Grimentz - Zinal Snowboarding

Southeast of Sion and south of Sierre, the Grimentz-Zinal Ski Area has 13 lifts accessing roughly 34 pistes totaling 115km with a maximum vertical of 1,200m. The lifts and pistes interconnect the villages of Zinal (1,670m), Grimentz (1,570m) and St Jean (1,327m). The newer cable car links the snowboarding routes from Zinal and Grimentz. Although not well known, the Sorebois sector of Grimentz-Zinal has a large freeride zone for expert snowboarders called Gardes Bordon. The freeride zone offers unsigned, ungroomed pistes spread over 100 hectares that are only open when the Avalanche Level is #1 or #2. One of the best routes is Piste Du Chamois that runs all the way down to Grimentz.

The Grimentz-Zinal ski area is part of the larger Val d’Anniviers Ski Region interconnecting by bus with Chandonlin-St Luc ski area and the Vercorin ski area. Overall, Val d’Anniviers offers 220km of pistes served by a total of 45 lifts that semi-interconnect 12 villages. While Grimentz is a quaint village, there is very little apres ski or nightlife to speak of.

To reach the snowboarding at Grimentz Ski Area by air, the closest major airports are Geneva and Bern, which are both about 2.5 hours away. There is also a small airport in Sion.

To reach Grimentz by train, the near railway station is in Sierre, which is about 25km away. There is a regular Post Bus from the Sion Train Station.

Note: If you plan to head to Grimentz for snowboarding by train, here are two great options offered by the Swiss train system SBB. First, there is the discounted Swiss Transfer Ticket which provides a round-trip train ticket from an airport directly to the town near the ski area, plus 50% off any additional train or bus tickets. Second, there is the Snow-N-Rail ticket which provides a round-trip ticket from anywhere in Switzerland combines with a ski lift pass for as long as you need at a total 20% discount (see: http://www.sbb.ch/snownrail ).

Overall, Grimentz - Zinal is the 31st most popular snowboard & freeride destination of all 79 snowboarding resorts in Switzerland.