Hikes, hot tubs and proper snow? Our family ski trip in Slovakia is a revelation
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Loading... - Amalia Balaz
- 30 Mar 2023
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The protected summits and valleys of the Tatras offer a return to the pleasures of traditional winter holidays – this time with all mod cons.
The Tatra mountains in Slovakia had been touted as a great destination for a family skiing holiday. But as we stumbled out of the sleeper train from Prague at Poprad station at 6am, we were more anxious than excited. From the station we could see the jagged peaks of the High Tatras rising like black and white knives with a luminous pre-dawn glow against a pale blue night sky. Across Europe the news had been dominated by the lack of snow, that climate change was bringing about the end of the skiing industry as we know it.
As the mountain railway from Poprad climbed up through the foothills and wound its way through forests of spruce and larch, stopping at several mountain villages before arriving at the main resort of Tatranská Lomnica, we were slowly reassured. The snow was not deep, but deep enough, and above us we could see the sweep of pistes beneath the peaks and the lights of the snow tractors crawling about their tasks.
The Tatras are not the Alps. There aren’t miles and miles of runs and lifts, and the prices of the lift passes reflect that (€285 for an adult, €200 for a child for a week). However being part of the Carpathian mountain range that continues from Slovakia down into Romania, it is further east, more continental and thus, so far at least, the reliable recipient of more snow than the Alps.
The Tatras are not the Alps - there aren’t miles of runs - but they are the reliable recipient of more snow than the Alps
The Slovakian approach to skiing is also a key difference. As we rode the chairlifts and cable cars up the slopes, we saw on the tracks beside the pistes dozens of ski-tourers climbing the mountain on skins, and further down, around the lake, similar numbers of cross-country skiers following waymarked trails that stretch for miles all around the foothills of the mountain range. And the resort is not a ski resort as such, but a place for winter holidays. In a time when the industrial machinery of downhill skiing is starting to look like a stranded asset, this could well be a good thing. Read More…
