Moléson-sur-Gruyères is the closest ski station to the old village of Gruyères which is 3km away. There’s only 30km of skiing but they’ve got a great funicular which whisks you up the mountain in 3 minutes. It ought to be 40minutes from the house but we joined the autoroute just as two snow ploughs were passing which we followed at 40kph for a while so it took an hour. It’s snowing quite heavily so they have to work at keeping the route clear as the rest of Europe travels to their ski holidays.

Conditions are fantastic, loads of fresh snow and although visibility’s not 100% it’s perfectly OK. The high point is the peak of Le Moléson which is around 2000m, in fact it’s quite an impressive peak with a single piste on it, the piste is black and a pretty steep pitch from the summit through, today, some powder before easing out through the trees and returning to the main ski area. It’s pretty wild at the top in the current weather….

There’s some great powder skiing in the trees at the moment, in fact it’s pretty deep in places, so it’s possible to ski from the top down through the trees and meadows off-piste back to the car park.

Which is something I’ve often noticed actually…..

Charmey’s another of the Gruyère stations, it’s pretty near La Berra (below), in fact on a good day you probably traverse between them without too much difficulty. Like some of the other local stations they seem to have one good lift,a télécabine in the photo’ above, then a series of drag lifts.

The snow was getting heavier as I drove there and the ride up in the lift was a bit windy. I did a few runs in the high wind and driving snow before I recalled my jacket had an “emergency storm hood” in the collar, this is basically a light fleece balaclava, after putting it on things got more comfortable.

There’s been a lot of snow fallen here this week, the continued fall and drifting means they’re not really to piste properly so there’s over the top of the boot powder on most runs going on to knee deep in places. Off piste it’s more like waist deep,
I headed down through an off-piste tree line with some local guys and we got stuck in very deep snow in one of the glades. The guy in yellow (below) is about to get stuck up to his chest in fresh snow and it took him some serious effort to get free.

In fact the run of the day was a blast down from the top through the trees to the car-park, I’ve never skied below the mid-station before as there isn’t always enough snow.

Another small station in Fribourg, about 40mins from home. I’ve actually been here before but only hiking. There’s about 20km of piste all of which was open today. Mostly it was just local schools out on their sports week. Some fresh snow is needed though, it’s pretty thin in places. The skiing’s OK but it’s not the best local station

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You can see from the photo we’ve got some weather coming in, it was snowing at 1200m where I’d left the car as I was leaving.

For interest, here’s a shot taken at more or less the same position back in October, the range of hills in the background is the Jura.

After yesterday I nearly didn’t go out at today, I was concerned it’d just be too busy everywhere to be pleasant, as it was I didn’t leave the house until after 11am. I’d thought about going to Gstaad, driving from the Col des Mosses yesterday I’d noticed how little traffic was coming up to Château-d’Oex from Bulle so I thought it would be quiet, I’d looked at the web cam and it seemed quiet as well.

But, I decided to risk the local hill, La Berra. It’s only 30mins or so from home and I decided if the car park was too busy I’d head round to Gstaad anyway. It’s strange how places vary, Les Mosses yesterday and La Berra could both be described as family stations. What makes the difference is the families, at Les Mosses family was just code for people related by blood who didn’t really care about any else around them whereas today it was just families enjoying a day out.

A family walking their dog on the summit of La Berra made me smile :

The skiing was great, I hopped onto the first lifts without any queues, headed onto a black piste where I was the only skier and found the slope excellent, steep with a variation of terrain on the way down and fairly demanding to ski. I found an off piste gully that had basically spring snow at the top into a shaded glade with some variable terrain in it. The top lifts remained open until 16:45 taking advantage of the evening sunshine, the runs up there were great as well. In fact a fantastic day skiing all round.

The other great thing about La Berra is you can about see our house from the top, you can’t quite see it because we live in a small valley but it’s there somewhere. For perspective the line of hills on the horizon is the Jura and (you’ll need to click through to the full version probably) on the left side you can see the partially frozen Lac Gruyère. Actually Lac Gruyère is where our tap water comes from, so that probably explains why it’s so cold !!