Jungfrau 2023

[eaf]

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!
 

[eaf]

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…

[mbike-ski]

In college I spent a semester in Rome and when school was done a buddy and I went to Kitzbuhel to ski.  When we arrived there was no snow and were told the only snow was the glacier in Kaprun so we hopped on a train to Zellam See

[eaf]

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.

[GrilledSteezeSandwich]

Nice report, Eaf do any people wear ski boots on the train?

[Barb]

Love seeing those pics! Like deja vu!  That train board, Kalpetran, stop on request. I can still hear that in my head. Zermatt is a beautiful town, enjoy. 

[Mixilplix]

Those are fantastic pics.. 

[eaf]

9 hours ago, GrilledSteezeSandwich said:

Nice report, Eaf do any people wear ski boots on the train?

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. 

[eaf]

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…

[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. 

[eaf]

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.

[GrilledSteezeSandwich]

Nice report and good news about the snow cannons!!!   Gotta bring in the heavy artillery. 

[eaf]

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

[GrilledSteezeSandwich]

That synchro skiing video was rad.  Thanks for the report.  There sure are alot of logistics.