Gruesch Danusa

Grüsch-Danusa is a small family orientated resort in the Graubünden region. It is located at the head of the Prättigau valley and is the first stop on the train from Lanquart to its much more famous relatives of Klosters and Davos. This family orientated place can work nicely to your advantage, and whilst the off-piste is far from extensive, the areas just off the side of the pistes really don't get tracked out.

The resort runs a pretty standard season, but the two long runs down to the base are only really accessible during the middle of the season. When they are open you have a choice of two 8km top to bottom runs, pretty good for a resort than only has 32km of pistes.

A two-stage gondola takes you from the base right to the top of the resort, so there’s no messing about. The one chairlift serves the very sedate beginners area, and 3 t-bars navigate you around the rest of the place. The runs directly from the top to the mid-station take a while to get going, but offer some surprising dips and steeps before joining together to form an exceptionally wide piste at the mid-station.

There is a small terrain park and a boardercross when conditions are good enough. Freeriders will find some pretty untracked areas just off the pistes, and some nice tree stump hits in the forrested areas at the top of the mountain.

Families, well children, are well served here. There’s a large managed kids area at the top of the mountain, completely separated from the slopes, which features a little animal slalom course, mini tubing course, a little baby piste, magic carpet lifts etc - basically everything you need to occupy the little bastards for a few hours while you go and have a shred.