It was raining this morning here in the lower part of the village and it was raining still when I reached the top of the Mannlichen cable car, a thousand metres higher. It looked like it might be a grim day. That seemed to be the view generally, with only 23 other skiers on the cable car at 10.00am.
An hour later the rain turned to snow at the very top of the mountain. The conditions under foot were good, with few people around to disturb the overnight grooming. It was a grey day again, but overall things didn’t seem too bad.
As the day went on, the quiet pistes became quieter still, but the weather continued to pick up. There was some blue sky for a while. In the afternoon it snowed properly on Wixi as far as the bridge. The skiing was good all day. From the least promising start, it ended up as the best day of the week.
A surprisingly excellent day’s skiing brought 8,118 vertical metres in 17 lift rides and 48 kilometres travelled.
Idle thoughts from a mountain 