The forecasted snow seems to have finally arrived, however, it appears to have totally caught the lift company by surprise in Morillon who managed to open a single lift. I reckon this is absolutely disgraceful, they clearly had no intention whatsoever of opening more lifts which didn’t stop them selling tickets to anyone or offering any sort of explanation or apology to season pass holders This is actually becoming a regular performance at Morillon, it took them three days to open the Sairon last year.

The good news though is that it is snowing prettily heavily this afternoon, the snow/rain line is around 1000 m or so but fluctuating somewhat.

Along with Verbier it looked like Adelboden was offering the best skiing this weekend, the drawback seemed to be that although they had quite a bit open it was fragmented in different parts of the domain. Since Elsigenalp/Frutigen is the first place you get to in the car we went there. The road up to the lift is amusing, it’s single track, has hairpins, steep drops and is very steep, still we weren’t walking up it.

These were really the only two open lifts for skiing, which really didn’t look too bad. The picture changed as we rode the t-bar though …..

The standard of piste maintenance is just incredible here, the next two shots show what an amazing job they’ve done.

The runs they opened were actually really good, with some variation of gradient and terrain, the slopes are mostly grass underneath so even at the thinest points you can run the skis without being thrown around on rocks.

And, it was a great day again, still below freezing and still clear skies and sunny.

Having a friend staying with us who had some news skis and boots he wanted to try out it was fairly imperative to find some snow without spending all day in the car and where the cover would be sufficient not totally destroy the new skis. Glancing at the reports during the week there was obviously no serious option other than Verbier, Saas Fee and Zermatt certainly had better snow but take nearly 3 hours to get to from my house.

In the event, Verbier was excellent, Le Châble telecabine was running which is the best access for day trips. The chairlifts Lac des Vaux 1 and Attelas 3 were running along with telecabines for access. This is less terrain than was open the same time last year when it was possible to ski back down to the town. There were a few small stones so the skis got a bit marked up and it was amusing to see people who’d (I assume) taken some old 2m plus skis out.

A glorious day though, below freezing and not a cloud in the sky.