Popular Post eaf Posted January 2 Popular Post Report Share Posted January 2 Holy cow, it’s Jan 1st, I hardly got any time to sleep the night before, and now it’s going to be another sleepless night on a red-eye to Malpensa! After an unbelievably warm, wet and snowless trip to Jungfrau last year, this time we decided to play it safe and get up high in the sky to Breuil-Cervinia-Zermatt area, approaching it from the Italian side. And of course, as the luck of the draw goes, this year there’s plenty of snow everywhere, and on top of Matterhorn there are actually 60mph winds, so we might not even be able to cross into Switzerland over the 4 days of skiing, since the only way to do it is to get over the ridge at 3500m. Something tells me though that before I get a chance to try that, I’ll be trying chains on my way to Cervinia, which is like, maaaan, this would be a perfect year to take trains on the Switzerland side rather than drive in snow in Italy. Anyway, the plan is to ski as much as we can and wherever we can, and use the first opportunity to sneak out to Zermatt, like these people did, but the other way around (https://yawninggetsyoueverywhere.com/2022/03/18/skiing-from-zermatt-to-cervinia). Only 5-6 hours roundtrip with a nice opportunity to miscalculate something and end up spending the night in the wrong country. Will we get a car good enough to take us up to Cervinia? Will the winds cooperate? Will we be too dumb not to cross over back to the Italian slopes in time? LOL, better get drunk soon to stop worrying about this nonsense! 10 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RidgeRacer Posted January 2 Report Share Posted January 2 Oh man here we go! Love these reports eaf. Looking forward to this. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eaf Posted January 3 Author Report Share Posted January 3 (edited) Well, turns out the forecasts are not to be trusted here. No significant snowfall yet, and the biggest issue was maneuvering the car on steep icy driveway and in the most tiniest garage, but hey, we made it after all! But the night was brutal, lol. Turns out that they turn off heating in the entire town between 23:00 and 6:00, somehow we were not communicated this, and spent part of the night kicking the radiators and reading thermostat manual. Going to the lift now! Edited January 3 by eaf 5 1 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post eaf Posted January 3 Author Popular Post Report Share Posted January 3 This place is insane! It’s truly three dimensional, meaning all shops, apartments, parking, etc are built on different levels. If you see on google maps that grocery store is right next to you, don’t believe it - it’s actually 50 feet down, and to get there you need to take a longish detour along narrow road with cars but no sidewalks. When we arrived yesterday night, we foolishly thought that we would quickly drive up to the ski rental place to pick up a missing pair of skis and be on our way to the apartment. Bahaha! The street is pedestrian only, and there’s no parking nearby. Actually there is, but it’s 50 feet up, and yeah, a detour would be needed and no walking shortcut. Anyway, the weather was spectacular. We woke up to 3-5” of new snow and blue skies. I don’t know why they delayed opening the upper mountain, and why they never opened pass to Zermatt (yup, we didn’t get there today). The cashier even made us sign a waiver that we understand that we’re buying Italian top to bottom day pass while the upper lifts are still on wind hold, and won’t ask for a refund if they never open. Well, by the time we finally reached the top, the entire Italian side opened up, and there was no serious wind in sight. This Zermatt uncertainty is actually very irritating. Contrary to Switzerland (where you can buy a lift ticket 24/7 using a vending machine near the lift or train station), there’s nothing like this here. You either buy the pass online and wait in pick up line, or you buy it on the mountain and wait in even longer line. And you may not even know if Zermatt is going to be reachable when you’re in line because it’s still TBD. Of course the international pass is a little extra, and the cashier cannot give you any advice. Snow is fantastic top to bottom. Nothing like last year where only the highest trails were nice, the lowest were non-existent and in the middle there was frozen teeth rattling cord. Not this time. Crowds are spread out, and lines are typically a minute or two except for a couple hub places where one could wait 10-15 mins to get on a lift. 11 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eaf Posted January 3 Author Report Share Posted January 3 Oh, and you know how those “Made in Italy” poles are actually made? They throw skis on the ground, wait for them to sprout and gather the harvest. 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post eaf Posted January 4 Author Popular Post Report Share Posted January 4 Hehe, another 5 inches overnight. The driveway and the winding narrow road to the lift are all white, and you can’t see the mountains because of low clouds and snow still falling. The good news is that the forecast calls for clear skies in two hours. The bad news is that the Zermatt link is still red, and there’s even a notice now that they’re gonna close it for maintenance starting next week and until April. Just WTF?? Plenty of cars on the way to the lift trying to fight gravity, snow and ice. Some are spinning wheels polishing the black mirror, some chose to stop on the side (and block part of the already narrow road) to put the chains on. We march uphill with the skis on the shoulders, and I swear, I’m gonna get a heart attack on one of these marches one day. The cashiers again have no idea about what’s gonna be open and what not. Zermatt link is yellow, next update is in two hours. We choose to buy international tickets and hope for the best. And surely after the first gondola up we stare at the status board where the entire freaking mountain is in red, and the only way from here is the way down. Some people camp in the snow waiting for status update, we decide to go down once, since the line at the base wasn’t that long. And it would all work out great if we didn’t take the wrong turn and didn’t end up on the other side of town where there’s just one six pack chair up, and that chair is in start-n-stop mode, and the line is insaaaaane. Anyway, we made it. First up that chair lift, then down to the gondola, then higher and higher, and maybe 3/4 of the way up realized that our gamble will likely not work out today, as the wind is actually quite strong. It comes out of nowhere when you’re in the middle of the third lift, and hits you in the back draining all the heat and sending snow up the