Visited St Moritz over Christmas - New Year. Perfect snow cover, perfect grooming, perfect lifts. Very cold temps on a few days kept the crowds to a friendly level. If you like loads of perfect piste skiing, Corviglia above St Moritz is super enjoyable. Will learn to ski powder next time!
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St Moritz's local mountain, Corviglia is everything the majority of skiers are looking for. A long ski able vertical, sunny slopes, deep snowpack, highway-like groomed piste trails, numerous learn to ski areas plus wonderful mountain huts, bars & restaurants all sit well the St Moritz ideal of style, elegance & class. It does come with a price tag to match.

Travelling to Corviglia is a sensational part of the experience at St Moritz. The train trips Chur or Tirano in Italy over the Bernina Pass are amazing & the safest way to get to St Moritz. Driving over the Julier Pass through Bivio is an awesome journey as well, but potentially fraught in poor weather.

St Moritz may be one of the more expensive locations to ski in Europe, however by world standards, skiing at St Moritz & Corviglia is cheaper than most of the larger ski resorts in the USA, Canada, Chile, & Argentina, Australia & New Zealand. And what price should one pay for perfection, because skiing Corviglia is perfection on the piste.

Early starts on Corviglia are glorious. The well heeled clearly love a sleep in because on cold, clear mornings, crowds, just like the temperatures, are near zero on the slopes.

From the valley it is impossible to grasp the breadth of the Corviglia terrain. The best access from St Moritz up the mountain is via the soon to be replaced Helm/Signal cable car in St Moritz Bad. Local buses & a super convenient car park (small parking fee) are at the cable car base along with an overpriced ski shop. From the top of the cable car, you are in the alpine zone & the expansive options across the mountain become obvious. We licked our lips as we rode the yellow chair up for one of the best warm up runs anywhere. As the sun was rising and its first rays were hitting the perfectly groomed highway, we set of at warp factor 10 down a rip roaringly fast, 600m vertical intermediate rolling piste. Legs now warm, the journey began……

What a great ski hill. Heading up to the lofty 3057m summit of Piz Nair the full glory is of the resort appears. On the way up check out the starting point of the World Cup men’s downhill course perched precariously at a temporary looking mid load area – yikes! Steep expert terrain, plus some tight chutes, head off from the summit.

An intermediate piste trail leads off the back of the summit providing an easy alternative way down. It is intermediate piste terrain where Corviglia really shines. They are fabulous all across the resort, perhaps only lacking in some more tree lined runs down low. Even the advanced trails are 'light black or grey' at best! Aside from two steeper runs either side of the funicular (Muntanella & Olympia), all the blacks are easy enough, or the steep bits are short enough, to not worry most intermediates.

It is not possible to ski the entire 1337m vertical in one go, unless one skis the off piste chutes from the summit. For groomer skiers, it is possible to get around 1200m of sweet vertical over 7.5km from Fuorcia Grischa all the way down on St Moritz’s best valley run to Celerina via Marguns.

The best open off-piste terrain is from the Trais Fluors chair above Marguns. Options go all the way down to Celerina & Samedan. Other wise from all of the upper chairlifts there are a myriad of interesting ski adventures to undertake with only a little bit of scouting around required. We easily found fresh snow & fun terrain without any real effort but hardly scratched the surface of what is on offer.

For on mountain eats, the Glünetta hut serves up delicious traditional Swiss fare & the deck is perfect on a sunny day (sheepskins will keep your backside warm!). Similarly, the Chamanna Bergrestaurant serves local Canton Graubünden nosh, but is a better priced option, with the go to dishes revolving around brats (mmmm…brats).

Corviglia has some ski in ski out accommodation options near the learn to ski area at Salastrains. One could do worse than ending the day on the deck of the 3-star Hotel Salastrains. It is reasonably priced too. The bottom end of the accommodation market was also one of the best located. Hostel Pitsch is in the car park of the Signal cable car, so not only is parking free, but the lift is a short stroll from the hostel, and the valley trail ends only a short stroll back again. Across the road is the Pitsch’s opposite number, the 5-star extravagance of the Kempinski Grand Hotel & Casino. Between these 3, you need look no further for accommodation!

We found the centre of St Moritz just a little underwhelming. A lack of vibrancy was its chief disappointment, but also its lack of traditional architecture. Perhaps the general clientele at St Moritz is more interested in shopping at Prada & rightfully staying in the warmth of their 5-star suites, and not interested in classic après or bar action. On mountain après was abundant (the pick of it being the Alpina hut) at Corviglia (the pick of it being the Alpina hut) but be wary of the ski down. Downloading on the funicular or cable car may be the safest way down. The restaurant scene is world class though and so are the prices. Thankfully for us great unwashed, local supermarkets were in abundance.

The village of Celerina looked to be the pick of the locations to stay in St Moritz if skiing Corviglia with a family. Even though it technically not in St Moritz, the Celerina cable car provides excellent access to the Corviglia ski area, plus the learn to ski zone at its base is the best in the resort.

As only one part in a multi faceted snow holiday destination, Corviglia is a brilliant place to start your St Moritz ski trip. The good part is from here one can go to Corvatsch or to the casino or ice skating or cross country skiing or Diavolezza or the train to Tirano or…….. You get the idea. Save your pennies and get to St Moritz.
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Worth the hype? In a word, Yes.

It was with some trepidation that we traveled to and skied St Moritz in early February this year. Think of all the movie references that are out there for St Moritz. It very much lives up to the hype.

It's big, sparkly and doesn't have much of a soul. I know that sound like a negative but I in all honesty I really enjoyed a big day skiing here. We skied almost exclusively on piste as off had a bit of a crust. What we discovered is a wonderland of high alpine pistes groomed to perfection.

For the intermediate skier/boarder this is nirvana where you could easily spend a week.
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We visited over the holidays in 2018. The snow was good, although the slopes, especially at the bottom, were extremely icy. The terrain is great if you’re a strong intermediate and enjoy groomed runs. Experts need to go off trails to find anything interesting. We were lucky to catch a powder day which was fun. Unfortunately the powder was very heavy and froze the next day, turning it into frozen crud. If you are super daring you can hike up to peaks and jump off cliffs, but that’s not really part of the resort. I would say the ski resort itself has little to no real expert terrain.

On the other end of the spectrum, this is the worst resort I have ever seen for beginners. There was literally no terrain for beginners. There are tow ropes that are hard to get to and then the only way to use them is to buy expensive ski school lessons. If you don’t want to buy lessons and you’re a beginner, the ski lift ticket price is a waste of money. I tried taking my son and there was nothing for him to ski. Sliding him down icy intermediate runs is not fun and it’s dangerous. And since the tow ropes are off limits, we just left.

On the bright side, the views are beautiful and if you like to carve intermediate runs all day you will have a blast.
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