The weather has turned today most definitely. At breakfast time, it was as dark as a January morning. All seemed well though, until a text message arrived telling me that the cable car was closed by the wind. I took the train to Scheidegg instead. When I left Wengen, there were two lifts open at the top; on arrival, Arven only was running. The Eiger Express from Grund was open also, but moving at a glacial pace.
The Lauberhorn lift reopened after an hour or so. The run from the top of Wixi back to Scheidegg was crisp and even, which was all to the good as there were not many other options available. On the way home, the piste to Innerwengen was yet again as good as it gets. The snow had softened in the warm wind, but there had been few skiers on the run and the snow was near perfect.
This evening we enjoyed a power cut, which took in Wengen, Murren and Lauterbrunnen. Power cuts are not uncommon here, but normally last a few seconds before the reserve electricity line cuts in. Today, we reverted to the nineteenth century for an hour. That might be the longest break in service since the summer of 2005, when the terrible summer rain (which brought wide scale flooding to much of continental Europe) left the village without power for 44 hours.
A day with few lifts open brought better skiing than could be expected with 9,635 vertical metres in 33 lift rides and 50 kilometres travelled.
Idle thoughts from a mountain 