eaf

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…

There is a problem with skiing new places... You go somewhere new, you like it, and then you figure, what the hell, let's go there again, because, well, it was pretty good! Net result - no new places. We're off to Jungfrau region again with a one night stopover in Bern. This time the weather has played tricks on us, it was a massive washout lately, with temperatures above freezing and rain, rain, rain, at least in the villages. But WTH, if it's not snow, at least there will be trains! We're not in Grindelwald this time, rather in Lauterbrunnen, which is somewhat lower elevation, but provides easier access to Murren & Birg - the flank that we've totally missed last year. And the local trains still make it possible to easily get to Mahnlichen, Kleine Scheidegg and car-less Wengen. Will we get to First, which used to be next door, and now on the opposite end of the area? IDK, we'll see!

Paradise was remarkably trashy today, especially in the early morning. But the almost-2-mile-trail was actually rather good. I never enjoyed Burma because it's typically full of slow skiers and degrades quickly, but today it was niiiice. Firm, smooth and fast. And you could ski Connector not fearing that someone would cut you from the left. The most bizarre thing today were clocks. The one on the lodge one hour behind, the one on the quad one hour ahead. It was very tiring to count down 90 mins of skiing.

That's all they have there right now?? A big hole? The season's doomed. Don't even start that thread.

Both lifts but no chairs?

Any word about heated seats? Damn, I should've bought a CB pass instead!

It was rather obvious even on Monday that at least half of Wednesday would be good to go. I remember, I was picking then between yesterday and today. Good thing I picked right 😂

You’re not missing much. The entire mountain is dogged up, only upper lodge and Vista are in the sun. Get better!

With discounts like $70 passes for 70+ folks, I doubt that raising generic pass prices is going to do anything to the crowds on the mountain.

The 4-hour ticket price this week is just $44, which makes season pass a somewhat questionable investment for an average person getting only 4-6x days a season. I bet that your bet is wrong.

How so? Works beautifully for US government. And did Biden just approve some $13.6 billion in Ukraine aid?

Today was the most delightful skiing day at Blue. So relaxed and completely void of the usual anxiety. Skiing directly to the lift, warm and sunny, and yet with pretty good snow. Too bad I have to work sometimes, otherwise I'd just stay there all day. Nobody at the rope drop, and the pic of the pool under construction as a bonus.

Eaf is mourning the loss of a CV axle boot and lower control arm bushing today. I bet, the long winter and great snow at Blue are both to blame here. It was a great day, thin and sleepy crowds despite a Ski-A-Thon up until noon, but then all of a sudden it became a little too much.

Well, you know what I mean. It's gonna be 60F next week.

I prefer to ski weekdays lately, but will be there tomorrow, to celebrate the time change and the last day of winter.

Nah, it was slow from the start, and from the start it was cold. Was most noticeable and irritating on Paradise with groomed seas protruded by blown islands, but made Razor so comfortable and soft that it has seemingly attracted everybody.

WTH, no report today? I have to leave one, if only to send deserved praises to management for running both express lifts after 10am and leaving TCS nicely groomed for mere mortals like myself. It's the number of lifts and runs I could make that are responsible for the speedy part. Slow was the snow. IDK what was that, freshly blown snow on top of the groomed surface, me being lazy and not waxing the night before, temperatures or something else, but it felt slooooooow. Other than that - great day!

No, but it’s definitely worth getting one. I think early bird weekday pass was under $400 last year.