Arosa In Switzerland, Ski Resort With Magnificent And Addicting Slopes

By Author: Boštjan Hozjan
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A decade after this discovery, around 1900, the area became a winter ski resort, with a ski elevator and cable car installed in 1938 and 1956. Before all of this, however, great mystery writer Arthur Conan Doyle sought sanctuary here before the resort was the du jour thing to do. With guides in tote, he would go walking around the snow and mountains for hours on end, once skiing down the Maienfelder Furka Pass.

Before Doyle and Arosa's claim to skiing fame, the inhabitants lived as herders and farmers, with settlements as far back as the mid-1300s. As people came and went-as little as 140 people in the 1500s with as many as 2,000 people in the 1970s and 1980s-the disappearance of agriculture and the growth of tourism took place. With health spas and sanitariums and healing clinics, Arosa became one of the eminent places to go for a relaxing and recovering holiday. After Doyle came the British and after the Brits came the rest of the world, from the wealthy to the poor, to soothe away sickness.

Today, it's no secret that Switzerland has some incredible skiing. Arosa, however, has some of the most beautiful skiing ...
... you could ask for on a ski holiday. The surrounding mountains coupled with the freshest air you can breathe makes all your work-related stresses melt into the snow. For some geographical anomaly, Arosa has more sunny days than they know what to do with. The snow and sunny days on record almost beat out any other European resorts, so if you're looking for both, you'll surely find it here. The skiing is great, particularly for beginners and intermediates. Expert skiers have some good challenges, but it won't take you long to learn the slopes and conquer them in a day or more.

With that said, expert or advanced skiers will only have three slopes to practice on. Blue and red skiers will have 21 and 31 slopes to perfect their form. The longest vertical you can get here, however, is 910 meters with the highest lift reaching 2653 meters at the top of Mount Weisshorn. From way up here, you can connect to the red and green slopes on Bruggerhorn, at 2447 meters high. You can then work your way down to the Arosa ski resort proper, which lies at the 1800-meter mark. You could take all day doing this, if you so desire, as there are over 70 km of downhill slopes and 25 km of cross-country paths; the longest run is 9 km long. The tourist map shows 6 chair lifts, 1 gondola and 2 cable cars, though you'll find 16 total lifts (branching off to others) when you get here.

You won't find fake, snow cannon snow when you come to Arosa, as the altitude assures a powdery winter (well, in case not there are 120 snow cannons). What you will find, though, is a pretty active snow park. There are no rails to ride but there are five boxes and seven jumps. There is also a half pipe and a 300-meter lift to take you around. You can either rent the equipment or bring your own, whether you're a skier, a snow boarder or both. You can have time to train for both, too, as the winter ski holiday season starts on the 29th of November and ends on the 19th of April. Ski weekends are possible even if coming from Zurich, which can take three hours with ground transport in the winter (the closest rail and bus stations are both in Andermatt). Even if you come during the height of the busy season, the lifts can easily accommodate over 22,000 skiers per hour, so you'll never have to wait too long in line. Before you can say, ready, set, ski, you'll be off on your next downhill run.

If you plan to ever get off the magnificent slopes that make Arosa so addicting, then you'll find that the town is much like other Swiss "quiet" towns. This is to say that Arosa has plenty of apres ski options, but nothing like the hip-hopping discos and clubs at other European bigwig resorts. There are plenty of south facing hills, where you'll find restaurants to soothe you with plenty of sunshine. The restaurants are sometimes foreign owned, serving everything from Mexican, to Italian to German to Japanese. Additionally, there are plenty of pubs happy to take your beer money with the Casino Arosa being the place to stay out late-partying, dancing, drinking, gambling and rendezvous with one-night and long term friends. If you don't like skiing or late nights, then you can always go snowshoeing, paragliding, tobogganing or take a horse and sleigh around town.