Skiing holidays that aren’t just about the skiing
A magic pass in Switzerland There’s a new lift pass on offer in Switzerland that will draw you away from the “big league” resorts and give you access to all kinds of “interesting little spots” that you’d otherwise miss, says Gemma Bowes in The Guardian. It covers 30 resorts, including many in the “highly traditional” Val d’anniviers, where you’ll find small resorts with “centuries-old” chalets, and none of the “usual ski resort paraphernalia – pylons, giant flashing piste maps, noisy bars”. The lifts will take you to “terrific”, sparsely populated ski runs. In Vercorin, you can rent an apartment at Chalet Altitude – a “time-capsule of folksy Alpine antiques and primitive farm furniture”; and perhaps enjoy a free wine-tasting in the village hall after a day on the slopes. A few miles east is the “beautiful and historic” village of Saint-luc, where Claude Antille’s Petit Musée (in a local historian’s cellar and open for one hour a week) is “stuffed with old farming tools” and exhibits of whole cheeses, which, according to tradition, are gifted to people in their youth, kept for their lifetime, and “consumed by their loved ones at their funeral”. Season pass £712 (adult), £356 (child); magicpass.ch. Mindfulness on cross-country trails Mindful skiing may sound “ridiculous”, says Cathy Adams in The Independent. But if anywhere could make you focus calmly on the here and now, it’s the “sweet little town” of San Cassiano in Italy’s South Tyrol, with its ultramarine sky, crisp air and many bakeries. The package is run by Rosa Alpina ski lodge, an incredibly “cosy” family-owned hotel done out in Japanese pine; there are “loungers, throws and fires around every corner”, old photos on the walls, and huge windows overlooking forests and snowy hills in the library and yoga studio. This is one of Italy’s premier resorts, but on these breaks, downhill is out: because “introspection means cross-country skiing”. It’s a pretty tough workout for beginners, but when you get the hang of it, you do start to lose yourself as you glide silently through “gorgeous snow-dripped pine trees”, under the milky orb of the early morning sun. Besides, tight hamstrings and “dented egos” can later be “soothed” by a massage at Rosa Alpina’s spa, before dinner at the Michelin-starred St Hubertus. “In San Cassiano, mindful living also means eating indecorously.” Three nights from £1,963. rosaalpina.it. On the slopes in Afghanistan From high up the mountain in Bamyan, you get what “must be the most unlikely view” from any ski resort – “two darkened niches” where the giant Buddhas blown up by the Taliban once stood. Yet while Afghanistan is yet to appear on most skiers’ wish lists, the country is “not an entirely improbable ski destination”, says Tarquin Cooper in the Financial Times. Certainly, for those seeking more “exotic”, untamed terrain, “the area offers much potential”. Bamyan is 100 miles west of Kabul in the Koh-i-baba range, and has an altitude of around 2,500 metres. The Foreign Office advises against “all but essential” travel, and so of course you do have to be very careful – yet the flight to Kabul, via Dubai, “couldn’t be easier”, and Bamyan is a 30-minute onward flight. After collecting your skis from the Bamyan Ski Club, you catch a local minibus that takes you along dirt roads, past mud and straw houses, herds of goats and donkeys, and “ubiquitous” satellite dishes, and up into the peaks. There are no ski lifts, so it’s a 40-minute climb until you’re off, “carving neat turns” into untouched snow. It’s “magical”. As, in a different way, is the sight of village children desecrating those pristine slopes by tearing down them “in various states of control” on skis tied on with twine. Visit untamedborders.com.