4 days in Zermatt

Just returned from early skiing trip at Zermatt. Considered Espace Killy but
thought snow looked better at Zermatt and accommodation availabilty was
easier to find. Conditions were OK, but much worse than last year at this
time.

So, Sunnegga area was very limited with only 3 lifts and a few pistes open.
Rothorn cable car not running with no appreciable snow accumulation visible
above Blauherd (2600 metres). Presumably recent wind has blown the snow
away. Run to Findeln open and a couple of restaurants open on the way down.
Gornergrat area better with many runs open and skiing down to Landtunnel.
But link with Sunnegga only via cable cars.
The best skiing was up at the glacier and over at Cervinia. There, snow
conditions were very good down to Cervinia and seemed most of the area was
open. Even managed to ski right down to Valtournenche although icy and very
uneven lower down - no snow making. On the Zermatt side skiing down to Furgg
was open and the black run from Furgg to Furi was marked closed most of time
but is skiable - badly pisted with big chunks of hard snow in places.
No decent offpiste found - crusty, wind blown.

More crowded than this time last year possibly due to other resorts' poor
conditions and what appeared to be Italian and Swiss public holidays over
the weekend and Monday - can anyone shed light on this?

Accommodation was fairly easy to arrange - about 5th hotel we telephoned on
previous Thursday evening had rooms. Maybe we were lucky. Some hotels were
not open yet.

Queued for Klein Matterhorn cable car for 35 minutes on Saturday midday. On
Sunday we went to Cervinia via the T-bars from Trockener Steg instead of the
cable car, freezing but at least there were no queues for these lifts -
there must have been a long wait for the cable car. Cervinia unfortunately
was covered in low cloud so skiing in really poor visibility. Other days,
and on Zermatt side, were cloudless, sunny but very cold. Generally, the
lifts were busy but I don't think we queued for longer than 10 minutes excep
t as mentioned earlier.

We travelled from Geneva, staying in Visp (Hotel Visperhof - excellent
although only there for 7 hours!) Friday evening, arriving in Zermatt before
9 am on Saturday, then staying in Hotel Derby for 3 nights. Very reasonable
and convenient hotel, in centre on main street about 150 metres up from the
rail station.

The area that can be skied is pretty good, decent base, very few bare bits,
and hopefully more snow will arrive to ease the inevitable congestion over
the Xmas period.

What is scary though is the extent that the glacier appears to have receded
from last Easter when I was last there. From what I remember, great areas
have disappeared and vast new areas of crevasses can be seen.

HTH

Mike