Unfortunately, although it was quite a nice day the snow really wasn’t very good at all. There had been some fresh snow overnight although I’d guess not a lot more than had fallen by the time I left yesterday.

We skied over by Kleine Scheidegg towards Wengen but the snow wasn’t really better over there at all.

In fact, as you can see it’s pretty bare as you get down to Wengen although the main problem is the heavy snow, it’s very hard work to keep moving it around with the skis.

The forecast for today was pretty clear it was going to be raining, in fact it was raining all night at home. Round at Grindelwald when I arrived this morning it was still raining and not surprisingly you couldn’t see the top of the mountain at all.I parked at Grund next to the Männlichenbahn bubble cars, the car park was pretty empty and I think the combination of the rain and the fact the clocks had changed kept people at home.

I prefer to use the Männlichenbahn, it’s pretty slow but it still feels quicker than the train up to Kleine Scheidegg. I took a few runs round the Männlichen and went over to Kleine Scheidegg to ski down into Wengen. It was pretty quiet over the Lauberhorn area and the snow wasn’t too bad, right at the top of the slopes there was a few centimeters of new snow but it was pretty wet towards the bottom. In fact I was pretty wet myself by the time I got to Wengen.

From Wengen I took the other Männlichenbahn back to the Männlichen and skied around for a while but it was pretty clear that the weather wasn’t going to improve to I called it a day and skied down.

Fortunately, I’d taken my Zag skis which float pretty well in all the slush so it was a bit easier than it might have otherwise been.

When we arrived on Thursday evening it was raining prettily heavily and fairly warm so we had low expectations for skiing. However, the next morning we were sat outside on the terrace at the local bakery in sunshine and the air had a pleasant freshness.

The best snow was always going to be over at Flaine so we skied over there. The rain had fallen as snow somewhere between the 1800m - 2000m mark. So, Flaine had some really nice conditions, some fresh snow on firm base.

Conditions stayed pretty good until after midday, so we headed back down to Flaine for some lunch at the Le Grain de Sel down in Flaine Forum. We’d not tried there before and it turned out to be very good.

On the way back to Morillon the top of the north slopes were quite good but below the 1800m mark the snow was extremely heavy and pretty tiring to push around. Despite this I’d say the base is still pretty good, there’s very few bare patches so if the temperature drops again the skiing should remain reasonable for a little while yet.

I’m not sure when we’ll ski in the Grand Massif again now, we’ve put our flat there on the market and I do not expect we’ll still have it next season.

I’ve not been to Gstaad much this season, no particular reason, I’ve just been doing other things. It’s a disjoint area, the pass covers six sectors including Château d’Oex, Rougemont, Les Diablerets and Saanenmöser. Château d’Oex is too small really, Rougement is fairly high and has good snow while Saanenmöser is the most extensive area.I tried to park at Schönried but the car park was full, a local race I think so I ended up at Saanenmöser.

It was pretty heavy snow today, yesterday in the Grand Massif wasn’t so bad in comparison. Nevertheless, the skiing was quite good and the weather was really nice. I’d taken a couple of sandwiches with me to have a picnic in the sun.

In fact, I’d sat outside one of the pisteurs huts and was enjoying my sandwich when a snow boarder tried to give me part of a T-bar mistaking me for one the pisteurs. Apparently, he and a another border had been riding it when the seat part snapped off and they fell off.

I was enjoying skiing on my new Stöckli skis but they were not really the best ski for the day, I ought to have taken my Zag’s which would have less effort in the slush. At around 4pm though the temperature started to drop quite quickly and the snow noticeably firmed up which made the last hour really good particularly as people seemed to have left by then.

Being a nice spring day there were just some great views over the local area: