Anzère & Vercorin, CH: 03/06/17

After a mostly subpar winter, the western Alps are getting payback, although I'm sure that they would've preferred this series of storms to have happened a couple months ago. Here's the snow report from the Weather to Ski website:

Today in the Alps
10.10am Tuesday 7 March 2017 - Masses of new snow in many northern and western parts of the Alps
Many northern and western parts of the Alps are waking up to significant new snowfall this morning. Indeed parts of the northern French Alps (e.g. Val d’Isère, La Rosière, Chamonix, Avoriaz), as well as the extreme west of Switzerland (e.g. Les Crosets), have seen 50-70cm of new snow at altitude in the last 24 hours alone! Significant snow has also fallen in most other parts of the French and Swiss Alps, the western Italian Alps (e.g. Courmayeur) as well as the west of Austria (e.g. Lech). Over the last 5-7 days we have seen well over 1 meter of new snow at altitude in the western Alps, with 150cm in some of the above mentioned areas.

Needless to say, snow conditions will be fabulous once the weather settles down, especially in the western Alps where so much new snow has fallen. In the short term, however, the off-piste situation is highly dangerous with an avalanche danger rating of 4/5 across much of the northern French, western Swiss and far north-western Italian Alps.


Day 3: Anzère
As you know, with Northern America's treeline both east and west being so high, we can keep skiing when visibility is limited; however, given that many ski areas here are half or more above treeline, storm skiing is often a braille exercise until you get to the lower mountain. Monday was one of those experiences at the ski area of Anzère, which you can see clearly from the Rhone Valley floor.

Size and terrain-wise, it felt quite a bit like Snowbasin in Salt Lake. You can do 2,500-vert laps off the left and right ends, and the runs in the middle were also nice and long, about 2,000 verts. There's a lot of hike-to double-black stuff along the ridge on the looker's right. Compared to where I was on Saturday and Sunday, this was a more mainstream ski area, with a couple high-speed lifts mixed with several t-bars and a fair amount of snowmaking.



It was one of those days where the snow was coming down so hard that you had to stay inside the piste markers on the upper mountain. Sorry for the unexciting photos -- the skiing was nice, visibility was often vertigo-inducing until you got to the trees.

Booting up next to the gondola:
 
 

Summit:


Kids area:



Into the void:





Further down it was easier going, but the snow was a bit heavy:





By early-afternoon, a foot had fallen but the dizziness wore me down so I packed it in at 2:45. This is what Anzère looks like on a typical day.


Day 4: Vercorin
The sun never quite came out and it continued snowing lightly all day; however, visibility was far better at another quasi local's area, Vercorin. A gondola services the entire 3,200 vertical feet and then there are several Poma lifts on the upper mountain.This is one of the more inaccurate trail maps that I've seen. It doesn't show any of the extensive and really challenging tree skiing:



Once again, I was alone and nobody was around so the pix aren't spectacular and because there were so few people, no in-action shots. Close to three feet had fallen over the previous 36 hours (they only reported half of that). In the trees, where I stayed pretty much all day, it was knee- to thigh-deep every turn.

Base area gondola



While in the gondola, I was talking to two local snowboarders who were raving about this tree line that literally went down the entire mountain -- they both said, "c'est malade!"/"it's sick!" so I followed them in and spent the next I don't know how long picking my way down 2,800 verts of Red Mountain-level steep trees.

Into the woods:





Pillows everywhere:



After I recovered from that and changed out of my soaking wet shirt, I headed back to the top, had lunch, then spent the afternoon nailing low-hanging fruit alongside the trails:





... or skiing in the woods within a few yards of the drag lifts and then cutting back to the lift path when I hit a flat spot:







At 3:30, I crashed, ejected, and lost both of my skis -- took me ten minutes to find them (been a while since that's happened)-- which signaled that I was done for the day.

In short, I wouldn't necessarily go there to ski the on-piste, but yesterday was a classic day in the trees.

excellent
can't wait to see day 5...

cheers!

What a trip

Wow, you're getting the goods.

Jamesdeluxe wrote

Sorry for the unexciting photos -- the skiing was nice, visibility was often vertigo-inducing until you got to the trees.

Nonsense... the photos throughout the TR conveyed the conditions well.  Vertigo-inducing visibility... I know that well.  Great report.  Thanks again JD.  Always a great read.

Looks too crowded-