slopes. Initially even the Italian side of the resort was cut in half because the crossover was not reachable, but they opened it around noon. It was fun skiing. Lots of new snow in the lower part of the mountain, lots of off piste opportunities, softly packed groomers quickly turning rough as most people chose to stay there due to the cold and wind up top. And the temps really varied a lot. It was around freezing at the base and -12C on top plus the wind chill factor. So, if you go all the way from top to bottom, you start all chilled and with the mask on, and by the time you reach the line at the base you’re sweating bullets and opening all zippers. Even better skiing on upper part today than yesterday, despite it either not getting or not retaining much of the new snow. Bye-bye international add-on, but even on the Italian side we lost track of time and barely made it back to the Cervinia area before lift closure. Gonna snow all day tomorrow, I wonder how the viz and wind game will play out. 10 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post eaf Posted January 5 Author Popular Post Report Share Posted January 5 Today was somewhat extreme… Snow - 10/10, Viz - 0/10. When we woke up, it was already snowing for a while, and the forecast was promising a full day of snowfall. All lifts were opening on schedule (except for the stupid Zermatt link, as usual), so we followed the chain of three lifts to get as high on the Italian side as possible, in hope of perhaps getting over clouds, but nope. It was snowing all over the place, and the place itself was completely unrecognizable. Completely blinded by the surrounding whiteness, with not even a hint of shadows, we cautiously made our way down, and the already familiar way skied soooo much differently this time. We were probably among the first on the slopes with no other people in sight, and 3” of virgin fresh light snow under our skis. Where we used to cruise, we now had to push. Where we used to fly, we were now floating. We really could only make our way out by watching the trail markers, as everything around was just solid white. Even later during the day, after the snow turned rough, we really couldn’t see the waves, only feel them, and often at the very last moment. Quite a few falls ‘cause we could barely estimate the incoming trail pitch, forget about skiing around bad spots. Anyway, after a couple of top to bottom runs we retreated to some moderate terrain at Plan Maison where it was ok to ski even in the blind. Hardly any people, some funny conversations. A woman was skiing with a local guide and was clearly upset with the weather. She had no days left, was going to taxi to Geneva the next day (3.5 hours) to fly to London, then another 3 hour drive home, then fly to NYC in a day, followed by Miami and LA. What a life! Some kid was hoping for a break later in the day because “it would be so cool to ski this powder”. The break never came. It was a spectacular winter day. Not much chance to zoom around the mountain, had to be super cautious due to the viz, but still tons of fun! If you don’t see much in some pictures, that’s because we didn’t either, lol. Was going to ski tomorrow as well, but managed to stretch something in the back of my knee in the stupid parking lot, so if ice doesn’t help, will just drive to Milan and then ride to Venice to limp around. 10 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GrilledSteezeSandwich Posted January 5 Report Share Posted January 5 Nice reports. Next time maybe just travel to Zermatt. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eaf Posted January 6 Author Report Share Posted January 6 Well, this was the last day of skiing, actually the last morning. Had a train to catch and were somewhat worried about how fast we’d be able to get down from the mountains, given all the recent snow and road conditions. So, bought morning tickets and ran to the lift opening. We were never able to go higher than the top of the first lift. Even chairs at the Plato Maison were not spinning because of wind and clouds up top, so we had to loop the few trails that were available to us. The previous days experience mattered a lot, we’ve never made the wrong turn, never got to the wrong lift, didn’t get stuck in lines, we ripped the reds at max speed overdosing on adrenaline. While people were waiting in line for gondolas to open, we ran upstairs to catch the tram. When gondolas did open up, we were cutting lines taking up free spaces in half full cabins, since the early weekend crowd felt too relaxed and wanted to ride alone, while we were in a mission! People were waiting for half an hour on snow in vain hoping for the next lift to the next Plato to open up, we didn’t have those 30 mins. And those lifts never opened up anyway. The reds were insanely good and fast. We literally bombed them down, especially at first, when others either didn’t arrive yet or were thinking if it’s worth to wait to go further up or take the trail down. Chair lift from the other side of the town didn’t start in time, so those crowds were also cut off the slopes for some time. I could still feel some pain in the back of the knee when fully stretching the leg or walking in ski boots, but when skiing, in the ski stance, half bent, it felt fine reacting perhaps only to strong vibration, which there wasn’t too much of, given the state of the freshly made soft groomers. Didn’t have much time for pics on the slopes but had hell of a time finding the place where to drop off the car in Milano, then getting to the right train station. Made it! 6 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theprogram4 Posted January 6 Report Share Posted January 6 only 1 pic of the graffiti covered train? Props for taking it though. By far the best pic in this thread by a long shot! 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shadows Posted January 8 Report Share Posted January 8 Eaf what do you do for work? Does anyone know? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GrilledSteezeSandwich Posted January 8 Report Share Posted January 8 4 minutes ago, Shadows said: Eaf what do you do for work? Does anyone know? I know but I don’t know if I’m at liberty to say. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shadows Posted January 8 Report Share Posted January 8 He is a male gigolo. 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
enjoralas Posted January 8 Report Share Posted January 8 44 minutes ago, Shadows said: He is a male gigolo. Nice work if you can get it. 2 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Johnny Law Posted January 9 Report Share Posted January 9 11/10 what an adventure! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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