Thoughts about skiing in association with walking
Ski touring
Many, most, of these and other resorts would make sound bases from which to make ski tours, that is, to explore away from the pistes and away from the resort.
On-piste ski touring
With some planning it would be possible to link many of these resorts and thus tour between areas, entirely using the pistes. In many situations it is simply a case of skiing down to the neighbouring resort, while carrying (or having transferred) your kit. We did just this in Wengen, where we skiied down from the Kleine Scheidegg to Grindelwald to stay. The benefit of this approach is the sense of moving on, and seeing more than one resort within your holiday. Without being expert in the ski industry, we would advise that such things rely on booking hotels for specific nights, whereas much ski accommodation goes by the week. January is a good time to try this, with quieter hotels.
Perspectives on the Alps
Winter brings a quite different atmosphere to the Alps, than does Summer. The air is clear and bright. Typically a town will see the same mix of hotels and restaurants open, it being the other busy season, with the quiet bits of th year being the Spring and the Autumn. Some resorts, for example St Anton, seem muhc busier through the Winter than in the Summer, with more action at the cable car and all up and down the high street. Some hotels do not bother to open in Summer: vanishingly few, but some. Quite simply due to the nature of skiing as more energentic than walking, the average visitor to a town over Winter, will be younger. There is a lot of energy and vibrancy to some places, a more sedate pace to some places during Summer.
Buses are plentiful in most resorts, those for skiing adding to the usual town buses to cable cars and so on. Ski buses distinguish themselves by being meant to take skiiers from hotels, groups of nearby hotels, or areas, up to a lift, and are usually free – it being hard for skiiers among their burdensome paraphenalia to find coins for buses, and it being accepted that the skiiers are there to stay in the resort and ski on its pistes.
New Year
Celebrated well in many ski resorts, New Year is a feature of the Winter, of course, that brings visitors together, often in the town square. More generally, festivals and events make much of the possibilities of lights, in what are darker months, and this can feel quite special.
Generally
It would not work to experience Winter and Summer in the same trip, unless of course that trip were to be 2 or 3 months, in which case we’d always recommend traveling to a city in the interim. The need to make two separate trips, at two distinct times of year, but then to the same place, lets you see that place from two angles and is very worthwhile. If you ski, therefore, plan to ski where you will also be walking.
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