Laax: A Ski Resort, Redefined
Updated: Feb 17
Skiing Unlocked takes in the Swiss resort of Laax, a destination that patiently asks skiers to reassess just what makes a ski resort excellent, and even what it means to be a ski resort ...
There’s something about Laax that you don’t see when you first get off the bus. Well, actually you do, but not in the way that you think. All the people getting on and off the bus around you? Snowboarders each and every one of them, and young, too - so far, so obvious.
But as your fellow travellers filter off into the night you forget about them and even more so the symbolism they represent – if you ever realised what you were seeing in the first place. Over the next few days, however, the idea represented by this disparate group of weary travellers - that Laax Is Different - is drip fed back to you, until, quite simply and before you know what's happened, you fall in love with an idea of what skiing could be.
This is the story of a commitment to a vision, a commitment to excellence, and the closest physical manifestation of “good vibes” I think I have ever seen. This is Laax, a ski resort – redefined.
Laax
Skiing has been taking place in the region for nearly 100 years, with the first lifts built in the region in the 1940s. There are three villages that make up the resort known to the outside world as simply “Laax” – the small, eponymous village itself in the middle of this Swiss triptych, the even smaller Falera just to the west, and the large, sprawling chalet-dominated village of Flims to the east.
All three of them sit on the mountain high above a gorge of the Rhine River, as it flows from its source near Andermatt and just before it turns north towards Zurich to introduce itself as the great European river we all know it to be.
15 years ago, the Wiesse Arena Group, which owns the lift system, much of the on-mountain infrastructure, and several hotels, set out on a mission to redefine what it meant to be a ski resort. Along the way, the company has embraced several goals and "style"-suffixed mission statements, including Greenstyle and Freestyle, along with something a little more simple; just being a damn good place to ski.
Getting to Laax is incredibly easy. Zurich Airport is by far and away the best of the two airport hubs in Switzerland (do not get me started on Geneva ...), modern, spacious, and serving a wide range of destinations in the UK and further afield. From there, Laax lies around two hours away, first by the country's efficient and smart railway network as far as Chur, then by public bus from the doorstep of the station to the doorstep of the hotel.
Once there, the resort base itself is small but offers a wide range of accommodation, especially chalets and holidays homes in the traditional village of Falera. Laax Village itself is headlined by the rocksresort, a self-contained village of bars, restaurants, hotels and apartments that dominate the focus of the resort but offer seriously comfortable lodging, excellent food, and some nice spots for an après beer.
The whole thing is, at first sight, quiet and calm, small and peaceful - not somewhere for a lively, wild weekend of table dancing, but definitively somewhere you can have fun on-snow and off - the IndyBar is a great place to hang out with the locals from last lift to, well, whenever your last call is, with plenty of local beers, spirits and DJs to keep the whole thing moving. Yeah, sure the rocksresort is incredibly new and resultantly shiny rather than the more traditional and instagrammable Swiss Alpine Villages that share this corner of Switzerland, but is just a sliver of the whole resort base stretching out round the corner and belies a character and depth that, just like our snowboarding friends on the bus, takes a while for first impressions to give way to true colours.
Style
Freestyle first came to Laax in 1992 with the construction of a halfpipe in the resort on the Fonna Glacier. Deterred by the prevalent high winds at 3,000m it was moved down to its current position under the Crap Sogn Gion hub in 1995. Since then, it has been built up and built up until it has become the world’s largest half pipe. A semi-permanent dirt structure now exists in the summer where the pipe sits in winter, helping reduce the amount of snow needed to create it when the time comes - ensuring the feature's existence in a changing climate and decreasing the likelihood of events being cancelled.
Teams from all over the world head to Laax to train making use of the world-class facilities available, and many athletes call the resort home – sit down for dinner in one of the many excellent restaurants in the rocksresort and multi-time Olympic freestyle champions will be sat at the table next you. With the Laax Open, the must-ski event of the year, being opened to both skiers and snowboarders a few years back it no longer matters whether you are on two planks or only one, there is a freestyle experience here for you.
The team dedicated to building this Meccah to backflips and airtime take their art all over the world, as designers for Olympic half pipe and freestyle courses for the last 20 years, a testament to the high quality on show here.
But dig down further – literally in this case – and there is something more to simply being the site of the world’s largest half pipe. Three storeys down underneath one of the rocksresort buildings is the shiny, new Freestyle Academy, moved and renovated from temporary accommodation a little further out of town. Skate parks – half pipe, street, and bowl – parkour courses, trampolines and airbags are all one hand to help keep skills up in the off season or when the weather closes in on the mountain.
It is also the breeding ground for the next generation of talent. As we watched, an after-school skate class for children of all ages – equal numbers girls and boys – poured into the bowl and began a lesson, whooping and hollering as they whipped back and forth across the space. At the same time, teenagers were throwing themselves around on the trampolines and airbags behind the skate bowl, using the facility as an indoor play centre of extraordinary calibre. The next generation of freestyle skier, skater and snowboarder is already here, and believe me when I say, it’s Swiss.
The other “style” is an inherent off-shoot of the California surfer town the resort is deliberately drawing inspiration from. The environment is central to everything Laax is trying to do, so much so that it has become their joint-defining suffix-sharing philosophy: Greenstyle. Whilst loads of resorts are making huge strides to reduce their carbon footprint, few are doing like Laax.
