Cesana Torinese-Sansicario - slopes

Ski highlights for all levels

Beginners: find your ski legs at the top of the Baby Sansicario chairlift with access to gentle, wide blue pistes.

Intermediates: test your Olympic style on the Women’s Downhill from Mt Fraiteve to Sansicario. Glide down the excellent red run from the mid-station gondola to Pariol, above Cesana Torinese, or take the new bubble to Sestriere for more challenging terrain.

Experts: head towards the blacks of Sestriere and Borgata to get the adrenalin pumping. We like the black (82) from the top of the Roccia Rotonda chair to the middle station of the Fraiteve bubble and, for bumps, the north-facing black from Mt Fraiteve. And speed freaks will enjoy the Kandahar World Championship run.

Off-piste

Play in fresh snow through the pine forest on the southern ridge of Sansicario down to the Pariol bubble. For a more challenging thigh burn, we like the runs from Monte Banchetta. 

Ski schools and guides

The Scuola di Sci Sansicario Action (00 39 12 281 16 00) and Cesana’s Sci Monti della Luna (00 39 12 289 72 92) are the main schools.

Group lessons tend to be held in the mornings and the standard of tuition is generally good.

Lift system

The good news is that queues are rare, except at weekends. There may still be several sharply-angled drags, but new for winter 2009-2010 are lifts in the Mt Fraiteve area which will become the faster hub for links between Saniscario, Sestriere and Sauze and a new two-man chair will link from the Rio Nero bowl to Fraiteve.

Snow reliability and snowmaking

Sansicario is reasonably snow sure, although many of the slopes are south-facing. However, artificial snowmaking equipment is at hand with 950 cannons covering 125km of the whole 400km Milky Way.

Many of the surrounding pistes are above 2,500m, so there is normally good skiing and snowboarding until late in the season.

Terrain park

Sansicario's terrain park is between the Baby and Rio Envers lifts. There’s a good variety of rails, three jumps and one funbox.