Am I right in thinking that Gstaad is like the Aspen of Switzerland, one of the richest ski resort towns? Is this why they can get away with helicoptering in snow?
The most exclusive ones are probably St. Moritz, Zermatt and Lech, not so sure about Gstaad.
Blows my mind. When I skied there in college in 2012, they were roughly 60-80USD per day and they had free ski between 1500-1700.
I'll be spending a week skiing in Austria next week and altogether it's cheaper than a week of skiing in Colorado.
https://www.skibanff.com/ski-ride/passes/day-passes
Half price
- install an AC unit on the roof of a university building
- move building material from one side of campus to the other side
- extract dead trees from a small forest with an extensive network of roads and paths
- plant trees in the middle of campus. Which lead to this fantastic exchange with my then 2 yo: "look papa, a flying tree!" "What do you mean?" "There!" "Oh, you are right. A flying tree. Do you want a banana?"
My pet theory is that given the high wages in Switzerland, it quickly becomes cheaper to rent a chopper for two hours then to get a crane built, operated and unbuilt.
I just got back from skiing in Vail Colorado. People in Europe may object to flying snow to the mountain, but they certainly do not object to flying themselves to the snow.
In the shared gondola and lift rides, people speaking English within their groups were the minority. I am not complaining, it was a wonderful time and I really enjoyed meeting and talking to people from all over the place!
FYI - the storm systems that are flooding California are producing an epic winter for the ski resorts in the western USA. It's been at least 20 years since I've seen anything this nice! It's really not a surprise that people are coming from around the world to experience it.