Getting to grips with piste grading in any ski resort is important to make sure you enjoy your time on the slopes.
Contrary to many resorts in the Alps, Zermatt does not have any Green runs at the easy end of the scale but it does have Yellow runs at the expert end of the scale.
The order of piste colour markings from easy to difficult is: Blue, Red, Black and Yellow.
Blue runs - beginner
Once you are out of the beginner area, and happily controlling your speed on a gentle gradient and turning, you are ready to ski blue runs. Just over 20% of Zermatt’s slopes are Blue pistes and you will find some up at Sunnegga (close to the Wolli Park beginner area), Gornergrat (around Riffelberg and the Gifthittli chairlift) and one up at Schwarzsee.
They are the easiest runs we have, perfect for learning the basics or enjoying the view from if you can ski them easily. The blue run through Findlen (up at Sunnegga) is also the access run to many of Zermatts best restaurants, so beginners wont have to miss out on the fabulous lunch experience here.
Red runs - Intermediate
Zermatt is known as a resort for intermediate to advanced skiers and you can see why, around 60% of the pistes here are Red runs. Red runs are generally steeper or have narrower sections than blue runs.
They are the pistes that connect our ski area (if you want to ski from Sunnegga to Gornergrat, Gornergrat to Furi, or even Klein Matterhorn into Italy).
It is worth bearing in mind that you you will also need to be happy skiing red pistes if you plan to ski back to town at the end of the day. The steep sided valley that the village sits in means there are no Blue runs to town.
Black runs - Advanced (groomed)
The advanced and expert pistes in Zermatt are the Black and Yellow runs. The 2 colours combined make up just under 20% of the total pistes. The biggest difference between these slopes is that Black slopes are groomed each night and the Yellow slopes are not groomed during the winter at all.
The Black runs in Zermatt are steep pistes where you challenge your technique on the groomers. There are only a handful of them in our ski area but if you are a good skier, they are worth a find and a ski 🙂
Piste markings have a left and a right!
Have you noticed that all pistes are marked with poles denoting the colour of the run and have an orange section at the top? The Markers on the skier’s right have a larger orange section than those on the left to help you out in poor visibility, so you know if you are on the piste or next to it.
Yellow - Exprert (not groomed)
Yellow runs (otherwise known as Itinerary runs) are marked off piste runs. They are not groomed, but they are controlled for avalanche safety (which is why its particularly important to respect the signs to say if they are open or closed). Since they are avalanche controlled it is not necessary to take avalanche safety gear to ski them.
Yellow run conditions can range from powder, through variable tracked out snow to bumps…they are not for the faint-hearted… some of them are very, very long! Piste marking is a little different on Yellow runs, instead of having poles on either side of the run the poles run down the middle, so keep fairly close to the poles so you don’t wander away from the piste.