Alongside simply using solar power and sourcing food and materials from the local area - a staple of most green-minded ski resorts around the world - Laax goes further. The Greenstyle programme is a commitment to sustainable excellence by Weisse Arena Group that has seen, amongst other things, the Riders Hotel - anchor property of the rocksresort - deliver an entirely vegetarian menu in their in-house restaurant (and a damn good one, at that) and the world's first "on-demand" gondola designed to reduce energy consumption by only releasing the number of gondola cabins needed.
All the wood used in the Freestyle Academy has been recycled and reused from the old academy, moved twice in recent years - once away from the resort base to accommodate rocksresort construction, and now back following its completion. When new panels are needed they are sourced from local wood, and all other features - trampolines, airbags and padding mats - are sourced from local suppliers and, where possible and safe, using recycled parts and material.
At the same time, the programme frees up considerable sums of money each year to go to projects outside the Weisse Arena Group to ensure the whole region is in on the game, helping the place become carbon neutral by 2030.
Vibes
But what else is there? What’s the hook for the everyday skier, someone like you and me who has never willingly touched a rail or sent a kicker in their lives? For those who love the environment but forget their reusable coffee mug all the time and deep down know the damage is already done because they flew here in the first place and actually just want to switch off from the world and its problems?
A damn good ski area, that’s what.
Laax features almost exactly 2,000m vert from the top of the Fonna Glacier down to the resort at 1,000m. 224km of pistes area available, too, ranging from long, rangey blues and reds to challenging mogul-y blacks and itinerary routes. Whilst the off-piste isn’t mind blowing, it can still hit on a good day, loads of mellow terrain opening up the possibility of powder adrenaline laps for all level of skiers and some more gnarly stuff available towards the glacier for those who need and want it.
The infrastructure here is what you notice, slowly but surely, and what begins to set the resort apart from others. It is all new. New chair lifts, new gondolas, a brand new resort base in Laax, a new base station and lodge in Falera, and all new restaurants – the historic huts maintained but their interiors new, scandi, sleek, pine-y and very, very modernist, serving utterly exceptional contemporary local Swiss and Grison cuisine.
The Segneshuette is a prime example of this, perched high above Falera at the head of the FlemsExpress Gondola, at 2,100m. Pork and beef abound, everything from classic teutonic schnitzel and cutlets to the most delicate, aromatic, slow-braised veal, all served on crisp, pine tables but set in the historic mountain hotel and restaurant. For something even more modern, try the Riders Hotel, part of the rocksresort complex - vegetarian only, the menu is updated weekly, so the to-die for Saffron Porcini Risotto or Onsen egg may be gone by the time you get there ...
There is steel and concrete and glass everywhere, but it is silver and modern, not brown and brutalist. The brand new FlemsExpress gondola is a prime example of this. With the old Naraus lift needing replacing, but unable to rebuild in the same location thanks to the area’s designation as a World Heritage Site, a new lift has been built to access Foppa, Stargels, and Grauberg.
The FlemsExpress is Uber but for ski gondolas. In the station, press a button for a destination from four possible stops – up and down the mountain – and you will be ushered forward into a gondola car in a manner unmistakeable from getting on the Underground. Setting off up the hill, the main track avoids the “loop” that serves each station, and sends you sailing up to your destination. Aside from reducing the resort’s carbon footprint by reducing the weight of gondola in use at any one time, the FlemsExpress truly is the next generation of ski lift; sleek, spaceship like modernity to help you take off to the heights of Laax.
There are still some teething issues with the new lift which opened for the 2024/25 season; for every gondola that goes up with people, another has to go down empty to keep the system balanced, and lifties are still having to run things without the computer having a say to ensure this. However, as a skier or boarder, there just to have a good time, this is not yours to reason why; all you will see is shiny, fast, new, spaceship-like gondola, whisking you away to skiing heaven.
All this adds up to one thing: Laax, a ski resort quite simply redefined. There is none of the stuffiness or embracing of tradition you will find at pretty much any other ski resort.
You may think, on first impression, that this can or should be a problem - the "traditional" aspects of a ski holiday are often a massive draw, so many of us go skiing to experience traditional Alpine villages, cuisine, and culture. But I promise you, it is not an issue in the slightest. Coupled with a commitment to excellence in everything the resort does – infrastructure, bars, skiing, style, and oh my God the food – Laax is a damn good place to ski.
Laax is young, it's fresh, it's hip and it's cool. It is a California surf town in the mountains, full of people who want to have a good time – staff included. There is an unspoken, unseen but felt and witnessed vibe about the town that is, purely, just good. It is an amazing place to be, to experience, and to ski.
Final Thoughts
It doesn’t take much to realise I was blown away by Laax. It’s embracing of a California surfer vibe coupled with an unparalleled commitment to excellence sets it apart from any other ski resort; not just the stuffy neighbours it shares this corner of southeast Switzerland with, such as Davos and St Mortiz, but from every resort you will ski this season.
If you get a chance to ski anywhere in Switzerland, make it Laax, and redefine your skiing experience.
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