Valais – Page 4 – Alpine Winter Sports

06/11/2014

Bumper ski season forecast

Accuweather gloomily reports that “Eastern Europe Braces for a Cold, Snowy Winter”, but for winter sports enthusiasts this sounds all too promising. Indeed AccuWeather Meteorologist Tyler Roys says “Ski conditions will be fantastic for the 2014-2015 ski season, especially when compared to last year”. There is already some good dumps occurring in the Alps and Accuweather predict that an active storm track and cold air will bring a lot of snow to the Pyrenees, Alps and the mountains of the Balkan Peninsula. Switzerland looks set for a bumper winter season.

If you want to check out the current snow conditions you could do worse than look at the web cams at Zermatt.

04/05/201404/05/2014

Spring Skiing in Zermatt

Some of the most joyous events in the ski season happen in Zermatt in late April. All the ski instructors, laid off for the season elsewhere, descend on Zermatt for a last hurrah. Unfettered by snowploughing novices, snivelling kids, off-piste wannabees that need to get picked up out of the deep stuff and all those other frustrations, they show the same joie de vivre as the cattle being released from their winter quarters onto the meadows. It is a great festival of impromptu events – slaloms, jumps, skicross and slopestyle, followed by shots and beers in Zermatt itself (Sadly Hennu Stall is now closed). This week also saw 4,500 hardy souls embark on Patrouille des Glaciers, the ski-mountaineering race that starts in Zermatt and ends in Verbier, running high above all the mountain villages along the route.

In fact, Zermatt is the resort that keeps on giving with the official end of the winter season, and the start of the summer season, in June. As the cams on this page demonstrate, even this late in the season there are still good snow conditions.

The freezing level recently has been low enough to mean that fresh snow has settled briefly in the village. None of the valley runs are open and, although the snow above Sunnegga and Riffelberg looks good, only the Kleine Matterhorn slopes are open, above Steg – but today that is still 104km to enjoy. With temperatures set to rise in the days ahead and sunnier weather forecast, the conditions will gradually deteriorate but – if you get up early enough and are prepared for a long ride up and back down, the snow before late afternoon is still worth going after.

Unfortunately Zermatt do not lower their prices for this more modest offering, so be prepared for an eye-popping CHf 86/- ticket price for a day, but the uncrowded slopes just about make up for it, especially on one of those days when the sun is so warm that you can ski in a T-shirt. A word of warning, though, the sun is fierce enough to burn you to blisters in only one day, and once the sun slips behind a cloud or a mountain, the air can be bitterly cold so do make sure you are adequately prepared.

29/11/201329/11/2013

Early Season Skiing

I got my first runs in for the season, at Zermatt and Cervinia. The snow was good, the temperatures suitably cold and enough lifts were open to make it a pleasant enough day. However the one problem with early season skiing is that few resorts offer much in the way of terrain, valley runs are roped off even if the snow conditions are good (to save them for the Christmas period), many lifts are closed (to save on staff costs I guess) and you still have to fork out the full price.

Not a lot of skiers out, mainly a lot of Americans and Brits – and the Italian national team on the Italian side. Lots of unfit bodies crashing around by the end of the day and a few injuries look like they got sustained. A timely reminder to get ski fit before hitting the slopes.

My ski legs seemed to work pretty well, but harder to get used to was altitude sickness. By the end of the season I am acclimatised to it, but in the early part of the season where most of the open runs tend to be over 3000m I need to pace myself to avoid getting nauseous.

Now where to ski next? A lot of resorts are open, but with the provisos I have previously made. There is good snow at altitude, but hopefully there will be more before Christmas. The snowline seems to be about 1300m, but there is only a few inches lower down.

Interestingly 20minuten has a deal to ski the Jakobshorn for CHF 59 including rail travel on 30th November. The deal is here. Note this is not the Parsenn, but the deal has lots of extras and is worth it for the rail pass alone. You can get information on getting to Davos Platz (the stop for the Jakobshorn) here.

That apart, the usual suspects have got some pistes open. I would tend to aim for the larger resorts with high valley stations. If you can get across to Ischgl/Samnaun, that seems to have the most open terrain, followed by Zermatt. Saas-Fee, Diavolezza (St Moritz) and Davos have enough open lifts and runs for a day out. Engelberg, Andermatt and Adelboden have around 15km open, and these and other resorts may open up more runs at the weekends. Off-piste conditions seem to be generally pretty good with moderate risk of avalanches.

17/02/201301/09/2022

Fiesch

This weekend I visited one of my favourite ski resorts, the Aletsch Arena. It is an extensive ski and snowboard area, with a good range of runs and facilities and spectacular view over the Aletsch glacier and across the peaks of Valais, including the Matterhorn. It is hard to fathom why it is not more popular with people from outside Switzerland because you hardly ever hear a foreign accent there. It also has a good snow record with most of the slopes above 1900m and a series of small communities offering genuine ski-in, ski-out accommodation. It is also remarkably easy to get to from Zurich, Geneva or Basel so a great choice for a day out or a weekend break. There are effectively three base stations serving the Arena, one in Mörel, one below Betten (with a huge car park) and one in Fiesch. All base stations have fast efficient cable cars and are all served by trains running between Brig and Andermatt on the Matterhorn Gotthard Bahn. Read more about healthy activities at Firstpost.
View from Bergstation Bettmerhorn
Although most of the action takes place above the Rhône Valley, there are a couple of trails down as far as 1000m, so you can do a spectacular 12km, 1800m drop off the Eggishorn all the way down to either Lax or Fiesch. Lax doesn’t have a lift back up, so you need to take the train back in either direction to get to the lifts, but for me it is the more enjoyable run. Mostly it follows a path then a road so you can’t get many turns in, but there are some nice bits of off-piste between corners in the track and there is a nice piece of off-piste just above the village – watch out for cars and trains as you cut across both a road and a railway track! The valley run into Fiesch is a tough trail, lots of moguls and steep, narrow parts, again mostly following a track. Unless you are confident in those conditions, you are probably better off taking the cable car back down at the end of the day.

Fiesch itself is a nice little town, with Inch being the most lively night spot. There’s a good range of places to stay, but I am excited to hear that the old Army Hospital just outside Fiesch has now been converted to a Youth Hostel. Although it is a fifteen minute walk from the slopes it does have its own railway station so you can take the train to one of the valley stations instead. Can’t wait until we get a chance to take a family break there.