resulted in areas in red below being earned-turns-only and for the huge sector in blue you had to circle all the way back to the base after every run for lift access: a first-world problem but obviously not optimal.
Check out this ridgeline on the looker's right -- all of that beautiful terrain in the sun is not part of the ski area:
After taking a cat track around the peak, you end up on the left half of the mountain. Buttery-soft on-piste conditions:
Skiing under the t-bar bridge:
Three days after the midweek storm, there was plenty of low-angle-pow alongside groomed trails, which was all my early-season legs were capable of skiing. You can see from the untouched snow all the way up the t-bar on the far looker's left that it hasn't been running this season:
Reverse shot:
The ungroomed snow stiffened up on this facet while approaching mid-mountain. It didn't bother this guy though.
Ski jumping on the big screen:
I walked a few yards further to a more sedate outdoor deck: Spätzle with a view:
As mentioned, with the t-bars not in operation, the only way to access lifts from the left half of the ski area was to cut through a small group of barns to a long but scenic cat track back to the base. I managed four laps total.
The sign on the door: "Home Is Where The Mountains Are"
While I got far from the full Savognin experience, it confirmed to me that FTOers should make a point of stopping there on the way to/from St. Moritz. It's a small component of why many consider Graubünden to be the premier Swiss canton for skiing (obviously debatable!).
a) Arosa/Lenzerheide
b) Flims/Laax
c) Bivio
d) Savognin
The latter two were preferable due to being directly alongside my driving route. I ultimately decided on Savognin, keeping in mind the excellent day I had there in March 2019. I remember being impressed by its significant size for a local's hill (at 4.5 miles x 3 miles, a bigger footprint than Breckenridge) and how much they could expand the lift-served terrain both inside and outside the current perimeter, if fiscally and environmentally feasible.
Due to a family medical emergency in NJ that had me on the phone getting regular updates, I wasn't able to go to their operations page, where I would've learned that they were still in early-season ops mode, even on a weekend in mid-December. None of its four t-bars were in operations, which resulted in areas in red below being earned-turns-only and for the huge sector in blue you had to circle all the way back to the base after every run for lift access: a first-world problem but obviously not optimal.
Check out this ridgeline on the looker's right -- all of that beautiful terrain in the sun is not part of the ski area:
After taking a cat track around the peak, you end up on the left half of the mountain. Buttery-soft on-piste conditions:
Skiing under the t-bar bridge:
Three days after the midweek storm, there was plenty of low-angle-pow alongside groomed trails, which was all my early-season legs were capable of skiing. You can see from the untouched snow all the way up the t-bar on the far looker's left that it hasn't been running this season:
Reverse shot:
The ungroomed snow stiffened up on this facet while approaching mid-mountain. It didn't bother this guy though.
Ski jumping on the big screen:
I walked a few yards further to a more sedate outdoor deck: Spätzle with a view:
As mentioned, with the t-bars not in operation, the only way to access lifts from the left half of the ski area was to cut through a small group of barns to a long but scenic cat track back to the base. I managed four laps total.
The sign on the door: "Home Is Where The Mountains Are"
While I got far from the full Savognin experience, it confirmed to me that FTOers should make a point of stopping there on the way to/from St. Moritz. It's a small component of why many consider Graubünden to be the premier Swiss canton for skiing (obviously debatable!).
