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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 |
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#2
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4 days in Zermatt
Hi Mike,
Thanks for the report although it makes for slightly depressing reading ! I am there for 2 weeks from 27 December so am praying nightly to the snow gods "mike" wrote in message ... 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 |
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4 days in Zermatt
In message , Nick
Higson writes Thanks for the report although it makes for slightly depressing reading ! I am there for 2 weeks from 27 December so am praying nightly to the snow gods It had apparently reached 17C in the town last week (there was a foehn) melting a lot of what'd just fallen. Higher up it didn't melt but it blew away instead. It turned extremely cold on Saturday night, the river was freezing up fast, and Sunday lunchtime at Plateau Rosa the froth froze on our beer! They were making snow, so unless there's another foehn you should at least have some steep horrible resort runs to give variety to the glacier stuff. Apparently 8th December is some saint's day and is always a local public holiday, but when it's on Friday or Monday people get a long weekend and go skiing. -- Sue ];( |
#4
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4 days in Zermatt
In message , mike
writes Queued for Klein Matterhorn cable car for 35 minutes on Saturday midday. On That was because Switzerland's First Chairlift on a Glacier wasn't working, again, Bruce. You were lucky to get away with 35 minutes. -- Sue ];( |
#5
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4 days in Zermatt
On Thu, 11 Dec 2003 00:27:17 +0000, Sue
wrote: Apparently 8th December is some saint's day and is always a local public holiday, but when it's on Friday or Monday people get a long weekend and go skiing. It's the day of Immaculate Conception actually :-) Ian -- Yeah, because you never know when the value of 2^15 will change and you have to go through all your code fixing it. -- Paul Tomblin |
#6
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4 days in Zermatt
"Ian Spare" wrote in message ... On Thu, 11 Dec 2003 00:27:17 +0000, Sue wrote: Apparently 8th December is some saint's day and is always a local public holiday, but when it's on Friday or Monday people get a long weekend and go skiing. It's the day of Immaculate Conception actually :-) So Christmas Day is really the day of superfast gestation? -- Paul Schofield Time flies like an arrow Fruit flies like a banana |
#7
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4 days in Zermatt
On Thu, 11 Dec 2003 01:00:33 +0000, Sue
wrote: In message , mike writes Queued for Klein Matterhorn cable car for 35 minutes on Saturday midday. On That was because Switzerland's First Chairlift on a Glacier wasn't working, again, Bruce. Hello? I'm over here - that's Michael you're talking to. You were lucky to get away with 35 minutes. Oddly, it was working all of the previous weekend when I was there - the delays we had were further down, due to non-running of the top section of the new Matterhorn Express bubble. -- Ace (brucedotrogers a.t rochedotcom) Ski Club of Great Britain - http://www.skiclub.co.uk All opinions expressed are personal and in no way represent those of the Ski Club. |
#8
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4 days in Zermatt
Paul Schofield wrote:
So Christmas Day is really the day of superfast gestation? Is that a new quad lift ? |
#9
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4 days in Zermatt
On Thu, 11 Dec 2003 08:42:48 -0000, "Paul Schofield"
wrote: "Ian Spare" wrote in message .. . On Thu, 11 Dec 2003 00:27:17 +0000, Sue wrote: Apparently 8th December is some saint's day and is always a local public holiday, but when it's on Friday or Monday people get a long weekend and go skiing. It's the day of Immaculate Conception actually :-) So Christmas Day is really the day of superfast gestation? I knew someone would say that or something very similar :-) Probably better to ask a catholic really .... -- Yeah, because you never know when the value of 2^15 will change and you have to go through all your code fixing it. -- Paul Tomblin |
#10
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4 days in Zermatt
"Sue" wrote in message ... In message , mike writes Queued for Klein Matterhorn cable car for 35 minutes on Saturday midday. On That was because Switzerland's First Chairlift on a Glacier wasn't working, again, Bruce. You were lucky to get away with 35 minutes. -- Sue ];( Yes, chairlift not working on Saturday due to "software problems" so I was informed but OK on other days ; incidently the new 6 seater high speed chair on the Gornergrat (Gifthittli) has the lift pass readers on the exit, after the lift, so will be interesting to watch the chaos at peak times... and "only" 35 minutes queuing because we were a lot more determined than the Italians and other people faffing about... but would have been quicker using the T-bars though Mike |
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