Secret Garden

SECRET GARDEN — Spotlighting a top resort hosting the world’s greatest winter athletes.

When the Olympics come to Beijing in 2022, many people will likely tune into the grand purpose-built venues for sports like hockey, ice skating and curling that’ll unfold in the capital and Zhangjiakou, a co-host city of about 4.6 million people to the northwest. For the gravity and snow sports, however, they’ll look to Yanqing and Chongli, two districts in the surrounding mountains. If you’re looking to ski where the Olympians will test their mettle in the aerials and freestyle events, head to Genting Secret Garden, one of the more upscale venues where a proper vacation awaits.

Road to the Olympics

Genting is also perhaps one of the more western-leaning resorts in Chongli, with a ski school inspired by European programs and instructors who’ve spent time training in Switzerland and Austria. Partnerships with American resorts like Squaw Valley and Laax, Switzerland, help round out the influences. Past Olympians like Jonny Moseley have already come over to rip down groomers and bumps runs with locals, including down one piste named “Squaw Valley” after the Tahoe resort. In return, Squaw renamed a mogul run under its Red Dog chair “Secret Garden.”

Influences from Around the World

That’s not to say staying at Genting isn’t exotic. Restaurants like Green Dragon, Blue Lagoon and Old Beijing serve up delicious Chinese fare like mouth-sizzling hot pots, pickled salads and plates of you cai, a leafy green drizzled in a succulent oyster sauce. Come evening you can swill Korean cocktails to piano music or get sweaty dancing to DJs at an on-site bar. Executive suits in the Genting Grand Hotel, an airy stone and wood complex, stretch out to 3,300-square feet with king-size beds and views over the slopes.

2022 Winter Olympics Genting venue, or “Yunding” in Mandarin, sits about 20 minutes outside of Chongli in the 7,000-foot Dama Mountains not far from a new bullet train stop that, when fully up and running, will slash travel times from Beijing from about four hours to 50 minutes. Genting aims to be one of the largest ski resorts in Asia when fully built out, with 88 runs and 22 mostly heated lifts and enough rooms for 10,000 people. The scale of the construction is impressive. “A whole new universe is being created,” says Benno Nager, a former Mammoth Mountain executive who now lives in China and is tasked with developing Secret Garden into an Olympic site. “It’s a bit of a revolution.”

Snow that feels silky and fast underfoot

Secret Garden, like every resort in Chongli, isn’t particularly huge with about a 1,300 vertical foot drop, and like every other resort in this part of China, Secret Garden also relies primarily on manmade snow. But don’t write it off. The arctic, dry air of winter forms fool-you-fluffy crystals that feel silky and fast underfoot. At the end of every day, you’ll be wonderfully spent, ready for a dip in the pool or a massage onsite, relaxing in the midst of a winter revolution, unlike anything you’ve ever seen.