Corviglia of St. Moritz, outstanding skiing with stunning views

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CORVIGLIA SKI FACTS

SEASON START & END:  October until April        

SKI ALTITUDE IN METRES: 1716 – 3303 metres above sea level  / Vertical descent 1587 metres        

PISTES: 88 pistes (20% easy  / 70% medium  / 10% difficult )

LIFTS: 55 lifts across all ski resorts. See online.

LIFT TICKET:  Ski passes for the Upper Engadin for the winter season 2022/23 are available, with attractive savings on offer thanks to the “Snow-Deal” dynamic pricing model. Buy your lift pass now and enjoy an early-booking discount – plus additional family reductions. See online.

NOTE: Book the “Sleep+Ski“ offer at one of 40 participating hotels and benefit from a hotel ski pass at a fixed price of CHF 45.00 per day. Only bookable for the entire duration of your stay. See online.

CROSS COUNTRY SKIING: Up to 220 km of prepared cross-country ski runs (skating and classic), 3.5 km night trails in St. Moritz (skating) and Pontresina (skating)

LANGUAGE: Rhaeto-Romanic and German are the two official languages / In the Upper Engadin (Sils to S-chanf) the Rhaeto-Romanic dialect Puter is spoken. / In Maloja, Italian is spoken in addition to German.

AIRPORT: Arrival by car from airport:  Samedan 7 km / Zurich 215 km / Basel 290 km  / Lugano 180 km  / Geneva 480 km  / Munich  280 km  / Frankfurt 590 km  / Friedrichshafen 210 km  / Innsbruck 190 km  / Milan 175 km  / Bergamo 195 km

TRAIN: Zurich HB to St. Moritz – 3 hours 21 minutes. / Rhaetian Railway (RhB) from Chur  / Tirano to St. Moritz on the Bernina Express – 2 hours 22 minutes

SKI FACTS: St. Moritz is the birthplace of winter tourism and Alpine sport, which came about over 150 years ago as the result of a bet. With a total of 87 World Cup standard slopes and pistes, St. Moritz is amongst the largest and most varied winter sports regions in the Alps.

SKIING

The St. Moritz logo is the sun and it seems for good reason, for it seems the sun is out a lot more than it is not. Many a time we have looked at cloudy weather report in the morning only to open the curtains to see blue skies with no hint of a cloud; on average there are more than 322 days of sun a year, I do wonder if the local tourist board has some kind Voodoo wizard in its employment!

The local skiing area to St. Moritz is Corviglia, which starts at 1720 metres and goes all the way up to 3057 metres creating a vertical drop of 1337 metres. Corviglia has a total of 24 lifts and 35 pistes which collectively cover 155 kms. The Skiing area can be accessed from either St. Moritz village on the Chantarella funicular, from Celerina with the Marguns chairlift or from St. Moritz Bad via the Signal cable car.

This is where the sunny side of life resides. With sun drenched pistes, most skiers who visit St. Moritz will hang out here with its constant supply of sun rays and great restaurants. The pistes are big, wide and flow down the mountain with style and panache, the views across the valley to Corvatsch and beyond along with the collection of lakes are just breathtaking.

With its many red pistes and blue pistes cross-crossing the mountains this is skier’s heaven. Some of our favourite pistes are to be found in the Lej da la Pêsch area and the ‘04 Coviglia’ piste which closely follow the women’s and men’s ‘Engadina’ and ‘Corviglia’ downhill pistes. We also loved the black pistes down from the Glüna peak and the blue, red and black piste down from Las Trais Fluors.

For a bit of competitive fun head over to the 400 metre fixed Giant Slalom course. One’s attempt is filmed and available to download. Note that the lifts in the region open at 7:45am so one can make first tracks before the rest of St. Moritz awakens. Also, if one books more than one night at a hotel offering the ‘Hotel and Ski Pass’ combination one gets the ski pass for a mere CHF 45 per day.along

When it comes to eating on the mountain, there are many places, but we particularly liked the gourmet offerings at the bottom of the Blue piste 06 ‘Standard Variante’ which can also be accessed by road as well. In this area recommend Langosteria for their exquisite seafood and elegant terrace. The Celeste Mountain Bistrot on the other side of the road is also a splendid place for lunch or you can experience the pop up Terrazza by The Grace Hotel in collaboration with Celeste, with it delicious soul food, rose and cocktails all accompanied by resident DJ.

BEGINNERS 

About 27% of Corviglia pistes are Blue runs. Corviglia has a good connection of Blue pistes, but complete beginners may want to look to some of the smaller Engadine villages like Zuoz, Pontresina or Celerina.

INTERMEDIATE

The Corviglia area is an intermediate’s paradise, with blues and very skiable reds covering the area. Most of the pistes are long and tend to be very wide, so there is plenty of room to manoeuvre. For those wanting to experience their first black piste, it is worth checking out the Gluna Piste.

ADVANCED

There are not a vast array of black pistes around in Corviglia but the ones that exist are fun but most of the other pistes will tend to please the expert skiers Try heading over to the Fuorcla Grischa Piste.

OFF PISTE

Corviglia has about 8km of freeride pistes, however the Corvatsch area offers the most free-ride opportunities and because it is mostly north facing the off-piste tends to keep pretty well. Freeride areas of note are: Lagalb to La Rösa and Val Arlas (Diavolezza).

For more information on what to do in St. Moritz read our guide or visit the St. Moritz website for more information.