How very condescending of you, or do you still believe it's only the middle classes who ski?
And the rest of it is the sort of thing a man who rents out skiing apartments would say.

There are quite a few very well off Brits who have planned to spend the winter 'working from home' in an opulent chalet in the mountains rather than in a severe lock-down in London.

Their options of countries to do this would now appear to be severely limited if they wish to ski as well.

But yes, they're not your average skiers.

In Switzerland, from the UK - pretty sure, yes.

I honestly don't know what "middle classes" means these days, but it was your use of the term "hooray henry" that implied that you think it's the preserve of some sort of privileged strata of society, whether such a thing exists or not.

In point of fact, and particularly in reference to France's history of building ski resorts for the masses, there's pretty much no "type" or "class" of people who don't ski.

And yes it's "the sort of thing a man who rents out skiing apartments would say". Why? Maybe it's because such a person has some first-hand knowledge of the way everything works? Oh, sorry, is that me being condescending again? Meh.

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REPORT FROM THE FRONT LINE (i.e. Saas Fee)

(I hesitated to post in this thread, or the mask one, or the corona one, but I figure this is where the skiers are.)

Just spent a long day (14 hours door-to door using public transit) to ski in Saas Fee. On the whole the experience was definitely worthwhile, but I know that I was spoiled by the fact that it was a pre-season weekday during a time when foreign tourists are essentially absent. It was great for me.... Here's the rundown on how it went:

The Good

1. Great snow conditions apart from one icy chute section that is just a bit too steep and is always icy. Otherwise, the famously shady (shadowy? en-shaded?) Saas Tal delivered, I have hardly ever had such amazing conditions as late as 3 in the afternoon. I'm someone who likes to gracefully bomb down reds, and I could carve to my heart's content. And it was nothing but blue skies above, even though we were in the shade.

2. "Mask" compliance was pretty much 100%. There were minders at the entrance and exit of lifts, but based on what I saw, the very vast majority of skiers were compliant in covering their noses and mouths in queues and lifts. Less so on piste, but I don't consider that an issue.

3. The good for me was that it wasn't busy at all, so while I spent almost all my time at the top section where you take cable car and the train, since there were so few skiers we averaged about 6-7 people per section of train where the stated limit is 23. The only crowding I felt was in the cable car coming up from Saas Fee in the morning, and heading back down at close to 4.

4. Restos were open but obviously take-away only, at lunchtime the hillside was peppered with take-awayers and picnickers. On the whole I had the feeling the majority of people there understood the spirit of the new restrictions and were compliant, and took distancing seriously. (Which is admittedly easy to do in the Alps.) I thoroughly enjoyed my piste-side picnic spot: I don't normally plonk myself down trail-side just to soak in the view, so my scenic lunch was a refreshing change for me.


The Less Good/Worrisome

1. As I mentioned earlier, "mask" compliance was high in that I hardly saw a chin or nose all day long, but a good 50% of people had nothing more substantial than a buff pulled up over their nose, or a turtleneck put in place at the appropriate time to appease the minders at the lift entrances and exits. I didn't worry too much because as I mentioned earlier, it was not at all busy or crowded. But I was having visions/memories of how densely we are normally packed in queues and cable cars, and if this virus is as contagious as they say it is (and I believe it is), if someone who has Covid has been wearing the same snotty buff since 9am is in the same cable car as me not more than 30cm away, a bunch of us in that same cable car for 15 minutes under crush conditions are going to fall sick.

2. It wasn't busy today, but I did wonder how many more people they could accommodate without eventually reaching typical crush conditions? Perhaps setting a limit on the number of day passes would be a reasonable compromise?


I am very much a believer that we need to support the ski economy as much as possible, and I certainly enjoyed my day. I hope the season can continue, perhaps with reduced capacity, as I mentioned? I think I'll write an email to the Saas Fee tourist board to give my feedback. I really do hope we can safely keep the pistes open.

My one HUGE piece of advice to anyone who is heading out to ski/snowboard is to bring along multiple masks/face coverings to change throughout the day. I think we are all accustomed to perhaps pulling up a buff before descending and removing it in the queue for the lift, but having to wear a face covering ALL THE TIME without having a chance to remove it was much more tiring/uncomforable than I anticipated. And I am a very pro-mask person, and not much of a complainer either. Luckily, I had planned in advance and brought three fabric masks (plus paper ones for the train coming and going), but the fabric masks were all horribly snotty after about two hours of non-stop use. In the afternoon I saw many poor souls with either fabric masks that seemed to be more snot than mask, or paper masks that were falling apart in front of my eyes. I felt that I'd done my part, but was less convinced of others.

