Europe’s traditional ski and snowboard resorts

The spectacular, craggy peaks of Switzerland, Austria, France and Italy have cradled ski resorts that grew from old traditional towns. As skiing has grown, the small traditional towns of wooden chalets and narrow streets are getting harder and harder to find. The demands for more apartments housing more and more visitors have changed the quaint atmosphere of skiing in many places.

Some of the most extensive ski and snowboard regions in Europe’s mountains are modern creations that resemble Battleship Galactica crash landed in a mountain valley and others are a concentration of square apartments one might find on the outskirts of Milan, Heidelberg, Barcelona or Paris. Admittedly the skiing and riding is wonderful and the expanse of the slopes enormous, but the sense of place leaves something to be desired by romantics who are looking for a blend of rugged, snowy nature and Old World charm.

Every European country has its handful of resorts that have retained their traditional look and manners. They are some of the best known in the sport and they have managed to balance growth and modern construction with excellent lift access to hundreds of kilometers of cruising trails, hair-raising chutes and steep moguls.

Switzerland is where it all started. The English arrived and began to develop skiing as a sport of the elite. It combined the healthy living of mountain air, occasional mountain hot springs and an active sport. Of course, today, skiing and snowboarding are some of the most popular sports in Europe, and Switzerland still boasts many real traditional ski towns that haven’t changed much over the decades.

Arosa was one of the original resorts and it hasn’t changed much. Sitting at the end of a winding mountain road that rises from Chur, as well at the end of a chuffing cog rail line from the same city, this town nestled in a small high mountain valley provides isolated access to plenty of wide-open intermediate terrain above tree line. Its grand old hotels are some of the most luxurious in the Alps.

Klosters is a tiny dorf just down the road from the bustling sports metropolis of Davos. Though Klosters shares the Manhattan-sized Parsenn ski and snowboarding area and a joint lift ticket with Davos, it shares little else. Where the Davos architecture is square and more utilitarian than cute and picturesque, Klosters exudes mountain flavor with a definite chalet style and a smattering of age-old restaurants and hotels. The skiing into town from the Parsenn can be steep, or take mellower trails looping through the trees.

In the Jungfrau Region, Wengen and Mürren are both car-free towns accessed by a cog railroad that exudes quaintness and grace. Wengen is the larger of the two. It sits in the midst of the massive ski area beneath the towering Jungfraujoch and its glacier. The village is tightly huddled at the base of a sheer cliff where the famous Lauberhorn downhill race ends. Above the town, the skiing in the Kleine Scheidigg area overlooked by the brooding Eiger is excellent for intermediates with more interconnected skiing than can be handled in a week.

Mürren, on the other side of the Lauterbrunnen Valley, sits beneath the towering Schilthorn. Most non-skiers, and perhaps most skiers, know the Shilthorn and its mountain restaurant as the headquarters of the evil villain in the James Bond movie, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. The town only has a handful of hotels and appears to be little more than a remote farming community. But the skiing is world-class with a harrowing drop through narrow chutes and down steeps that take a skier’s breath away as the 007 Run descends from the summit of the Schilthorn.

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