Four Swiss cross-country regions put to the test

Tips for cross-country skiing around our youth hostels

Cross-coun­try ski­ing has become increas­ing­ly pop­u­lar in recent years. There are sev­er­al rea­sons for this: com­pared to alpine ski­ing, the sport is more gen­tle on your wal­let, it pro­vides a chal­leng­ing work­out in the fresh air, and it is suit­able for all ages and skill lev­els.

St. Moritz: my first time cross-coun­try ski­ing

I booked a bed in a mul­ti-bed room in the St. Moritz youth hos­tel, sit­u­at­ed in an idyl­lic loca­tion next to the for­est. In addi­tion to mak­ing new friends, my goal is to try out cross-coun­try ski­ing. After enjoy­ing a hearty and cosy break­fast, I vis­it the Suvret­ta Sports cross-coun­try ski­ing school (cross-coun­try ski­ing in St. Moritz – Suvret­ta Ski School) just a few min­utes’ walk away. More­na, the friend­ly store man­ag­er, con­vinces me to take a pri­vate les­son with Andi, which I (spoil­er) will not regret.

Andi has been a ded­i­cat­ed cross-coun­try ski­ing expert for over 30 years and is high­ly moti­vat­ed. First of all, we prac­tice putting on the skis and then glid­ing on top of the snow with­out using the poles. He is always by my side, pro­vid­ing me with tips and tricks. Locat­ed just 200 metres from the cross-coun­try cen­tre is a Nordic Are­na (St. Moritz Nordic Are­na), where we now do laps, prac­tice brak­ing manoeu­vres and get stuck into some speed train­ing. Every now and then, I treat myself to a glimpse of the inde­scrib­able moun­tain land­scape.

Andi’s help­ful tips help me to gain con­fi­dence enor­mous­ly. It’s now all about prac­tis­ing, prac­tis­ing and prac­tis­ing, the expert tells me. And that’s per­fect in this dreamy win­ter des­ti­na­tion! There are 240 kilo­me­tres of trails avail­able to cross-coun­try ski­ing fans in the region! Tip: It’s easy to buy your cross-coun­try ski­ing pass online. It costs CHF 12 a day or CHF 40 a week. That’s a fair price for this enor­mous range of groomed trails!

My sum­ma­ry: An hour to get start­ed with my new sport was ide­al – I was able to prac­tice the right tech­niques and get a good feel­ing for the sport! I’m inspired and will def­i­nite­ly con­tin­ue with cross-coun­try ski­ing.

Karin – Peo­ple & Cul­ture Man­ag­er

Grindel­wald: sur­pris­ing­ly unknown

Grindel­wald is known for its mighty moun­tains – the north face of the Eiger is omnipresent and incred­i­bly impres­sive. This does not come as a sur­prise, as many snow sports fans are drawn to the region. For a few years now, it has been pos­si­ble to explore the fan­tas­tic coun­try­side while cross-coun­try ski­ing.

We don’t want to miss out on this adven­ture. We rent our cross-coun­try ski­ing equip­ment from Wer­rens Art and book an hour’s pri­vate les­son. Our instruc­tor meets us at the shop and we hop on a shut­tle bus that takes us direct­ly to the cross-coun­try ski trail in the val­ley. Alter­na­tive­ly, a Post­Bus runs twice an hour. We store our lug­gage in the free and heat­ed cloak­room and off we go!

Over the course of the hour’s les­son, we learn the basics, i.e. dif­fer­ent tech­niques for using the poles, bal­ance exer­cis­es and the expert gives us some tips. After that, we’re left on our own. We notice that we very quick­ly make progress, which is super moti­vat­ing. We then leisure­ly explore the var­ied cross-coun­try trail, ski­ing through the for­est, past small wood­en huts and tak­ing in views of the moun­tains and the vil­lage. We even catch a few rays of sun­shine, too.

After around two-and-a-half hours of ski­ing, we are exhaust­ed, hap­py and hun­gry. We take the bus back to the shop, return our equip­ment and make a detour to the Eiger Glac­i­er. Here, we get to enjoy both a fab­u­lous view as well as fries topped with cheese. An absolute must! Final­ly, we end the evening in a cosy atmos­phere at the youth hos­tel.

Nina – PR Spe­cial­ist

Good to know:

You will receive your guest card when you check in at Grindel­wald youth hos­tel. This will allow you to use the cross-coun­try ski trail and bus for free.

Lenz­er­hei­de: first time cross-coun­try ski­ing at Lake Hei­d­see

I actu­al­ly want­ed to spend my time at the Val­bel­la-Lenz­er­hei­de youth hos­tel relax­ing. How­ev­er, this did not come to pass, as Daniela, my com­pan­ion, had oth­er plans: she want­ed to try out a sport­ing activ­i­ty and some­thing new. It was to be our first time on cross-coun­try skis. I thought to myself: “is this going to be good?”