Er you don't have to wear the mask all the time. It isn't required on the piste, I just checked the schutzkonzept and the canton requirements.

Lifts and queues yes but not open pistes.

but using a snood on lifts and queues, etc- is not ok if the person uses the same one day in, day out. Hence good advice re taking several so you can change during the day- put the other one in sealed plastic bag in pocket or backpack, wash in hot soapy water on return and use another pair the next day- and repeat.

It's true you don't have to wear a face mask on piste, but am I the only one who normally always covers their face when actually skiing/boarding because it's otherwise damn cold? Especially in the shadow at Saas Fee?

I guess my point is normally I "buff up" or "scarf up" only when descending, otherwise my face is bare when I'm at a resort. And the only thing I do from morning until late afternoon is ski or impatiently wait for lifts, apart from taking the occasional pee break or downing a bit of food in a hurry. I don't dawdle. I don't smoke. I don't take selfies. I don't chat (I prefer to go alone). All I do is ski.

Today I covered up my delicate face as normal when on-piste/descending, but I did find it a bit uncomfortable to not be able to have a bit of a breather in the queues or on the lift, as I usually do. As I mentioned previously, I felt very relieved that I'd thought in advance to bring along multiple masks. The overall experience was still a bit uncomfortable, but if it's what we all need to do to survive the season I'm all for it.

Actually I wonder if the pull up face coverings you saw are actually the new ones that have been made specifically for skiing and which are being encouraged around here. Although they look as though they are simply a piece of material, they do contain filters. When buying one here in Klosters, for example, it was made very clear that a new filter must be inserted for each day's use.

but is should be washed after each wear too. So at least have two.

I did see several of those (many had a tag that said "COVID-19 Approved" or something along those lines) but a lot of what I saw were your standard flimsy buff.

So what happened to don't touch your mask or your face?

You're confusing two different aspects of protection. The 'don't touch' advice is really for those using PPE, i.e. wearing masks for their own protection; the masks we're talking about here are those used to prevent you spreading the virus to other people if you already have it.

Yes, of course it's a good idea to continue to limit how much you bring your hands in contact with eyes, nose and mouth, just as handwashing and surface sanitising remain important. but they're none of them relevant to the mask issue being discussed.

Then again, the 'change regularly, wash daily' advice is also mixing up the two to a certain extent. I certainly won't be doing that, just as I don't use a new surgical mask every single time I go out.

I very rarely ski with a mouth and nose covering in normal times, really only if it's _very_ cold, like -10 or lower. Much of the time I wouldn't even be carrying one with me.

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Always have a snood around my neck, but very very rarely put on face- as you say, only in blizzards and VERY cold temps. The maximum minimum temp around here is minus 41.8C




BTW it is still snowing like crazy here in the NE Jura- what is happening in the PdS? (Portes du Soleil).


Can't copy it- but I hae a young friend who is a cartoonist for Vigousse (Romandie political satire magazine)- and today one of his cartoons is printed- of a skier going fast downill and taking off with his mask acting as a sail lol.

There's about 10cm settled on the ground from a couple of days ago, started snowing again at some point this morning, and looks like about another 20cm so far. At this rate I might soon have to get the snowblower out for the first time this winter.

Edit: Actually, now I've been out, I see that there's really just a dusting since yesterday - still snowing, but very light and no real accumulation so far. Forecasts show just a few mm over the next few days, which I'm glad of, as I have a new kitchen arriving on Monday and lots of snow makes bulky deliveries that much more tricky.

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we had to 2 days ago- and will be out soon again. Still dumping like crazy here.




https://www.facebook.com/vincent.dis...57744292438148

I wonder if it wasn't the case more like say 20 years ago. Today we have people from all over the world who work here and can afford skiing and doing all sort of stuff that might seem like belonging to the "superior" classes where they come from. I think stereotypes exist for a reason (partially), but we're living in a changing world and more people have a lot more opportunities than before, so if one expresses this sort of view in public, they might not get the warmest reception so to speak.

Some of the pictures coming in from people at ski stations in Switzerland (Valais) are pretty surreal with safe distancing completely being ignored and tremendous lines

Does not bode well

As I mentioned in my earlier post about the queue I saw in LAAX. A lot of people do not take the 1.5m seriously or think that 1.5m is just "a bit more than usual". The other day I was in a lunch queue at work and I thought I would just give the lady in front of me 2.5m because why not... but the guy behind me and his friends were no more than 1m from me even after I stared at him a few times and then finally reminding him, but within a minute he was again too busy chatting to pay attention and was soon standing less than 1m from me again.

I talked to a friend who works in Verbier, there is a lot of frustration over how chaotic things were over the weekend. Does not bode well and I believe federal council will weigh in on this sooner than later