Fresh snow in Zermatt

26th March 2017, by Dave Watts

The view from Dave’s balcony on Sunday morning

Overnight snowfalls saw a fair amount of fresh powder on Zermatt’s highest slopes on both Friday and Saturday.

And on Sunday as I left it was snowing heavily at village level. The weather forecast for the rest of the week was mainly sunny – so anyone headed there this week should have a great time.

Friday and Saturday saw plenty of fresh powder above 2400m

High winds meant the top lifts were closed on Friday and first thing Saturday. But there was still plenty of fresh powder to be had above around 2400m (below that it appeared to have rained judging by the rock hard pistes first thing).

Friday we spent the morning above Riffelberg and then Sunegga (after riding the smart new six-pack chair from Gant, which replaced the rickety old gondola for this season). And we were treated to a close-up view of a lovely chamois standing majestically directly below the chair.

Sadly the Hohtälli cable car and so our favourite White Hare run was closed on Friday by the wind. So, after lunch at the smart vis-à-vis restaurant at Gornergrat (excellent mushrooms in puff pastry), we headed to the Klein Matterhorn area, where the visibility was poor but the snow excellent.

A new 28-seater gondola from Trockener Steg to Klein Matterhorn is being built and is due to open for the 2018/19 season

On Saturday we headed up Klein Matterhorn again with the intention of skiing over to Cervinia in Italy. The top cable car was closed so we took the world’s longest T-bar into a very strong wind and deteriorating visibility. So we abandonded the Italy plan and played around most of the day in the area around the Furggsattel chair where it was snowing intermittently but the visibility was generally good and the snow delightfully powdery.

All in all a very enjoyable week despite the mixed weather.

If the skiing was good, our accommodation was brilliant – the luxurious Zermatt Lodge apartment with stunning views run by Mountain Exposure. As well as a huge living room, spacious bedrooms, all with en-suite facilities, the Zermatt Lodge has an outdoor hot tub and indoor sauna and top-notch catering – more on that in a forthcoming blog.

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