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It’s long and fun, lol. I wish more than one gate worked at quad though. Cost me 15 mins in line at Guest Services.

Paid parking on top, first row! Wow.

Whoo-hoo! Go grab your coffee, @saltyant

No school buses, I like that!

You think they'll actually groom the place by tomorrow morning? Right now it looks kinda rough. And dark. Not sure about cold.

You're gonna miss out on fresh cookies. I predict, there will be quite a few of them tomorrow morning.

Shoot. Almost forgot my pass. Dumb thing is that I texted with them this morning about it, but still it didn't occur to me to actually put it in the jacket.

Looks like best time to ski this weekend is tomorrow morning, 'cause later the weather gets strange...

What's that about the lightning? Is there a more detailed post somewhere? I skimmed through their FB page and didn't find anything.

Belleayre looked like this yesterday

A quick question regarding pass renewal… Is there a $50 gift card bonus this year? Didn’t see any email so far, and there’s nothing on the website. If there’s, that’s only for the full pass, or weekday only also?

Great conditions today and tons of kudos to the snowmaking team who single-handedly (as in with no help from the skies) have turned the mountain around in just one weekend. Everything's pristine white, gone are the brown marks from Main St or Lazy Mile. Some marbles here and there, actually a lot of them on the Main St, but by noon it softened up enough, so that they became a non-issue. Other than that - great snow all over, best was probably Lazy with freshly blown soft snow. Paradise had remarkable waves on its lower part, don't try to ride them fast on stiff legs. Something strange was going on with Razors that was first open, then closed, then open again, but who cares when there is Challenge next to it. Great morning overall. Sunny, and hardly any people!

Ah, that makes sense. I'm really hoping that they won't quit on us this year. It's not even March!

4+ for today's conditions?? Wow. It's a disaster, I really hope they'll catch up with snowmaking over the weekend, but they've also been messing around and relocating their excavator, so something tells me there may be a leak somewhere... Paradise was fine from the start, Lazy better, but half way down you had to pick a side around giant dirt spots. Main, yeah you get it from the pictures above. The best trail was actually Challenge. Whitest, smoothest, thickest, fastest, emptiest, bestest in short. It held super well until 12:30, when I had to leave. Only problem was the wind blowing strong right in your face and making the top of the trail kinda boldish, but by noon, really, it was your best bet on the entire mountain. Next to it was Coming Soon, but only till you merge with Paradise, and then it was a mushy mess.

LOL, do you wait to get high in the sky or work yourself up before you enter the plane?

I think I've been seeing Root at Blue in the middle of the week lately. Is he still coming to sausage Sundays? He stopped skiing at one time due to family expansion, right?

$263 for a mere add-on?? The beloved Mountain Creek is offering a year and a half long exclusive full time, no restrictions, season pass for $289.99, all ages, all days, all believes. MC clientele knows how to hedge their risks! Still 500 passes left, btw. And if you're not excited about driving to MC, you can always fly and collect your NJ share of handwaves from one (or each?) of MC parking lots.

That this is all fools talk, there will be no winter in PA next year, better learn how to golf.

We saved First for last! All jokes aside it was super-tough picking a place to ski on the last day. We knew that we had to go high, had to be cautious of Sunday crowds and also beware of the cloudy weather with snow forecast. Will high be too high and get us into the clouds? Birg at 2600m was an obvious choice, but we lacked imagination to invent a third way of skiing it. Mähnnlichen is at 2300m, has many trails, but we’ve been there already, didn’t like occasional bare spots, and it’s a direct target for the crowd of Wengen… First is at 2500m, has fewer trails (half is closed actually), but is on the side, so less chance for crowds. Mähnnlichen is next door, and First is an hour away… We’ve been to Mähnnlichen but haven’t been to First… Do we want more yucky trails or less better ones??? This nightmare continued until one of us just shouted “I’ll go to First, and you can go wherever you want”. The rest barked back, but also exhaled and went out to get tickets. Woke up at 5:40, had breakfast, geared up (No rain? Cool!) and started for First. The commute was a train wreck. First bus - no show. First train arrives to the wrong platform. Display on the platform is in direct contradiction with the display inside the train. A human on the interchange station is directing traffic to Grindelwald to skip two trains and board the third one. It was fun! 15 mins late in the end. Got to Grindelwald… Such a contrast with the last year! When I was making jokes about lack of snow in Bern, I had no idea that Grindelwald would laugh back at us with its bare hills. Started our ascent… Went by a hotel with half brown kiddie slopes. What a disappointment it must be for some! Suddenly noticed that the peaks were not visible any more, and prepared for the inevitable… Higher and higher we went, passed two stations already, started to approach the cloud, and suddenly… snow! It was neither cloud, nor fog, it was snow, falling just over the peak! No precipitation whatsoever down below, and yet snow around the peak. Weird! Next thing we’ve noticed was that there was infinitesimal number of people on top compared to any of the past days. As it turned out, it wasn’t just because we came early. It was like that throughout the day, and for a few hours on one slope the lines were well in negative territory for we were the only people on the trail AND the lift. It was tough at first. Close to complete whiteout, worst thing were the rollers. That feeling of piste suddenly taking a dive from underneath you, and you brace for impact… But with every new track being laid, the contrast was getting better and better, and we could afford skiing faster. Today was the first day I regretted not taking warmers with me, got too relaxed. Yesterday’s basking in the sun with cocktails changed into “let’s take a quick break and go inside for a shot!” Speaking of breaks, I remember this place crowded so much that we couldn’t even get inside. Today - empty tables. It was totally weird feeling skiing Alps like you owned them. IDK where everyone was all day long today! Gradually the snow stopped and skies cleared. More people came, including the most remarkable group in the video. When I first saw them, I almost fell off the lift. Hey! Hah! Ein! Zwei! Drei! And chanting like this down they went moving in synchrony, regrouping and changing formations. The video sucks, from above they looked unreal. All in all, today was awesome! When you go skiing, you look for good snow, good weather, low crowds… I’d say that we got 3 of 3 today, for finally it felt like winter here. Left in the dark, skied for as long the lifts were spinning, came back in the dark again. And it’s the last day too. Bye, Jungfrau, it wasn’t ideal this year, but I feel like we’ve managed to get the most out of it. https://youtu.be/F1zb2HfG6qQ

