Grimentz, CH, Jan. 13, 2024

Tony Crocker

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Our first day was a bit slow getting going, so we arrived in Grimentz about 10:15 and parked by the tourism office. From there we had to wait for a bus to the ski area. The parking lot at the area was probably full as it was a sunny Saturday and the mountain faces east.
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By the time we rode the Bendolla gondola, Col du Pouce chair and Lona 2 poma, it was close to 11:30. There was an enticing shaded bowl skier’s right of the Lona piste, so I had to check that out.
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Snow was chalky packed powder and Liz skied a shorter section closer to the piste. She was alarmed when loading the chair as her knee replacement hit its flexion limit, so she wanted to lap the poma. I continued down the Lona piste for a warmup(?) run of 4,300 vertical. It was now evident that it would take what was left of the day to survey Grimentz adequately and we would not have time for Zinal.

I returned to the top of the Lona2 poma with a view of the converging Becs de Bosson T-bar..
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I met Liz at the BOB restaurant and rode the poma to Roc d’Orzival, noted for its backside off piste. I was not going to do those but I took some pics for perhaps ChrisC’s benefit. I had to step down a bit to get a better view.
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If you drop in but want to return to Grimentz you have to traverse right through the saddle in the center of the picture below.
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Our understanding is that the direct fall line here leads to one of Vercorin’s lifts.
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Still, it’s probably wise to do this the first time with a guide.

View NW off the Panorama piste:
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We went to the Tsarva chair and Liz recalled that by leaning to her right a little she could load the chair without discomfort. She had to do that sometimes the past couple of seasons. From a skiing perspective Liz felt fine, but decided to remain on piste the rest of this day.

From a distance you can see lots of interesting off piste options, mostly north facing, under the Col du Pouce chair.
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These are not so easy to find from above. I skied the Bec piste from the T-bar to recon some. Next time I branched off between the Bec and Couloir pistes and found the best snow of the day.
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I ended up at the top of the Couloir run’s steepest pitch.
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I skied some of that, then traversed into the lower part of the bowl at right.

I next rode Col du Pouce and skied the chute center right.
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I was tired enough after that to take a short break. Liz had already started down. Both of us took a lap on the mellow Grands Plans lift, the only area still in the sun past 3PM. We both skied down the quiet Avoin run and thus had no end of day excess skier density.

View up the valley between Grimantz and Zinal to its dam,
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The WePowder book says you can ski some couloirs from Zinal down to that dam, then exit along the valley floor.

View of Grimentz village and Zinal tram towers far above.
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Total vertical was 17,200. Despite my stamina being way down, I got a good overview of Grimentz instead of a likely cursory view of both areas.

The Val d’Anniviers road has lots of hairpins and several of these protective fences.
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It was plenty busy on a nice Saturday but never ground to a halt aside from a short one lane section governed with a traffic signal.
 
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Especially if a chair is low to the ground to accommodate kids, you might bend your knees well past 90 degrees to sit down on it.

The knee replacement has not yet improved Liz' flexion range of motion. As I suspected since Liz has been diligently taking 4 Pilates classes a week since November, there is no degradation of her actual skiing. That was demonstrated when she skied the long yellow Chassoure and Gentianes off piste itineraries at Verbier on Tuesday.
 
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