A light snowfall was predicted for Sunday night, but it came late and lasted through the morning. So we took our time getting out as with the past Tuesday in the Arlberg. We drove over to Davos, found close parking by the Jakobshorn tram and headed up a bit before noon. The tram has a lower stage to tree line and an upper stage to 8,500 feet. Jakobshorn is on the opposite side of Davos from Parsenn and faces mainly west. Or the 4 smaller areas in Davos/Klosters Jakobshorn is the only one with mostly chairs on the upper mountain. Madrisa, Pischa and Rinershorn are mostly T-bars aside from an initial tram or gondola coming out of the valley.
First run on the Jatz quad chair was bad visibility on the upper part and just so-so lower down. Richard wanted no more of that so I took one more run using the chair as reference in search of powder. Not much success, the new snow was just a couple of inches over a variable base, none too pleasant when you can't see well. So I got Richard and we worked our way down a blue piste to tree line and then another blue meandering trail through the trees to the base of the Fuxagufer chair in Davos. Back up that chair to tree line, Richard went in to the Tram mid-station while I checked out the Bramabuel chair at far skier's right. There's an unskiable canyon under the upper tram separating this sector from the rest of Jakobshorn's upper terrain. The storm was finally dissipating around 1:45 or so, with the thick cloud now on the upper 1/4 of Bramabuel and manageable visibility below. So now I could venture near the lift or beside the piste for nice low angle untracked as it still was not deep enough to avoid bottoming out on anything steep. So 2 runs up there, then another trail through the trees to the bottom to meet Richard at the car by 3PM. 13,300 vertical with about 2K of powder.
One overview pic of Jakpobshorn the next day from across the valley on the trail from Parsenn into Davos:
I then paid my second visit to the SLF Institute (I had dropped by late Saturday afternoon also) which collects snow and avalanche data from all over Switzerland. At the moment it seems unlikely they will give (or even sell) me anything despite 2 in-person visits and e-mails to several people there over the past 3 weeks. ](*,) ](*,) ](*,)
First run on the Jatz quad chair was bad visibility on the upper part and just so-so lower down. Richard wanted no more of that so I took one more run using the chair as reference in search of powder. Not much success, the new snow was just a couple of inches over a variable base, none too pleasant when you can't see well. So I got Richard and we worked our way down a blue piste to tree line and then another blue meandering trail through the trees to the base of the Fuxagufer chair in Davos. Back up that chair to tree line, Richard went in to the Tram mid-station while I checked out the Bramabuel chair at far skier's right. There's an unskiable canyon under the upper tram separating this sector from the rest of Jakobshorn's upper terrain. The storm was finally dissipating around 1:45 or so, with the thick cloud now on the upper 1/4 of Bramabuel and manageable visibility below. So now I could venture near the lift or beside the piste for nice low angle untracked as it still was not deep enough to avoid bottoming out on anything steep. So 2 runs up there, then another trail through the trees to the bottom to meet Richard at the car by 3PM. 13,300 vertical with about 2K of powder.
One overview pic of Jakpobshorn the next day from across the valley on the trail from Parsenn into Davos:
I then paid my second visit to the SLF Institute (I had dropped by late Saturday afternoon also) which collects snow and avalanche data from all over Switzerland. At the moment it seems unlikely they will give (or even sell) me anything despite 2 in-person visits and e-mails to several people there over the past 3 weeks. ](*,) ](*,) ](*,)