SKIIING IN MANCHESTER
Alf Alderson visits Slovakia – and finds himself skiing in Manchester…
Jamming the revolving doors of Slovakia’s newest five-star hotel is not the best way to make an impression as you stride (unsuccessfully) towards reception, but at least it ensures the staff remember you. And if like me you’re dumb enough to try and get through a set of revolving doors with a pair of skis over your shoulder what else can you expect?
I’d arrived at the beautifully refurbished Habsburg Empire-era Hotel Grand Kempinski in Slovakia’s High Tatra mountains fresh from three days skiing in Jasná, the country’s biggest ski resort some 60km away in the Low Tatras.
When I tell you that Jasná boasts just 46km of terrain you may be somewhat unimpressed, but as with many things in life big isn’t necessarily better – and that terrain does include twelve patrolled freeride zones.
The resort is neatly divided into two distinct ski areas on the north and south facing slopes of 2024m Chopok Peak, with the northern slopes holding an excellent range of pistes for beginners through to intermediates, whilst the sunny south side is somewhat steeper and appeals to more experienced skiers.
There’s a thousand metres of ‘vertical’, so unless you’re Bode Miller your quads are guaranteed to be burning by the time you’ve skied top to bottom, and there are also five impressive ‘freeride’ zones. All consist of wide, open ‘alpine’ areas which plummet down to tree runs which will challenge anyone with a pair of wide skis and a go-for-it attitude – indeed, so good is the freeriding here that Jasná is a venue for the Freeride World Tour in March.
It’s all remarkably good value too – we regularly ate at the unique Pizza Von Roll mountain restaurant which has been imaginatively built around the top mechanism of a disused ski lift, enjoying an excellent pizza and fine Slovakian beer for little more than €10. And the interior décor of ski lift, porthole-style windows, wood burner and contemporary furnishings along with friendly service and relaxed atmosphere knocks spots off the surly, overpriced experience that is characteristic of so many mountain eateries in the Alps.
During my stay in Jasná I’d also been able to enjoy four-star ski-in/ski-out accommodation at the Hotel Družba, built in traditional alpine style on the lower slopes of the blue Biela Pŭt piste, and the more contemporary Hotel Grand beside the resort’s new eight-person gondola.
The resort’s UK brand manager Petra Šuhajdová took me on a hectic tour of Chopok South’s freeride terrain before my snarl up in the Kempinski’s doors. From the summit of Mount Chopok that afternoon Petra and I had enjoyed superb views north to the spiky summits of the High Tatras before I left mid-afternoon for those same mountains and my reservation at the Grand Kempinski. The sixty-minute drive from the Low to High Tatras (which are named for their geographical location and not their relative altitudes) is smooth and easy but I was still ready for some R&R by the time we arrived at the hotel.
No problem – if the huge, deep bath or the walk-in shower in my room were not enough to ease aching muscles then the Kempinski’s opulent spa would certainly do the trick.
An hour in the sauna and steam room followed, after which I relaxed in an all-enveloping bath robe with a cold drink whilst gazing out of my room across the frozen tarn beside the hotel and up to vertiginous 2600-metre peaks – that, I feel, is how to chill out after a day on the slopes…
Outside the night drew down on a landscape where luxury and wilderness sit comfortably alongside each other in a way that is hard to find in the Alps – where else could you hear the spine-tingling howl of a distant wolf pack in the early hours of the morning whilst luxuriating in a king size bed under the softest of duvets?
What’s just as much of a paradox is that these wild mountains are ideally suited to novice skiers. Right behind the Kempinski is the small resort of Štrbské Pleso, an eclectic mix of ornate fin de siècle hotels like the Kempinski, brutalist Communist-era holiday accommodation and minimalist 21st century developments that I promise you looks far better than it sounds.
The skiing is limited in comparison to Jasná, with just a few kilometres of generally easy pistes which are ideal for learning on, but more experienced skiers can still enjoy a day here as much because it allows you to immerse yourself in Slovakia’s palpable alpine culture and heritage as to rip it up on the slopes.
For a century, winter sports have been an integral part of life in the southern foothills of the High Tatras with world championship skiing events held here as early as the 1930s, and the base area is overlooked by an imposing ski jump from which we watched young men with hearts and spines of steel practising the closest thing there is to non-powered flight.
I was told that I could find more challenging skiing at the High Tatras’ main resort Tatranská Lomnica. This is tucked beneath the impressively pointy bulk of 2634-metre Lomnickŷ Peak, Slovakia’s second highest mountain, first climbed way back in 1793 by an adventurous Englishman called Robert Townson.
Reached by a funky electric mountain railway from Štrbské Pleso, I headed here with Terezka Rothová of Mountain Paradise, a UK-based company which specialises in Slovakian mountain holidays. At first sight the skiing at Tatranská Lomnica seems to be restricted to little more than some wide, cruisy blue runs above the main gondola, but as you get higher up the mountain a decent sized powder-filled bowl appears, and this is definitely not beginner terrain.
That said Terezka emphasised that this is very much a novice focussed resort. “There are rarely any lift queues, the slopes are wide and gentle and we have good instructors who rarely have more than six students so our guests tend to improve pretty quickly when they ski here. They’re also good with their ‘manchester making’ machines here”.
“What the hell is a ‘manchester making’machine, Terezka?”
“The machine that grooms the slopes, of course”.
Of course. And here’s why it’s called a ‘manchester maker’. Slovakia used to purchase all its corduroy cloth from Manchester and East Lancashire, so much so that the cloth became known as ‘manchester’. And the piste bashers (‘manchester makers’) comb the snow into parallel lines like corduroy, hence their name. So, not so daft as it seems, particularly when you consider that we often use the term ’corduroy’ to describe a well-groomed piste.
By the end of a sunny day exploring Tatranská Lomnica ‘well-groomed’ was not how I was feeling, but returning to the Kempinski with skis safely held at a revolving door-friendly angle I knew that would soon be the least of my worries. In fact the biggest dilemma would be choosing between deep hot bath, sauna or steam room.
MORE INFO
Mountain Paradise (www.mountainparadise.co.uk; 0161 408 8988) offer a week’s ski package at the five-star Grand Hotel Kempinski (www.kempinski-hightatras.com) from £1,199 per person, including return flights from London Luton to Poprad (two hours), transfers (30 mins), seven-nights accommodation in a double room with breakfast and a six-day ski pass for Štrbské Pleso.
They also offer a week’s ski package at the four-star Hotel Chopok in Jasná from £1099 including return flight, transfers (one hour), breakfast and six-day ski pass.
