J2Ski Forum Posts and Replies by snowbirddevotee

Got if figured out and booked, staying in St Christoph. Not cheap, but the best I could do.

I am trying to find a place to stay that has reasonable rates in St Anton in Feb, for 2 nts. Arriving Feb 3rd departing Feb 5th. I guess it wouldn't have to be right in town, but that would be preferable. I am taking the train from the Zurich airport.

Thanks Bandit for the tips. I looked into La Grave and it is likely much more than I need. But I will look into Engelburg, and add it to the list. I have two more free tickets waiting for me, and surely I will be using them!

Next time I head over your way, I'll make sure that the snow is piled up a bit more. I see I was very lucky to be at Zermatt when I was because it looks like quite a bit of the mountain as has now closed.
http://www.zermatt.ch/en/page.cfm/lifts_and_pistes/open_lifts

If you ever come to the US. Consider Salt Lake City. 5 hr flight from NYC, which is where I fly out of. I've made over 25 trip there. (Delta is direct) Alta/Snowbird have what might be the greatest lift served snow on planet earth. Last week of Feb is the best, no real crowds and guaranteed great snow. Esp Snowbird has a tremendous pitch from top to bottom, tons of nooks an crannies to explore and "gates", but the patrol has all the really dangerous spots marked.
Check out the blacks at snowbird. Almost all of them are ungroomed, and with 100 inches of snow per month, what could be better! Plus SLC is the cheapest place to ski in the US with $65 hotel rooms galore!
http://www.snowbird.com/about/trailmaps.html

Hi Bandit. No I wasn't equipped to go off-piste, I left my duct tape at home! Even though I have skied most of the big name US resorts, I never had an inkling of what European off-piste is, it is completely different in the US. BUT, I do have good horse sense when on the hill. I stayed on the trail! First, as I stated, there were very few places where it seemed possible to even ski off the trail, the ungroomed pitches where I could see the entire run off a trail were mostly too rocky. In the US it is quite typical to follow tracks off the groomed trails into the unknown, with the knowledge that the ski patrol will have cliffs and other hazards marked. Even mountains like Jackson Hole, Squaw and Snowbird - the big 3 for US advanced skiing, are not anything like the scale of Zermatt. The entire mountains are marked and posted for safety.

Even though Whistler set a one month record for snowfall in November, most of the US is waiting for more snow, but there is now a massive winter storm cross the entire country that should cover everything!

so cool, I just wrote my last post, and I'm watching History Channel, special on how the earth was made, and they are talking right now about the Matterhorn, it was created by plate tetonics of Europe colliding with Africa and the top of it is actually part of Africa.

Thanks guys. I have two more free flights to Europe in my quiver. I really enjoyed the cultural change of pace. I was very excited the entire time and didn't sleep well, and it has taken almost a week to get back to normal. I originally wanted to go to Verbier, the plane arrives at 7:30am and I should have been able to get a 1/2 day the first day. But Verbier is off to a slow start. I found the snow quite good at Zermatt and I will never forget the beauty of the Matterhorn!

Did you really have to ask? <g>
http://www.epicski.com/forum/thread/89239/zermatt-not-my-kind-of-skiing
I had a terrific trip. I loved the town, the people, the food and the scenery. But it was shocking that even though most of the lifts and most of the mountain was open, there were literally NO mogul fields or no steep pitches that I could find(that weren't groomed). I live in Pennsylvania (East US) but ski mostly in Utah. We don't even use the word off-piste, because in Western resorts a good portion of the mountain is open to skiing and never groomed. In the East more is groomed and off trail skiing terrain is much less.

Most of the problem is that Zermatt seems to be glacial terrain, full of rocks which need good coverage to be skiable. Also, much of the off-piste area dead ends or cliffs out. So, I really enjoyed being there, extremely beautiful and I loved all the cable cars and gondolas, but I enjoy more challenging terrain. Even though their was 100 km of trail opened there was nothing challenging for this experienced skier. I know if i was there later season, more would have been open, but still, i was quite surprised. Utah has tons of challenging terrain open right now, even though they are also a bit behind on their snowfall this year.

Next time I'll try Verbier or Chamonix. This was my 4th Mid-December trip, two prior in Utah and one in Aspen, I had terrific, challenging conditions both times.

here are some pictures i took last week.
http://picasaweb.google.com/GlennCz/Zermatt#
you can see the Matterhorn from everywhere basically.