Klewenalp, CH 03/06/16

jamesdeluxe

Administrator
Day #2
It snowed all of my arrival day, so I was expecting a powder pigout today and that's exactly what I got: absolutely one for the books at a locals ski area called Klewenalp, located right alongside the stunning Vierwaldstättersee, known in English as Lake Lucerne.

To get there from my hotel in a tiny mountaintop village (I didn't pay attention to Google Maps during my due diligence process), you go down a brutal switchbacked road that's literally 1.5 cars wide, more than 3,000 verts tall, and with a flimsy guardrail that I'm reasonably certain wouldn't stop a car from plunging to its demise. Let's just say that it was absolutely no fun driving up in a snowstorm last night in a manual, two-wheel-drive Peugeot. This morning, it looked a lot friendlier; the only danger was being hypnotised by the view and forgetting to keep your eyes on the road.
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After driving through the six-mile-long Seelisberg Tunnel, I arrived in the lakeside town of Beckenried:
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... and left my car in the village parking lot, from which you board a tram to mid-mountain.
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Here's the view looking down from the upper platform:
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While posting the trail map, I'll once again state the disclaimer about locals ski areas in the Alps: small for them usually feels decent-sized for us:
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Even though I arrived up top a bit late, around 10 am, finding the goods wasn't difficult. I warmed up with a few quickies on the Klewenstock peak:
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... hit a few shots in/near the woods:
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Then headed over to the Chälenegg sector, where I spent the next 2.5 hours lapping all that terrain just below where the arrow is pointing on that sign:
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Chälenegg chair:
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You can see the traverse just below the flatirons -- the cleanest lines were just beyond the ridge on the far right:
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The same pitch as something like Ballroom at Alta, but much wider and zero people to deal with:
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Half of these are my tracks.
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A guy from Alpinforum who lives right near the base of the ski area posted virtually identical pix, but with a better camera. I have no idea how we didn't run into each other. Around 1:45, I finally took a lunch break with the obligatory lounge chair in the sun:
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Rural Swiss people are into guns too (just not automatic assault weapons).
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jamesdeluxe":2uyru04m said:
but with the Swiss franc and the dollar converting at exactly 1:1 right now
Lucky break on that one. It was only $1.10US to 1CHF when I had to deal with swiss currency last. But man it sure felt rather expensive.


jamesdeluxe":2uyru04m said:
just below the flatirons
No kidding. Had no idea there was a second set of "flatirons" in the world. Is that the real name? or english-ized version, or just something you made up to see if I'd post :-D
 
EMSC":3fw315mt said:
Had no idea there was a second set of "flatirons" in the world. Is that the real name? or english-ized version, or just something you made up to see if I'd post :-D
Not even sure what they call them in German, but they looked just like the ones in Boulder so I gave it a try.
 
jamesdeluxe":1le302g7 said:
Not even sure what they call them in German, but they looked just like the ones in Boulder so I gave it a try.

Caught red handed as it were 8)

Does look like a fun area for being so 'small'.
 
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