Wanlong Kar Tahmini

I have skied some big resorts in France such as Les Deux Alpes and Flaine, Austria, Zillertal, Incl Hintertux glacier at 3200 meters and the Matterhorn region of Switzerland and Italy, to some tiny 25 meter drop hills in Shandong Provinc. I consider myself to be an advanced skier. First, understand it doesn't snow much in this area of the world, but once every 3-5 years they get a foot or two, which is actually enough to ski between the birches here. All pistes have snow cannons which are relied on but the temps are icy cold, down to -15c -20c or more at 2000 meters in January. In one way it sucks because it's so damn cold and the piste is hard packed and icy. In another way you need to forget your European, Japanese or Western North American prejudices. The snow is there until late March, no rain sludge or melt, guaranteed. You need to wrap up warm with a balaclava as any exposed skin will hurt, also get the sharpest slalom skis you can find, you'll still have a blast, but forget powder skiing, unless mega lucky. On the other hand it's nearly always blue sky and you have a great view over the dome of air pollution which doesn't stretch up this far into the mountain. The air is clear here, but down in Chongli town it can get hazy with locals having coal fires or heat; yet still streets ahead of Beijing or most places in Hebei. Most of the runs are marked black. In truth, in European terms they are 70% reds/blues with 30% genuine black sections, the blue runs are very busy with risk averse locals showing off to anyone that will watch, and the blacks empty, compared to anything in Korea, Japan or Europe. I wouldn't travel from outside of Asia to come here, but that said jumping on a genuinely high speed 6 man chair with no queue (mid-week) and skiing 500 plus meters vert on multiple near empty blue sky redish-black run certainly beats a day at work or a bad weather ski day in Europe. Not too shabby for a day or even three!