Grindelwald?? Anyone able to help me on any info? :D

Hi was thinking of going to grindelwald, can anyone tell me what this resorts like? Is it easy to get transport from Geneva? or handier to rent a car? What is the snow like in march? & what is the skiing like?
Cheers :)

Grindelwald obviously has the great scenery of the Eiger, Jungfrau. Monch etc. That's why it got a place on the early grand tours and early skiing. But it's not really a great ski proposition, there's three areas the Schilthorn, the main Grindelwald/Wengen area and Grindelwald First. They're not particularly well linked and being in one centre and trying to get to another is awkward and you spend way, way too long on the trains, it's like commuting really. There's some fantastic runs in places and I suspect I've missed out in the past by not skiing at First, I hiked there recently and thought it looked reasonable skiing.

All in all it doesn't work for me, in the years I lived locally I've been maybe 4 or 5 times, admittedly part of that is that the traffic round Interlaken is awful, if you stayed there it wouldn't be a problem. In that area I rather prefer Adelboden/Lenk personally.

If you're looking for the ultimate Swiss, near a famous mountain thing then Zermatt is about 100 times better in pretty much every way I can think of. Grindelwald is still good, it's just if you take the scenery away I'm not sure what's left. I suppose the scenery is one of the main reasons we ski though! It's just in Zermatt if you move the Matterhorn and the other peaks there's still loads of great skiing all easily reachable from the town.

Some stuff in my blog :

http://snowslider.net/category/switzerland/grindelwald/
http://snowslider.net/category/switzerland/zermatt/

We visited Wengen this year during the 'build up' week to the Lauberhorn World Cup race. The race saved it for us really. The snow conditions were poor and although the getting up the mountain by train was magic on the first day, the novelty wears a bit thin after a while.

I dont' know what your skiing levels are but if you go looking for blue runs then look for the reds instead. The blues were basically narrow tracks linking other pistes. The reds at least had some width to them.

A lot of people do enjoy the area though. The people in our hotel had been there every year for the last 12 years - same hotel room even. Perhaps that was the off putting bit. It all seemed very British in a colonial kind of way!

cheers guys :D really helped me! much appreciated!! :)

ise wrote:Grindelwald obviously has the great scenery of the Eiger, Jungfrau. Monch etc.

slightly off-topic, I didn't climb the Mönch yesterday coincidentally :cry:

http://snowslider.net/2007/09/15/bad-day-on-the-monch/

ellistine wrote:
A lot of people do enjoy the area though. The people in our hotel had been there every year for the last 12 years - same hotel room even. Perhaps that was the off putting bit. It all seemed very British in a colonial kind of way!

I missed that highly perceptive observation :) That's exactly what I find as well, and I find it slightly unpleasant. It harks back to the days when skiing was pretty elitist and not very inclusive. Actually, Zermatt is the similar but just escapes it, something to do with the climbing done by English I think and also because it's better to ski there. Zermatt, Grindelwald/Wengen/Murren are sort of old money and Val d'Isere/Verbier are new money, brash, tacky and slightly tasteless :lol:

Yesterday, while enduring the "commute" courtesy of the Jungfraubahn, I was thinking about this actually. I guess the area should be on a "must ski" list, I'm just not sure quite how high up or if it's more a case of being on a "must ski once" list.