Well, we figured that today we would build upon our yesterday’s success and revisit Mürren, this time skiing it the “right way”, i.e. starting from top. Took us unbelievable 50 mins to reach it via bus and three gondolas, yuck, started in the dark, and by the time we got there the sun was rising somewhere behind the ridge, still not visible. But even so, somehow reflecting off the white tops on the opposite side, it illuminated the trails just fine, and we had no difficulties seeing where we were skiing. Grooming was perfect, hardly any people, both allowing us to ski at top speeds, and we’ve done more runs in the first two hours than in the entire afternoon yesterday. Then it gradually became busy, but unexpectedly not as much as yesterday, despite the “Kids ski free” Saturday. It was a perfect half day on top. Took a couple of outdoor bar breaks while enjoying the sun and scenery. After lunch decided to shift lower to Winteregg and get closer to another exit point, which wasn’t as busy as gondolas yesterday night… Bad decision, should’ve stayed up top. It’s true that all the trails were now in the sun and there were no viz issues, but OMG, what a difference 700m in elevation can make! 1900m vs 2600m… Sugar coated boilerplate all that was left for us. Did perhaps half a dozen of runs, and left for the day. Tomorrow - clouds, snow late at night and colder… They’ve been helicoptering snow canons around Winteregg in preparation for the cold.

Waaay better than yesterday… Went to Mürren area, which is on the side, so less people than in the congested and well-connected Kleine Scheidegg or Mähnnlichen. Also higher and sunny, so win-win-win. Winteregg greeted us with closed lifts (a miscalculation on our side), but also nice long fast empty groomers. Felt right at home on frozen and teeth rattling corduroy and a racing team arriving an hour later. Looped this place for a while, it was alright, just frozen and in the shade, but eventually decided to move on to actual Mürren and its Birg area. It’s Birg at 2600m where thing really took off. Sun was high in the sky, we were way above thaw-freeze level, so snow was smooth, soft and abundant. It was a great day. If you wanna escape crowds around Lauterbrunnen and find sure snow, go Birg. It’s just that if you go there, you’ll be skiing one place all day long. In retrospective we should’ve planned doing it in the opposite direction. Gondola to Birg starts earlier, and it gets lit earlier as well. Winteregg on the other hand would feel way better in the afternoon after others have smoothed the comb a little.

Fun day today… It rained throughout the night, and the forecast didn’t call for the end of it till the afternoon… We postponed start by two hours, and still got our share of rain, sometimes mixed with snow. I applaud to those who started skiing on the hour. Conditions were really varying between just OK and worse. Fast soaked heavy spring snow, coverage ranging from great down to bare spots. Viz - at times full fog, at times flat light additionally limited by rain, at times sun. Hooray to the inventors of bubble lifts. A lot of closed trails in the area too. I can’t believe the coverage is so poor this year in Jungfrau. It’s plain depressing. Eiger run is closed, long trail toward Wengen that used to go right into town on the boardwalks and stopped by the very gondola, now ends one full train stop ahead. Absolutely no snow in Lauterbrunnen or even Wengen. Wow, just wow. Gonna try going to Mürren tomorrow and its higher Birg area…

Some actually do, we weren’t, but it shouldn’t be too hard especially if there not too many connections. Everybody’s sitting while riding, and connections usually involve a short underpass between platforms.

Most unexpected change of plans today. Instead of spending half a day in Bern and then proceeding to settle in Lauterbrunnen, we figured, oh why, don’t we have a full day train ticket, and wouldn’t it be a terrible waste to spend it on a trivial one way trip? Why don’t we take an impromptu detour to Zermatt while we’re here?? And so we went! Boarded 8am train to Visp along with a substantial company of other skiers and boarders traveling in about same direction, changed to Zermatt and in two hours total finally found some snow! Train arrives to Zermatt station, and then it’s an ugly electric bus or an even uglier taxi that takes you to the lift. We lucked out and found a locker available (were told to always reserve in advance should we decide to rent them again), dumped all the stuff there, grabbed skis and poles and spent the rest of the day on the slopes. Great decision! Zermatt’s high, weather was calm and sunny, snow was great throughout the day despite a late arrival, only problem was the longish chain of trains on the way to Jungfrau later at night.

No snow! No snow! The only snow Bern sees these days is on the wall of a sports shop. Feels great blending in with city folks while hauling skis in the streets and wearing a ski jacket with helmet swinging in the back. Feels even greater pulling the skis up the stairs to the fifth floor because they don’t fit in the lift, not horizontally, not vertically, not diagonally. I’m thankful to the girl at reception for not asking about if I’m going to water ski in these or if I got of the train a little too early. But, well, if you forget about skis, not a bad place to hang out for a day at all…