Tschiertschen, CH: 03/10/20

jamesdeluxe

Administrator
After a mostly sunny weekend, the weather turned gray again on Monday with low cloud levels and flurries so I took most of it off as a rest day to prepare for what wxers predicted would be a partly sunny Tuesday at an indy ski area I'd visited and liked two years ago: Tschiertschen (CHEER Chen).

Even 24 hours out, they were sticking with that forecast; however, it turned into a surprise powder day with nuking nonstop from bell to bell. Even more interesting, this was more of a North American storm experience in that I was skiing a place that had trees 2/3 up its 3,400-foot vertical AND
you could actually see where you were going, even above treeline:

.
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Instead of the normal $45 ticket price, I scored a midweek special from Tschiertschen's website, the "Pistenknüller" (for lack of a better translation, the "trail hit"): $29 gets you an all-day lift ticket PLUS lunch at any of the the five on-mountain restaurants.
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My pix are pure storm day = no great visuals, sorry. Half a foot was already down when I got on the lift at 9:45 and it fell at an inch an hour until I stopped at 4 pm. I'd bet that they ended up with a good 15 inches by the time the system moved out mid-evening. There couldn't have been more than 20 people on the entire hill, if that, so every run was fresh tracks unless you were skiing right under a lift. Here's what Tschiertschen looks like on a nice day (I added my photos from two weeks later at the bottom of the thread).
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It was difficult to find people to use as photo subjects. Here are the only ones I ran across:
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As I was leaving the restaurant; these boarders were arriving, no doubt to take advantage of the Pistenknüller lunch deal:
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Mid-afternoon strudel break:
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Another score! This was a rare repeat visit for James. By his criteria for Euro areas, he could ski new places almost indefinitely.
 
=D>

CH is part of Schengen though. I wonder if everyone will just fly to London and then on to the US... Even with US citizens exempted I can't see many airlines running flights to the US from mainland Europe for a while.
 
Looks like Tony is going to use that travel insurance he bought.

I'm on my flight back to the U.S. right now/got in all seven ski days. While entering the plane, we were almost knocked unconscious by the smell of industrial-strength disinfectant that they laid down during the turnaround; however, no one complained!

Due to the fact that U.S. carriers need to bring their crews and planes back to the mainland during the travel ban, our plane has to stop briefly in Bangor, Maine and swap out flight crews -- the one that flew in from Newark overnight will have "timed out" as they say in the airline biz -- then continue on to NJ.

"May you live in interesting times" indeed.
 
...nuking nonstop from bell to bell.... trees 2/3 up its 3,400-foot vertical AND you could actually see where you were going, even above treeline..... $29 gets you an all-day lift ticket plus a nice lunch.... 15 inches by the time the system moved out mid-evening.... couldn't have been more than 20 people on the entire hill.

Score indeed: 15" falling from bell to bell + 3,400 vertical + visibility + $29 lift ticket (including a Euro lunch) + 19 other skiers on the hill = a once-in-a-lifetime resort powder day for most destination skiers. Kudos.

Also, assuming you're not bringing this bug home with you (best to avoid any unnecessary travel to New Rochelle after landing), you have impeccable timing.

Stay healthy everybody.
 
I suspect this day was quite on a par with Mustang. Do you have a vertical estimate? The only difference I see is that you were not guided and thus needed to be conservative about skiing steep terrain with that much fresh snow.

Yes I've bailed out of Geneva/Club Med. Lonnie is driving from Utah on an extended road trip into Montana and Canada, then home via the Northwest where he grew up. I will fly to Bozeman and join him next week when Liz returns to Florida. She will be home a few days, mainly to get a checkup on her shoulder from the orthopedist.
 
If y'all aren't aware yet, all ski resorts in:
Switzerland
Austria
Norway
Italy (obviously)
...have closed or will be closing after today.
 
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