Euros Continue Typical Liftline Etiquette

[ChrisC]

Typical:
https://www.suedtirolnews.it/politik/en ... esterreich
https://www.facebook.com/patrick.plocki ... 0816818211

From NYTimes article regarding Skiing > Schools in Austria.
Austrian Lockdown Covers Schools and Stores, but Not Ski Hills
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/28/worl ... kdown.html

[Tony Crocker]

It just confirms my opinion that the typical "tram out of the resort town to the snow far above" logistics in many if not most Alps resorts just doesn't work in a COVID scenario.

[jamesdeluxe]

the typical "tram out of the resort town to the snow far above" logistics in many if not most Alps resorts

I'm going to go through my list of Alps ski areas to see which ones only offer a tram/gondola out of the base or resort town. Off the top of my head, it's far less than Tony implies, at least for the places I frequent.

[Tony Crocker]

Here's my list of Euro areas.

I'd say 90% on that list use tram or gondola out of the base and a significant number are only tram. I only can name 3 that I'm sure are all chairs/surface lifts: Le Tour, Warth-Schrocken and Hlidarfjall. And we skied Warth via a transport gondola from Lech. The "mom and pops" on that list are Pila (gondola), Brunni (tram) and Diavolezza/Lagalb (trams).

There's a few where maybe it's a chair in one direction but gondola/tram in another. You can ski the west side of Lech sticking to chairs but if you want to ski the White Ring or go to Stuben or St. Anton, you start in a tram line that was ~20 minutes at the end of my week in 2017. Are you going to ski an area when half its terrain is inaccessible or very inefficient to access only using chairs? This applies to Jackson too, but in the US it's more the exception while in the Alps it's more the rule.

[ChrisC]

Here's my list of Euro areas.

I'd say 90% on that list use tram or gondola out of the base and a significant number are only tram. I only can name 3 that I'm sure are all chairs/surface lifts: Le Tour, Warth-Schrocken and Hlidarfjall.

I think even Le Tour is gondola from either the Vallorcine or Chamonix bases - with still a lot of surface lifts. The lift company looks not to have spent a dime since my visit in 2005 - even though there are some key surface lifts to update. I guess a bit like Davos.

Europe would really need to employ a 'change behavior' lift line strategy with attendants, signage, and markings. I doubt they have the cultural will to implement a strategy.

[Tony Crocker]

Le Tour was the first Euro area I skied in 2004. I skied mostly Tete de Balme and only returned to the Le Tour base at the end of the day, so forgot that first ride was a gondola. I never skied to Vallorcine.

James sent me a long list of areas where he took a chair out of the base. Of those we skied in common all were like Lech, where only part of the terrain was accessible not by tram or gondola.