The Kulm Hotel St Moritz has launched a new two-day package for the coming winter, allowing participants to try kite skiing on the Swiss resort’s famous frozen lakes which hosts events including the White Turf horse races each winter.
Kite skiing is a fairly recent development in the snowsports industry, having been developed by explorers in the noughties as a wind-assisted way to reach the South Pole that much faster. It shares similarities with cross-country rather than downhill skiing (as it is usually practised on fairly flat surfaces), apart from the fact that participants can use boards as well as skis to glide across the snow and get air when they hit a bump (making it comparable to water skiing and wakeboarding).
Guests will have their first kite skiing session on the more protected Lake Bianco, before testing their new-found skills on Lake Silvaplana. The latter provides ideal conditions for kite skiing, as it is located at the southern end of the Engadin, allowing the kites to really pick up the wind as it whistles through the valley.
The package includes two nights’ half-board accommodation (with dinner in one of the Kulm’s five restaurants); two 3-hour kite skiing lessons (on separate mornings), a 50-minute Aktivital massage treatment to ease those tired muscles and a lunchtime fondue after the first lesson. It costs from approximately £850 (CHF1,240)pp sharing a double room.