The current version of the cable car takes seventy skiers and the driver. The full capacity is slightly more, but rules are rules, and seventy is the figure the cable car company has set.
It has been a while though since so many people were allowed on at one time; the requirements of the pandemic kept numbers down last season to fifty. This season, the total has crept up slowly. Last week though the Swiss government relaxed most virus restrictions and for the last few days, and the first time in a long time, we are back to seventy skiers per car. It is good news, even though we had become used to more space on the trip to Männlichen.
Today, just after 9.15am, there were three cable cars worth of skiers at the bottom station. They were, in turn, headed upwards to a sky painted a brilliant blue. They enjoyed quiet skiing with a few moguls in the afternoon.
For the Idle Skier the day brought 10,520 vertical metres in 21 lift rides and 54 kilometres travelled.
Idle thoughts from a mountain 