...either you're a passionate snowboarder in search of a decent snowpark, a competitor seeking good snow conditions in any time of year, or a ski freak touring some of the best European resorts. If you belong to any of these categories, you'll definitely like Saas Fee.
When you enter Switzerland, everything seems brighter and human tailored. Actually, almost everything; the prices are for example tourist tailored. You can have goulash at CHF15, Coca Cola at CHF8, or main and side dish at almost CHF30, which is rather costly, but it is the price of luxury, nature beauties and high quality service.
After passing Milan, Lago di Maggiore and entering Switzerland through Simplon Pass, we pass through small alpine town of Brig and continue our journey toward west, where waymarks leads us toward Sion, Lausanne and the first larger town on our journey through Switzerland, the town of Visp. There, we make a turn from the highway toward our target destination - Saas Fee. After passing through tunnel along the Visp river and 7 km drive, we come to Stalden, where the road takes two directions; the right one, through Mattertal, toward Zermatt, and the left one, through Saastal, towards Saas Fee.
The Saastal valley ends with impressive landscape and a few tourist villages , such as Saas Balen, Saas Grund, Saas Almagell (the birth place of Pirmin Zurbriggen, author's remark), and the highest one of all, Saas Fee. You can look for accommodation in all of them, and the closest to Saas Fee is Saas Grund, which is only 2 km away. You can reach Saas Fee by a car, but you cannot enter it. At the town's entrance, there is a large covered garage with a capacity of a couple thousand cars, plus spatial outer parking lot. Parking is free of charge if you stay for less than three hours.
The town is a classical example of Swiss alpine architecture. All the buildings have to meet high architectural standards, which makes this place really unique. Once you park your car, you enter the Pearl of the Alps, as the Swiss call it. Saas Fee, with a population of 1600, is a member of G.A.S.T.
Shops close at 18:30 p.m., so you have to be fast. Restaurants and cafes are opened long enough and there is quite a number of them, 42 in total. For those who wish to party, there are 16 pubs, bars and discos. Saas Fee's most recognizable visual feature is a local church, which impressively dominates the town's architecture. (Association of Car Free Tourist Destinations), the result of which is unpolluted air, lessened noise and really extraordinary environment spiced up with a beautiful scenery.
Saas Fee lies at 1800 m above sea level and is ringed by 13 peaks over 4000 m high, which is more than enough for exceptional microclimate that guarantees skiing from November to April, and even throughout the year, at altitudes higher than 3000 m even. By taking Alpin Express, a gondola with a capacity of 30 people), we climb 800 m and come to a station where we can take the other gondola or come out on a ski trail. If we want to ascend the top of the resort, we have to take another Alpine Express which tales skiers to a 400 m higher plateau situated at 3000 above sea level. Then we need to catch the world's highest mountain train - Metro Alpin. It will take us to an altitude of 3500 m, from where there is a magnificent view over entire resort, Saas valley, surrounding glaciers and Alpine peaks.
Total length of Saas Fee's trails is 100 km, and there are 45 km more in the neighbouring resorts. 25 km of trails are classified as blue, 50 km as red and 25 km as black trails. The longest trail, running from the glacier to the town, has 9 km. Artificial snow is not a crucial thing on the resort of this kind, so only 8 km of lower placed trails are equipped with snow cannons. The interesting thing about Swiss resorts is the classification of ski trails; besides blue, red and black, there are yellow trails as well. These are off-piste trails and are marked on all resort's maps. If you see a trail marked yellow, make sure the conditions are safe before taking it.
Glacier part of the resort is very high, the trails reach as high as 3600 m above sea level, and are completely covered by ski lifts. For summer skiing, you have 20 km of ski trails at your disposal, which is generally quite enough. However, most frequent Saas Fee's visitors during summer months are national ski teams, so, as you guess already, it could get quite crowdy there, and recreational skiers may become a bit frustrated.
During summer months, when Saas Fee attracts a great number of visits, 10 ski lifts are operating on the resort, transporting skiers and snowboarders, as well as alpinists, mountaineers and tourists in search of fresh air and good photography spots. This resort is a promised land for snowboarders, because of its daily groomed Allalil snowpark that consists of a large halfpipe, two big airs, boardercross, and other more or less known elements.
Glacier trails are rather wide, and inclined so as to suit all types of skiers and boarders. Once you get boared with skiing and snowboarding, you can take a break in a panoramic restaurant at 3500 m above sea level, from which there is an entrance to probably the best ice cave in Europe – Ice Pavilion. It is convincingly the largest world's ice cave, spreading over an area of 5500 cubic meters and displaying yet unseen attractions. CHF5 entrance fee is definitely worth it. We had an impression that this cave is much more interesting than the one in neighboring Zermatt, or those is Tignes and Les Deux Alpes.
This resort is not the largest one we've visited so far, but its offer is really among the most extensive ones. Swiss perfection and rarely seen natural beauty make it even more appealing. Accommodation prices in Saas Fee are rather high. However, you can stay in neighboring places for somewhat less money. Almost all accommodation, even 2* apartments, is very good and solid, and you can be sure that the Swiss will be excellent hosts. The only question is whether you'll have Francs enough for all the things you might wish for.
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