Ski Saas Fee

Saas Fee’s slogan ‘Die Perle der Alpen’ (The Pearl of the Alps) is truly well deserved.

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Thirteen majestic peaks –all rising above four thousand metres – encircle this glorious traditional alpine village. It sits in the shadow of the highest mountain in Switzerland, The Dom. With the first lift 1800m above sea level and the highest lift taking you to the dizzying height of 3600 this resort is snowsure right throughout the season.

A Mecca for snowboarders, this resort is open for summer and winter skiing and boarding. It’s fun parks, half pipes and variety of obstacles keep even the most fastidious rider more than content.

Birth place of the Olympic champion Pirmin Zurbriggin, this area of Switzerland really is an idyllic perfect ski retreat. It’s peaceful traffic free streets wind down the Saas valley remind you of a bygone era. The first road reached the village in the 1960’s whereby the swiss farmers immediately put a ban on any motorists entering their unspoilt community which still stands today. Although for those of us who don’t travel lightly – electric taxis are permitted to ferry luggage to and fro.

Don’t be fooled by it’s rustic appeal. This resort houses some of the cutting edge lifts in the world. Indeed the Metro-Alpin claims the title of the highest underground funicular railway worldwide. Another record breaker is the highest revolving restaurant, at 3500 metres on a clear night you can see all the way to the twinkling lights of Milan in Italy!

For those who would like a closer look at Saas Fee before they visit check out the video for Wham’s number one hit ‘Last Christmas’ which was filmed entirely in the village.

The nearest airport is Sion (43 miles away), or failing that choose between Geneva and Zurich both around 150 miles away.

Unfortunately the ski area is relatively small. At 100km (longest run 9km) you can access Saas Grund, Saas Almagell and Saas Balen. There are twenty-two lifts, 7 of these are cable cars, 2 chair and 13 drag lifts. There is the option of adding a day trip to Zermatt onto your lift pass which the more advanced will probably want to do if you’re staying for the whole week. The resort is segmented into half intermediate runs, a quarter easy and a quarter advanced. There aren’t any notably difficult runs here although the laissez-faire attitude to pisting here means the black and red runs are often very mogully.

If you are hankering for a challenge, hire a guide and head over to Hinterallalin for a hair-raising descent. Heliboarding is available and also, after your once in a lifetime meal at the revolving restaurant, tobogganing 5.5km into the village comes highly recommended.

Night riding is held over at Saas Balen on Thursday evenings and Furggstalden on Tuesday evenings.

With guaranteed snow on the nursery slope, this is a great resort for children, especially since the lift pass is free for under nines! Take them up to the Ice Pavillion to see the Glacier exhibition and over at the Kalbermatten sports ground – the fun park is a firm favourite for kids of all ages. The best time to take the children is late in the season when they can ski in the sunshine, mid-winter the sun doesn’t quite get high enough to surpass the statuesque Dom which over shadows the valley.

For a small resort you still have a wide variety of bars and restaurants. The restaurants have typical Swiss menus but if you prefer you’ will find a few Italians and the token Chinese. The Fee-Iglu bar and the Alpen Pub are fantastic straight from the slopes. The Popcorn Bar is full of goodtime snowboarders and for the seriously hardcore, Poison opens at 11pm until the last man standing carefully navigates his way home.

This small beautiful village should be visited at least once in your skiing career, although possibly a long weekend will suffice to see all of it’s charms.