If Olympic attention brings the crowds to Krasnaya Polyana, heli-ski operators can spirit you to the mountains just north of the resort for fresh tracks.
If Olympic attention brings the crowds to Krasnaya Polyana, heli-ski operators can spirit you to the mountains just north of the resort for fresh tracks.
KRASNAYA POLYANA
RECOMMENDED BY Thibaud Duchosal
“A few years ago, I met some Russians on a ski trip in the Ukraine,” Thibaud Duchosal recalled, “and they said, ‘You have to come to Russia to ski.’ I like seeing new places, so I went. On my first trip, I went to Mount Elbrus, which is the tallest mountain in the Caucasus [at 18,510 feet]. It’s a huge mountain, very wild and amazing for skiing. However, the people there were very unfriendly, and I didn’t feel especially safe in the streets. Some people I met there said I should try Krasnaya Polyana. I came the next year on the Freeride World Tour. There wasn’t much of a skiing infrastructure. There were only a couple resorts, and not a huge amount of vertical relative to some places—maybe 5,000 feet. But that first visit, it snowed almost ten feet over ten days—light, dry powder. It was a paradise. When you visit a place and get such conditions, you have to go back.”
Krasnaya Polyana may not roll off the tongue quite so readily as Aspen or St. Anton when your friends are rattling off marquee ski areas, but that may change soon. The resorts here—primarily Rosa Khutor—will host the alpine skiing events in the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics. Krasnaya Polyana sits in the western Caucasus Mountains in the far southwestern corner of the Russian Federation, fifty miles east of the Black Sea resort town of Sochi and just north of the border with the former Soviet satellite nation Georgia. The Caucasus stretch from the Black Sea to the Caspian Sea, and comprise one of the physical—and certainly psychological—borders between Europe and Asia. A number of peaks in the range eclipse sixteen thousand feet, though the summits around Krasnaya Polyana are in the six thousand– to nine thousand–foot range. “At Rosa Khutor, the experience is about the snow,” Thibaud continued. The bad weather rolls in incredibly fast from the Black Sea, and the quality and quantity of the snow is amazing. Every time I’ve gone, there’s been a minimum of five feet; one week, there was thirteen feet of snow.
“In my opinion, the best terrain at Rosa Khutor is in the trees. The forest area is steep and fairly open, and it really gathers snow, though the rules for going off-piste are somewhat arbitrary. In Europe, if you want to go off-piste, you go at your own risk. In Russia, there are no ropes, but access to off-piste areas is closely controlled. There will be times when the conditions are great and the weather is clear, but they won’t let you go. Other times when the conditions are dangerous, they open up the off-piste areas. I’ve tried to understand their thinking, but I can’t. At the end of the day, you ski wherever they want you to ski.”
The rather autocratic dictates that determine ski policy around greater Krasnaya Polyana are also largely responsible for the significant development that’s underway in the region, the development that may put the town on the international ski destination map. It turns out that President, then Prime Minister, and now again President Vladimir Putin is a passionate skier, and that Krasnaya Polyana is one of his favorite resorts. This—and the fact that President Putin recognizes the great public relations potential of a successful Olympic event—will no doubt transform the region. “On my first visit in 2008, there were just a few chairlifts,” Thibaud added. “The plan is to have something like fifty chairlifts and much more of the upper mountain served.” Four new resorts are under construction in Krasnaya Polyana, all scheduled to be completed before the Games begin. Whether Putin and his counterparts can pull off a Caucasus version of France’s Trois Vallees is still to be seen, though Krasnaya Polyana will surely change.
One word of caution: You’ll do well to consult your best diplomatic contacts before scheduling a trip to Krasnaya Polyana. If President Putin is present and entertaining guests, the resort may be unceremoniously shut down.
One aspect of the Krasnaya Polyana experience that will likely improve with expansion is the cuisine. “On my earlier visits, the food was typical Russian fare—not very interesting,” Thibaud continued. “With the new resorts, they are adding restaurants that feature some European cuisine. Though the food may be better in other places, the people are very warm, and fond of Europeans and Americans. There’s definitely a language barrier; no English is spoken. But you can still communicate with your hands and have fun.
“I have good memories from each time I’ve visited Krasnaya Polyana, and all the memories concern the vast amounts of snow. On my first visit, it snowed twenty inches the night we arrived, and it was still snowing the next morning. My group was thrilled, but some of the Russians we met were unhappy. ‘It’s a bad day,’ they complained. ‘It’s snowing.’ For the next few days, there was no fresh snow. The next evening, it started snowing again, huge flakes the size of pizzas! ‘Tomorrow, we’re going to have fifty new centimeters,’ we said to each other. When we woke up, there was five feet of new snow. All the forest areas were open. It was snowing so hard that even though twenty people had skied down one of the trails below the lifts as we went up, by the time we were going up again, their tracks were covered.”
THIBAUD DUCHOSAL was raised in Les Arcs, France. Like all kids in the valley, he started skiing slalom and racing very young, and as an adolescent, turned to freeride and exploring the exceptional terrain that was his backyard. As did his mentors, Enak Gavaggio and the Troubat brothers, Thibaud turned his passion into his profession. Beginning with photo shoots in Scotland and Uzbekistan, he discovered travel and a love of other cultures. He joined film production companies Invert Prod and Garchois Films, and the freeride competitive circuit. The year 2009 was his best thus far, as he finished sixth overall in the World Freeride Tour. Look for Thibaud in Argentina, Russia, the United States, and France, or in the portfolio pages of skiing magazines and a new series of videos, Eye of the Storm. Learn more about his adventures at www.thibaud-duchosal.com.
If You Go
Getting There: Krasnaya Polyana is roughly fifty miles east of the Black Sea resort town of Sochi, which is served from Moscow by Aeroflot (888-686-4949; www.aeroflot.ru).
Season: The snow is best from January through mid-March.
Lift Tickets: A day pass at Rosa Khutor is 1,400 rubles (approximately 35 euros). Packages assembled by Big Mountain Trips (888-875-3662; www.bigmountain-trips.com) include flights from Europe to Moscow and Sochi, lodging at three-star hotels, guides, ski passes, and several days of sightseeing in Moscow, and begin at 2,790 euros.
Level of Difficulty: As of this writing, terrain at Rosa Khutor is classified as 59 percent beginner; 6 percent intermediate; 35 percent advanced.
Accommodations: If you choose to go it alone, one acceptable option is the Park Inn at the Rosa Khutor resort (www.parkinn.com/hotel-rosakhutor).
