The Very Last Day of Skiing!

Today is the last working day of the Schilthorn ski area, and guess what?......there is a foehn storm. 100 km winds are blowing through again. I believe that now makes 23 days closed this season. Oh well, it's sunny and warm down here in Wengen. Spring has sprung, time to go flower spotting.

Some wild salad options:

Lady's Smock: the leaves when chewed have a peppery taste.

Hedge Garlic: tastes of garlic!

Enjoy!

Season's End

Well, the skiing is nearly over. Maennlichen closed a week ago, Kleine Scheidegg at the weekend. The Schilthorn top three lifts remain running til this weekend.

For the last few weeks of the season we had the most beautiful weather resulting in some fabulous spring snow. This is like skiing on a soft, smooth, shag pile carpet. You can ski everywhere and the snow carries you perfectly. It's a time to be relaxed and unhurried, to enjoy the views away from the crowds. You ski through light forests, and round stone heaps. It's off piste so it's wise to know where you are going, or there could be slight problems with big drops and dead ends.
This snow should be skied early on in the day. As soon as tracks trail behind it is time to stop. Then the sun can melt that top layer into smoothness, and allow the night to freeze it into the perfect carrying carpet. This delight can then be enjoyed again the next day.

Here are a couple of pictures of our spring snow escapades, very cleverly construed to make it seem that we were miles from the pistes. Thank you to my lovely guests for allowing me to use them.

For Friends of Seasons Past

Wengen Station

Cafe Oberland's replacement at Allmend

A kids class heading for the mountain

Childrens Nursery Area



There are new lifts on the kids nursery slope




The Maennlichen Cable Car is now in the centre of town.

A bit of History

A little bit of recent history....

Back in 1955, the first year of the cable car from Wengen to Maennlichen, there were no piste markers, let alone pistes or piste bashers.
This was the job of the Wengen school kids.
They had to ski from Maennlichen to Grund, take the train to Kleine Scheidegg, ski to Wengen, take the cable car up and...... do it all again.

What a fabulous day at school that would have been!

Spring is Here Again

Spring arrived again this week. The snow is melting fast in the village, and little pockets of colour are developing in the form of crocuses and snow drops.

The temperature on Maennlichen at 8.00 today is already 7 C. It's going to be another slushy day up there. The first couple of runs will be beautiful, snow just softened, wonderfully pisted, no one around. Then towards lunch time it will be getting heavy, the heaps of snow will start pushing back at you. The way through it is with determination, weighting both skis in the turn, and making the turn nice and smooth, all the way round.