We struck it rich at the EPIC Snow Sports School Lenz­er­hei­de. Equip­ment and instruc­tors can be booked direct­ly at the school, and every­thing is very straight­for­ward. The team is super nice – Car­lo even pro­vid­ed us with our equip­ment dur­ing his lunch break. We opt for the clas­sic technique,as it is less stren­u­ous and def­i­nite­ly rec­om­mend­ed for us begin­ners.

One of the region’s most beau­ti­ful cross-coun­try trails runs along the shores of the Hei­d­see. The start­ing point is at Kiosk Canols – the per­fect place to for­ti­fy your­self with a hot punch before or after some stren­u­ous activ­i­ty. We park the car direct­ly on site (don’t for­get the park­ing fee).

Our cross-coun­try ski­ing instruc­tor Flo­ri­an starts us off with some dry runs and a short course. Here, we get to grips with the basic tech­niques before set­ting off on the trail. What came next was a huge sur­prise: We start mov­ing for­wards at a sur­pris­ing­ly fast speed. Are we glid­ing ele­gant­ly? Not quite yet – that takes a lit­tle more prac­tice. Both of us only fell over once each, but we expect­ed that and they were not seri­ous falls. Get­ting back up again is a skill that also needs to be learned. It’s good that Flo­ri­an showed us how to do so before­hand.

Look­ing back, I can real­ly rec­om­mend tak­ing a les­son first as a begin­ner. After just one hour, you learn the essen­tial basic move­ments. Accord­ing to Flo­ri­an, how­ev­er, five to six lessons would be ide­al, as you then learn the cor­rect tech­nique and the basic skills from the ground up.

My sum­ma­ry: Cross-coun­try ski­ing in Lenz­er­hei­de is the per­fect intro­duc­tion. Fan­tas­tic scenery, per­fect­ly organ­ised and absolute­ly pos­si­ble even for begin­ners. We will def­i­nite­ly come back. It was real­ly fun.

André, Direc­tor of Mar­ket­ing & Com­mu­ni­ca­tions

My day in Zer­matt, away from the ski slopes

I’ve been vis­it­ing Zer­matt for years now, stay­ing the night at the youth hos­tel. I usu­al­ly enjoy a deli­cious break­fast while tak­ing in the view of the Mat­ter­horn. I unfor­tu­nate­ly can­not do so today, as it is cloudy. That’s why I ask Lukas at recep­tion whether there are any activ­i­ties that I could do. His tip: cross-coun­try ski­ing in Täsch.

I take the train to the cosy neigh­bour­ing town – a jour­ney that only takes a few min­utes. I bor­row my equip­ment from the Zer­mat­ters Cross-Coun­try Ski­ing Cen­tre right next to the sta­tion. The 15 km net­work of cross-coun­try trails also starts right at the rail­way sta­tion, which is handy.

Even though I don’t have much expe­ri­ence, I glide along on the flat trail with a sen­sa­tion­al view of the val­ley sur­round­ed by idyl­lic moun­tains always in my field of vision ahead of me. Every now and then, a few rays of sun­shine even reach us down in the val­ley and I can only imag­ine how sen­sa­tion­al this tour is when the skies are clear. If you want to take a lit­tle break, there are numer­ous out-of-com­mis­sion chair­lifts posi­tioned on the sides of the trail, where you can take a breather and enjoy the views. While out on the trail, I only encounter five oth­er cross-coun­try skiers.

The bot­tom line: The trail in Täsch is def­i­nite­ly anoth­er insid­er tip.

On the way back, I take a stroll through the enchant­i­ng vil­lage, mar­vel­ling at the old hous­es, numer­ous shops and invit­ing eater­ies. Lukas had also advised me to try the famous car­damom pas­try in Café Petit Roy­al (Cafe | Petit Roy­al | Zer­matt, Switzer­land). I did­n’t need much per­sua­sion to do so.

After­wards, I think to myself: what bet­ter way to end this won­der­ful winter’s day than with a deli­cious cheese fon­due? This can be booked in advance at the youth hos­tel. It’s sim­ply deli­cious.

Lin­da – Head of Mar­ket­ing

All of the trails at a glance

On the Switzer­land­Mo­bil­i­ty plat­form, you will find a nation­al overview of all cross-coun­try ski­ing trails – unique and unlike in any oth­er coun­try. More than 2,900 kilo­me­tres of cross-coun­try ski­ing trails can be dis­cov­ered in the app and on the web­site.

In St. Moritz, for exam­ple, you will find the famous Engadin Ski­marathon trail, while in Val­bel­la-Lenz­er­hei­de you will find the chal­leng­ing La Pala race trail for advanced cross-coun­try skiers. In a nut­shell: there is some­thing for every­one.

PS: As a mem­ber of the Swiss Youth Hos­tels, you can get the Switzer­land­Mo­bil­i­ty Plus annu­al sub­scrip­tion for just CHF 20 instead of CHF 35.