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NEWS FOR THE 2013/2014 SKI SEASON
This season, the exciting additions to the Sierra Nevada’s fantastic facilities include the longest line of freestylers’ jumps and obstacles in Europe, a new children’s area, and new lifts and runs in the beginners’ area.
PISTA DEL MAR – NEW CHILDREN’S AREA
New children’s area Pista del Mar offers a welcoming, fun environment for the smallest skiers who are learning the sport. Kids will love the fun, colourful sea-themed creatures decorating the chairlift, as well as marine obstacles such as an octopus, whale, and submarine, to ski under, around and through. These will help them to master new skills of control and balance, while enjoying their experience on the slopes.
This area is aimed at children aged up to five years old. The new area is reached via the Veleta II chairlift.
NEW RUN AND LIFT IN BORREGUILES
A new run for this season is El Bosque, in the Borreguiles area. It is located to the left of the Dauro carpet lift. This is complemented by a new covered carpet lift, the longest at 21m. Children can also enjoy a new interactive area with woodland animals and an igloo camp.
The beginners’ area in Borreguiles, Dream Land, already has three small carpet lifts, one of which is covered, bringing the number of lifts in this area to four.
INCREASED CAPACITY LIFT ACCESS
The lifts have new access gates, which increase the number of people who can use them per hour from 500 to 700.
NEW LIFTS AND EXTENDED FREESTYLE AREA FOR SNOWPARK SULAYR
The Sulayr snowpark now offers the largest run of jumps and obstacles in Europe, with a total of 70 elements, nine of which are new for this year. In just one run, you can face 46 of these features. Some are natural snow jumps, while other are artificial – obstacles and rails. In total the snowpark has 110 modules.
The area has four sections, all aimed at intermediate level, and is 2.5km long. With some obstacles, there are two height or length options available, according to the snowboarder’s ability.
For full details of the jumps and obstacles, see our Practical Information page!
NEW KIDS’ FREESTYLE MINIPARK
For older children who are learning snowboarding and freestyle, there is a new area called Minipark (Progression Park) to the left of the Loma de Dilar lift. An inflatable mattress in Minipark, for children who are starting to do jumps, will ensure landings are safe and comfortable.
This will complement the other beginners’ area, for smaller children, Kidspark, on the right of the lift.
In addition there is a new Funpark in Loma de Dilar for practising freestyle, with a smaller halfpipe and snowboard cross and skicross runs.
LAST SEASON’S STATISTICS 2012-2013
The 2012/2013 ski season started on 29 November 2012 and finished on 14 April 2013, with weekend opening only until 5 May. The season lasted 147 days, with two total days of complete closure and two days of partial closure due poor weather conditions. The total number of skiers for the season was 790,326, with a further 116,374 visitors using the lifts and recreational area of Mirlo Blanco, making a total of 906,700. These figures are 6% down on the previous season.
The weather throughout the 2012/2013 season was challenging, with more than twice the amount of rain than the previous season, and with adverse weather conditions on 47% of the days.
The Christmas period saw a healthy number of visitors, with 126,166 skiers, plus 22,854 other visitors, a little down on the previous year, although the number of foreign visitors was up, especially British and Russian, with an estimated 15% of skiers being from these two countries.
Again, like previous years, the majority of visitors – 80.4% - were from inside Spain. In a continuing pattern from previous years, this figure is down, not surprisingly. Over 68% were from Andalucia – mainly Granada, followed by Seville and Malaga - and 13% from Madrid.
The foreign share of visitors rose from 17.7 to 19.6%, with the majority coming from the UK (56%), followed by Portugal (27%); Russia, France, Germany and Italy made up the majority of remaining non-Spanish visitors.
The main event of the season was the Freestyle and Snowboard World Cup Superfinal on 18-26 March, with 4,320 participants and 62 disciplines. It was the first time this event had been held in the Sierra Nevada. It is estimated that the competition was watched by a global audience of 333.6 million.
