It was cloudy as forecast this morning, with some rain in the village. This turned to snow near Mannlichen, but it was half hearted and petered out quickly.
The high season holidays are over for now, and the local skiers have been thinking about work and school. As usual in the run-up to the Lauberhorn weekend, the ski slopes have been quiet. There were 25 of us on the cable car shortly after 10.00am and not many seemed to have turned up any earlier. Within a few minutes I was skiing in splendid isolation.
Later in the morning the sun showed through the clouds for a while. It disappeared pretty promptly and it looked like a grey afternoon was a certainty. The skiing had been good on Mannlichen and for the first time in a week or more the snow was not better instantly on leaving the Gummi chair. In fact, it was fairly ropey down to Arven.
On Wixi, things picked up. The sun put in another appearance and the snow was nigh on perfect. There were very few skiers around and even the Start bar was more or less deserted. Yesterday may have been the best day for a week, but for an hour or so this afternoon I enjoyed the best skiing of my season to date.
A very good day brought 7,565 vertical metres in 16 lift rides and 42 kilometres travelled.
Idle thoughts from a mountain 