SnowSlider - Blogging From the mountains by ise

I mentioned in an blog a while back that the Red Bull Hike and Ride had passed through Zinal and Grimentz (see here) and that the winning video was shot in the valley. As a taster for winter I thought I’d post a link to it here : winning film.

Zinal is scheduled to open for weekends from November 10th. So far there’s been no snow fall that’s stayed on the ground though. But, they’re now blowing snow from the cannons in preperation as the temperatures have dropped to a more seasonal level. Yesterday was the final day of the summer season and the lift stopped running for the season.

Here’s a shot of the cannons running in December last year:

Winter seems to be on the way now and I know people are starting to think about their plans for the upcoming ski season.

I think there’s a growing number of people who’ve got apartments or chalets in the Val d’Anniviers and I thought it might be interesting to find a way of linking those people up and keeping in contact. This would give us a chance to find other people to ski with, plan trips and maybe arrange days out with local ski guides sharing the costs. For some people it might be a good way to arrange shared transport and for me to ask you all to bring me decaffeinated tea bags !

I’ve created a group in Facebook, I’m a bit new to this Facebook thing but it looks like a good way to do this. Just add me to your network on Facebook and I will add you to the group. If you want to email this to someone else then please do so!

Some local news from the area :

1. Right now most of the roads are being dug up, the most noticeable piece of work is down at the valley, a new exit on on the auto route replaces the the old junction to the Anniviers and some shiny new tarmac is in place. Elsewhere the road seems to be continuing to slide down the hillside and some major work is under way to shore it up.

2. The area has been in the ski press a little , the on-line magazine “Snow” has a couple of mentions for Zinal and Val d’Anniviers.

3. Local press coverage for the proposed new lift between Grimentz and Zinal, this is considered to be a serious proposal locally but it seems to me that 20 million francs is a lot of money and that Zinal might want to spend their money on renewing the cable car!

4. Buy your own snow cannon ! Actually the dead line for this has passed but Grimentz are trying to raise 4 - 6 million francs by public inscription. Some more information here and here.

Grimentz plan to open 22nd December and close 6th April, some weekend opening is planned from 8/9 December. Zinal, taking advantage of the new cannons, are hoping to have some weekend opening from 10th November before opening on December 8th and closing 6th April.

There’s a direct link to that Facebook group here : http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=6526671897

Looking back the signs for the day didn’t look so good. I’d arrived at Grindelwald at about 0645 in plenty of time for the first train and sat in the car with a cup of coffee from my Thermos. But, looking up the mountain I was already beginning to think the clouds on the summits were heavy and maybe more than were going to clear during the day. The next surprise was that due to some confusion at the guides office the person I’d been expecting to join for the climb had pulled out earlier in the week and the guide had been expecting just one client. After some discussion we decided to make a group of three but the other client had some concerns about his fitness before we left.The plan was to climb the normal route of the Mönch, that’s the south-east ridge passing the minor summit and then moving on the main summit at 4109m. The Mönch is one of the big three summits of the area, the others being the Eiger and the Jungfrau. Legend has it the Jungfrau, or virgin in German, is protected from the Eiger or ogre by the Mönch or monk.


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