At last, it seems I'll be able to start the season. Even better, all by myself. Husband has stated he prefers to stay at home, and Junior says he'd rather have a playdate with a friend from school. Never mind, single room deals are easier to find anyway.

Looking at the weather forecast, I've narrowed it down to a few places, still unsure where me, my gear and my GA will end up.

Grimentz: not much open yet in terms of km, but lots of snow in the forecast. Maybe not such a good idea?

Saas-Fee: been there before

Aletsch Arena: been there before

Mürren: new one, pretty intrigued by the place. Right now my first choice.

I've excluded Adelboden because there is a race this weekend (and not that many kms open), Wengen because we're going there in March and Zermatt because I already have a trip there planned in February. As it's the first weekend, I'll be mostly checking how my body is reacting and whether the weight training has compensated for me being one year older and still overweight. In other words good technical skiing, but no off-piste.

Anywhere else you experienced Switzerland skiers can recommend? I can leave tomorrow, and as long as the place is accessible by public transportation and I can get back home Sunday evening it's all good for me.

I usually like Graubünden, but the snow isn't there (which makes me nervous about our upcoming winter vacation, but there's still time for the snow to come, I hope...)

Thanks!

Answering my own post, how pathetic...

Anyway, on my way to St. Anton. Never been there, my first foray outside CH for skiing purposes.

Will start making plans for next weekend on Wednesday.

I am not that experienced but my experienced friends like Laax a lot, most probably you have been there

Several times. It's my favourite place "close" to home. It's usually the place where we have the family's season kick-off. But thus year I'm waiting for more snow before I go there; we have a weekend booked for February but I'll cancel if less than 50% of the slopes are open (76 of 235 km open as of today).

Flims/Laax, being south facing, suffered badly in December (the open pistes gives a clue to this).


The last few days have massively improved pretty well everywhere above about 1300m (with possible exceptions in Graubünden as the moist weather didn't penetrate there so well). However the weather forecast for the weekend is pretty poor - do you enjoy skiing in fog?

Titlis is not that promising as well

Not skiing but if you ever want to go for a nice walk in the snow with a fellow treasurer (female), shout :-)

It looks like I'm heading to Titlis tomorrow. I expect the weather to be crap, but the snow to be ok - I'm just keen to go, tomorrow is my only option, and Titlis looks like the best of some bad options.

St Anton seems like a good option if you're going a bit further out, though.

What about Belalp for a season opener? It's not so glamorous, but you have 2100-3100m in the Valais. It's quick and easy with the train from Zurich and a bus that drops you right at gondol Blatten. They've had decent snowfall they past nights as well.

Probably plenty of water skiing available.

And 13km of open pistes.

I'll go to Pizol on Sunday if the weather is not too bad...

Arosa and Lenzerheide offer a great range of pistes.

Eh? Sure , it's been raining in the village, but the temperature has been low all day and it's been falling as snow above around 1400m, with another 20cm expected overnight, so the pistes should be in really good shape for the weekend, with some sun possible Sunday

But not that much that is open, at least according to bergfex.

Am at St. Anton, looking forward to the weekend.

To those who are going skiing this weekend, I'm always interested in reports on snow conditions, when I don't go for the weekend I try to squeeze in a day trip whenever the weather is good and the family collaborates. I don't trust websites 100%, they tend to either be hoplessly optimistic (really, not snow in 3 weeks, yet "powder"?) or overly negative (I've found they often don't update the number of open pistes in real time).

Engelberg had great snow in the mid and high portions of the mountain. Visibility was, as expected, poor, but it's still the best skiing I've done this year.

If the sun comes out a bit tomorrow afternoon as rumored, it could really be a lot of fun.

Didn't see much that was closed here today (meaning all the websites need updating), but didn't see much at all since visibility went from passable to good (for a few minutes) to tragic to poor to passable again. Not the best way to discover a station, but never mind. It was better than my first time in Engelberg when the only way I could get down was to follow where my skis were pointing and make sure I didn't miss the marking poles. Somehow left me with mixed feelings about Engelberg.

Good snow on top, slushier at the bottom where it started to rain in the afternoon. But higher up it was snowing for most of the day, lightly at first and not so lightly after lunch. Made for interesting runs where you started off in powder which grew heavier and wetter as you came down.

Overall a satisfying first day of the season, looking forward to tomorrow.

Probably was for me too, still recovering from surgery, as I'd been given the OK to ski (although I have been out a few times already) and consequently was teaching for the first time since last April.

Visibility was a bit limited at times, it's true, but the snow was really good for teaching, especially at a higher (ski) level, as it was verging on the slushy at times and consequently shows up poor technique, or more importantly allows better technique to be immediately noticeable.

Anyway, I was just glad to be out there doing it.

Are you actually here now/tomorrow? I'm not teaching (that I'm aware of) so could perhaps meet up. Anyone else here like to form a mini-EF group ski?

Leysin for me tomoro.. Gonna do a half day lesson and see how I feel after that to continue!

It rained for about six hours near me this morning but I can see snow from the window this afternoon..

Attached Thumbnails