St Moritz Report

http://www.stmoritz.ch/map-002-01040200-en.htm - Click on 'Winter Card' for piste map.

St Moritz is about 3 1/12 hours by train from Zurich with one change in Chur so it's a bit far for a day trip. While the hotels are some of the most expensive in the world, the youth hostel was very reasonable and very good, and only a 10 min walk across the frozen lake from the centre of town and a 10 min walk (or 2 min bus ride) from the lift to Signal.

Spent 4 days there a week ago, one of the best resorts I've ever been to.
I wouldn't recommend this resort for beginners, as there don't seem to be many easy areas and there are only a few blue runs but if you are happy on fairly challenging reds and easy blacks, this place is heaven.

The reds coming down from Munt da San Murezzan are all wide and in good condition with fast lifts taking you back up but they all tend to have a couple of VERY steep sections on them, certainly steeper than any reds I've ever seen.

The central area around Conviglia is very fun, lots of on and off-piste options to get down and a very cool park with 3 graded runs each with 3 - 4 jumps, and a couple of rails. You could easily get a couple of metres air on the smallest jumps if you went for it and just looking at some of the 2 - 3 metre drops on the red and black runs made me wet myself, so I can safely say there is something there for everyone.

The best area for skiiers and boarders alike is on the right, on the lifts up from Marguns and Gluna. There are multiple ways down on all these runs with lots of powder inbetween the pistes. I must have gone up the same lift 10 times and never took exactly the same way down. The blacks here are more like challenging reds so any competant skiier/ boarder should be ok and if there is a steep bit they don't like, there is always the option of bombing off the side and finding an easier way down.

Seeing as half the people who go to St Moritz just go to wear fur, drive Maybachs and show off, the slopes aren't that busy. Some of the lifts had waiting times of about 5 min but all of them have singles line, so if you don't mind not sitting next to your friends you can skip the queue and get inserted onto any not-full lifts. I never waited more than 30 seconds to get a lift the whole holiday.

You can ski all the way down to the bottom but the runs are well-worn and very thin paths, so they will save you time but they aren't much fun.

So, my highest possible recommendation, I definitely plan on getting down there for another weekend before the end of the season.