SnowSlider - Blogging From the mountains by ise

Another day with the group at the Ski Academy Switzerland group at Gstaad.

There was some low cloud first thing this morning so it was cold and miserable down in the car park. But, after a quick ride on the lift to the top of the Saanerslochgrat it was up into the sunshine. It’s still reasonably cold so the snow’s in good condition.

One of the guys coming back into Saanemöser in the late afternoon sun, shame I’ve cut his legs off

My later attempt wasn’t framed well

The full gallery is here .

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: