Cervinia, Italy, Jan. 28, 2018

Tony Crocker

Administrator
Staff member
We only saw a small part of Cervinia on a half day from Zermatt in 2014, so we spent most of Sunday seeing the rest. On Saturday powder was the top priority due to superlative conditions. And after a sunny and moderately warm Saturday the only good powder left would be on north facing slopes.
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We started up the E and C chairs. The C chair is the closest lift to the Matterhorn.
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We skied to Plan Maison and took the gondola and tram to Plateau Rosa. From the tram deck you can see part of the Matterhorn’s snowy east face which is front and center when viewed from Zermatt.
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I wanted to give Liz a shot at the long north facing bowl that had delivered faceshots in 2014 and on Saturday. Unfortunately there had been overnight wind that compacted the snow up high. We tested it next to the piste before committing to the bowl.
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The wind waves were soft and had not stiffened into sastrugi. It may not have been deep powder but it was soft and supportable and Liz was delighted.
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Saturday’s powder tracks and the traverse exit had all been covered by the wind. So on Sunday there may have only been a couple of people in there before us.
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Eventually we reach a plowed road which leads to Plan Maison
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The alternative is the gully at left which I skied late Saturday, but if you drop in here you’re committed over 2,000 vertical past Lago Goillet dam.
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We probably should have skied the gully because the road narrowed and the alternative snow under the N chair had crusted overnight. View from there of Chalet Etoile at lower left:
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What’s not obvious in the pic above is a deep gully in the foreground so you have to continue left down the road almost all the way to Plan Maison.

Now we took the lifts up to Colle Cime Blanche to explore the Valtournenche side of the area.
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The 1a run from there to the town is 4,500 vertical. But we took a short diversion between pistes on the way.
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Town of Valletournenche:
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On the way back up two of the three lifts we stopped here for a late lunch.
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This turned out to be fortunate because I started coming down with a cough and fever while driving to our next stop Chamonix and just wanted to crash when I got there. Fortunately with the quality of Euro resort food both on and off mountain, two meals a day are often plenty.

Returning towards Cervinia I knew a high traverse left from top of Z chair would yield some powder. Liz dropped in here while I went a bit farther out.
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From that high traverse I had good view of Lago Goillet dam just above the shadow at left.
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My Saturday afternoon run from Plateau Rosa ended up below the dam.

We rode the tram to Plan Maison and skied back to our hotel. Amazingly there was still decent north facing powder between two of the lower pistes.

Sunday we skied 20,500 vertical, about 4K of powder.
 
Tony,
Great reports, loved them since I spent a week in Zermatt this past October and am itching to go back in the winter
 
sheahunter":2u9jkj4n said:
Tony,
Great reports, loved them since I spent a week in Zermatt this past October and am itching to go back in the winter
This is the year to do that as there is so much snow. Zermatt is very high and mostly north facing, should be excellent and fully open into late April. The glacier is skiable year round but it's fairly flat.
 
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