Skiing

We have created a Beginner's Guide Skiing and a Guide Skiing Kids for you. There you will find the most important answers to beginner questions

The ski equipment includes:

• Skis with bindings
• Suitable ski boots
• Ski poles for balance
• Ski goggles for clear vision while skiing
• Ski helmet for better protection in case of a fall
• if necessary a GoPro action cam

With classic alpine skis, you can choose between pure carving skis and all-mountain skis. Carving skis are best for well-prepared slopes. All-mountain skis also allow you to make excursions into deep snow. A current trend is to use rocker technology. It simplifies cornering. There are also freeride skis, touring skis and cross-country skis.

The International Ski Federation FIS has published Safety Rules:

1. Be considerate of other skiers and snowboarders
2. Control of speed and riding style (ride on sight!) 3. Choice of lane (the skier coming from behind must not endanger the skier in front)
3. Overtaking with sufficient distance
4. Entering and starting up the slope without danger (make sure to look up and down beforehand)
5. Do not stop without necessity in narrow or unclear places (clear quickly after an accident)
6. Ascending and descending at the edge of the slope
7. Respect the signs (markings and signalization)
8. Everybody is obliged to help
9. Obligation of identification (everyone must give personal data)

If you have only had a few days of skiing, it is not recommended that you buy your own skis. Especially in the first days or weeks of skiing you usually make great progress. So you will soon have "outgrown" your beginner's skis. You will soon no longer need the short all-round carver that you need at the beginning to forgive mistakes. So it makes sense to rent the beginner skis

Overall, the trend is more towards renting skis every time anyway. There are several reasons for this. First, skis are expensive and you often only need them for a few days or weeks a year when you actually have time to ski. On the other hand, new models are added every year and it would be very expensive to keep up with the trend.

Please also see our guide Ski resorts in Switzerland on this topic. The regions with the largest ski resorts include Vaud and Valais, Bernese Oberland, Central Switzerland, Grisons and Eastern Switzerland. Ski resorts with more than 200 kilometers of slopes are:

• Les portes du soleil (426 km) - Vaud and Valais
• Matterhorn ski paradise (252 km) - Vaud and Valais
• Gstaad and surroundings (250 km) - Bernese Oberland
• Jungfrau region (213 km) - Bernese Oberland
• Adelboden-Lenk (205 km) - Bernese Oberland