Czech ski resorts hoping for more snow

Czech ski resorts hoping for more snow

The Czech Republic has a rich tradition of winter sports, thanks to its climate and also a ring of mountain ranges that surround the whole country and provide plentiful skiing opportunities. Generations of Czechs took compulsory skiing courses at primary and secondary school, and also at university. With the ski season just beginning, I paid a visit to a ski gear shop in Prague and enquired about where exactly people go skiing these days.

"I used to go to the Krkonose Mountains, I loved the Pec pod Snezkou resort, but in recent years I have preferred foreign ski resorts, in Italy or in Austria because it seems to me that I get more for my money there; better services and the slopes are better maintained. I prefer to ski abroad."

"I usually go skiing in the Czech mountains. I'm still at school and I don't have much time to travel far. But compared to foreign resorts, the queues are absolute hell here and the slopes are not well-maintained. So skiing conditions are quite bad. The prices here are more favourable but hotels are almost the same price here and in Austria."

After the borders opened in 1989, Czech mountain sports lovers started discovering resorts in Austria, Italy and France, finding there a greater variety of services, shorter queues for lifts and generally better skiing conditions. The trouble with Bohemian and Moravian mountains is that they are far lower than the Alps or the Dolomites and therefore, especially with the warmer winters in recent years, ideal snow conditions cannot be guaranteed throughout the season. Also in such low altitudes, the slopes are wooded and skiing there might be harmful to the ecosystems which are in many cases protected by the state. Despite all those challenges, ski resorts around the country have refused to surrender all their clientele to foreign competition. Jiri Beran is the director of the largest ski resort in the country, Spindleruv Mlyn in the Krkonose Mountains. He says this year, the resort will host some important world sporting events.

"On the 13th and 14th of December we'll be holding the Women's Alpine Skiing World Cup. It will be slalom and giant slalom. On January 30th, the Czech Republic should for the first time host the World Skicross Cup and in the last week of February, we should host the Freestyle World Cup and taking part will be Ales Valenta, who won gold in freestyle aerial skiing at the last Winter Olympics."

As we said earlier, the big question in Czech mountains is snow. Artificial snow machines have become a must in all ski resorts around the country, and in Spindleruv Mlyn they have been in use since mid-November. However, without the help of nature, they might not manage to produce enough snow in Spindleruv Mlyn for the international events which are planned, and the organisers are worried they may have problems.

Despite the fact that natural conditions are deteriorating, tens of million of crowns have been invested in ski resorts this year and four new chair lifts have been built in the country. Ski resorts are offering new services, such as opportunities for snowboarding and other alternatives to ordinary downhill skiing. They provide night skiing, skiing schools for children and, very importantly, more parking spaces. There is also one thing which is unique to the Czech Republic's mountains: kilometres of cross-country skiing tracks free of charge for users. Unlike in other countries, the maintenance costs are covered by the ski resorts.

Spindleruv Mlyn in the Krkonose has been rated the number one ski resort in the Czech Republic. On the other side of the country, in the Sumava Mountains, a relatively unknown resort called Kramolin has now jumped up to number 9 on the ranking list. Lubos Krejza is the director of Lipno servis, responsible for the operation of Kramolin skiing facilitites.

"Our ski resort is in the Lipno region. The Lipno region is a typical area for summer tourism and only few people in the Czech Republic know about this ski resort in Lipno. But this year we invested a lot of money in this skiing area and it is now on the ninth place in the Czech Republic on the qualitative ranking list of our resorts. And therefore, I mean we are now at the start of a new history of our skiing area and a lot of tourists come to us, to Lipno, not only in the summer but in the winter, too."

Traditionally, mountains in this country attract foreign skiers as well, largely because they are situated on the borders and the prices there are lower than abroad.

"We are on the border, directly on the border with Austria and Germany and therefore we have fifty percent of the Czech clientele and fifty percent of people who are from Germany, Austria and Holland."

Spindleruv Mlyn in the Krknonose has always attracted foreign tourists, even before 1989. Director Jiri Beran.

"It depends on the season. In the period from the beginning of January till the end of February, foreign clientele prevails. The first two weeks we get the Russians. After the holidays begin, it is tourists from Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands. In this period our clientele is eighty percent foreign. We want to address our clientele in the period outside the season when the conditions are great and the slopes are empty and prices are more favourable."

Tourism is a great potential source of income for regions of the Czech Republic. The South Bohemian region decided to make the most of what nature had provided them with and is now building a new ski resort in an unusual place. Director of Lipno servis Lubos Krejza.

"We are on the start of a very big project. We want to invest 1.5 billion crowns in a new ski resort together with the South Bohemian Region. We are now dealing with the army because this ski resort is in a military area. And we hope that in four years we will ski in a very nice, very big ski resort in this area. The area is Boletice, in South Bohemia."

The building of ski slopes is generally disapproved of by environmental protectionists, but Lubos Krejza from Lipno servis says in the case of the future ski resort in Boletice, they are helping nature to recuperate after years of bad treatment from the part of the military.

"I think it's true. You know, if the military is working in this area, it damages a lot of the nature there. And we want to make the nature there better for tourists and for us, for the people who are living there and with our ski slopes. We are planning to build 27 kilometres of ski slopes and a lot of chair-lifts and we hope that a lot of tourists will visit this very nice part of nature in South Bohemia and that they will see that this part of the Sumava is nice, too."

The skiing season is just starting. Traditionally, its peaks are around Christmas and New Year's Eve and then when schools break up for mid-term holidays. With the help of artificial snow the ski season will last until mid-April, when as the locals say, Bohemian and Moravian mountains are at their most beautiful.