One of our favorite things about teaching students in an Alpine environment is the abundance of outdoor activities and opportunities we can offer due to our location. Aside from the clean air, diverse nature, and breathtaking views, living in a beautiful place like this lends itself to many fun outdoor activities. This, therefore, allows our students to learn skills they may otherwise not have the opportunity to develop and takes their learning in directions they would often not expect!
One wonderful thing about living in this area of the world is the distinct seasons—we have the privilege of seeing new flowers bloom in spring, hiking in the Alps during the summer, witnessing the beautiful orange leaves fall in autumn, and witnessing the incredibly pristine snow in winter. In the winter months, skiing is a predominant part of our community’s lives, and we arrange ski afternoons every Tuesday and Thursday to allow students to develop their skiing and snowboarding skills and experience everything that winter in Switzerland offers.
During these months, we integrate the outdoors and skiing into our students’ academic lives. Last winter, we held an experiential learning session on the slopes with a visiting scholar, where students had a lot of fun studying the physics of skiing in a practical way! This allowed them to understand the real-life applications of their academic studies and provided the opportunity to learn from an expert in the field. Other activities include avalanche training and ski safety sessions, both of which are of great importance during these months.
Though Leysin has incredible and diverse slopes and a range of routes for all abilities, we often enjoy taking our students further afield to different areas of Switzerland to experience other ski resorts, too. After all, students must experience skiing on different terrains to improve! Therefore, here is a list of all our favorite ski resorts that our students love!
- Leysin Ski Resort
Of course, our favorite (and the closest!) ski resort is our very own here in Leysin! This resort has a fantastic range of pistes for people of all levels and provides some incredible views. There are 60 km of slopes available, as well as 12 lifts and altitudes varying from 1300-2200 meters. Our more advanced skiers also love practicing tricks at the snowpark, and many have mastered freestyle skiing as a result. At the top of the resort is Le Kuklos, a rotating restaurant where viewers can see incredible Alpine landscapes (and get a sneak peek of Mont Blanc!). We are so lucky to have such a fantastic ski resort on our doorstep, and our students spend many hours there over the winter period! - Glacier 3000
This ski resort is nestled in the mountains near Les Diablerets and is (you guessed it!) 3000 meters above sea level. Only a 30-minute drive from LAS, the glacier offers panoramic views of beautiful snowy peaks such as Eiger and Jungfrau and is perfect for different levels of skiing! This resort offers cross-country skiing, dog sled rides, hiking, and of course, a plethora of incredible ski slopes. There are 31 km of slopes available and 11 lifts to transport guests. The glacier offers skiing for many more months of the year than usual due to its high altitude, which offers a really unique experience for our students and allows them to improve their skills further during the autumn and spring months. As a school, we take regular trips out to this resort, and it is definitely a student favorite! - Les Mosses
Les Mosses is a nearby resort that consists of 40 km of skiable domain, including 14 pistes that are suitable for all levels, a terrain park which is great for our more advanced skiers, and it is a regional destination for cross-country skiing. Only a 20 minute drive from Leysin, Les Mosses is also accessible via skis—at one end of the Leysin resort is a public/free ski bus that takes skiers directly to the connected resort! This ski resort is a great option to experience alternative slopes to Leysin without traveling too far, and if combined, Les Mosses and Leysin have 100 km of ski slopes between them! A world of skiing really is at our students’ fingertips! - Saas-Fee
Being a popular and world-renowned skiing destination is not the only thing going for Saas-Fee! Only two hours from Leysin, Saas-Fee is an amazing ski resort located in the Lemanic Region of Switzerland. For skiing and snowboarding, there are 100 km of slopes and 5 km of ski routes available. Saas-Fee also has a freestyle park, which is definitely a favorite amongst our more experienced skiers and snowboarders! The pretty town connected to the slopes is a car-free zone, so many students report that the area feels like a very authentic Swiss town experience when visiting. We take weekend trips out to Saas-Fee during the winter months, and our students love experiencing skiing near some of the highest mountains in Switzerland and visiting such an easily accessible and famous ski resort! - Zermatt
Perhaps the most famous ski resort in Switzerland (or even the world!), our students are really lucky to live so close to this incredible ski resort! Skiing at Zermatt is a real treat for our students in the winter months, and they always enjoy the incredible views of the beautiful mountains in this region, such as the Matterhorn. Like Saas-Fee, the town is pedestrian-only and, alongside only a few others in the country, provides skiing all year round! Students that visit this ski resort enjoy an incredible 360 km of pistes for skiers of all levels, plus 36 km of freeride trails. This paradise is definitely one to tick off the bucket list for our students along their skiing and snowboarding journeys!
Skiing is a really big part of our lives during the winter months here at LAS. Living in such a strikingly beautiful Alpine environment lends itself to spending time in the outdoors, and our students often reflect back on their time here with a love for the landscape and fond memories of ski afternoons and weekends with friends from all over the world. We can’t wait to help our new students make new memories and kick-start their love for the mountains!
