Again we had a slightly snowy/foggy early morning and headed out at 10AM. We took 2 chairs and headed straight for the Auenfelder Jet connection to Warth-Schrocken. As James noted this is one of the most complex lift stations anywhere. Gondolas go to Warth but as they return each one is intermixed with two six-pack chairs rising a short distance up to Die Wolf restaurant overlooking Lech. As we board the gondola, here are skiers about to load the chairs going the other way.
Riding the gondola here’s the view of the sunny backside of Warth we will be skiing.
Warth indeed lived up to its lightly contested powder reputation. How is this for under the liftline 3 days after the big storm ended?
We never went to the front side as it remained socked in with snow flurries and was a brisk -15C at the top at noon.
No complaints about the weather from us, as there was no wind and the south facing powder remained light and dry. Skier’s right toward the Auenfelder Hut had lots of untracked.
At 12:30 the weather toward Lech was clearing while the top of Warth was deteriorating, so we returned to Lech. We skied 6,900 in Warth, nearly all of it in powder.
I thought it might be a good time to ski toward Zurs and maybe even the complete White Ring circuit. So we went up the Rufikopf tram to this view.
We worked our way toward Zurs vis the Schuttboden T-bar, where it was obviously worth taking a lap.
We rode the Trittalp lift but got separated: I skied to the Hexenboden lift in Zurs while Liz dropped into the Trittalp restaurant/bar for a brief break.
We regrouped but I took a long traverse skier’s right from Hexenboden that I had done with Piste-to-Powder 4 years ago. This was the most work all day but also yielding the only powder that was wind affected. In the cold weather my phone died, so we were split up for the last hour of the day. Liz skied into Zurs, browsed around some and took the free bus back to Lech. FYI that free bus no longer goes past Zurs to Alpe Rauz because of the new Flexenbahn gondola connection.
I wanted to complete the White Ring connection as Madloch had just opened today for the first time after the storm. I assumed it might close like Steinmahder at 3:45 but it closes at 4PM. The east side of Zurs where we had been skiing was all in afternoon sun, but the west side was shaded. View of sun rays behind Muggengrat before I loaded Madloch.
I bundled up for the long and slow Madloch double chair and arrived on top 3:41PM in temperatures at least as cold as the top of Warth.
But the Madloch to Zug run is over 3,000 vertical and noted for its scenery.
There was an added bonus about halfway down when the terrain skier’s right opened up to a vast field of barely tracked powder. View from there of the lift going up from Zug to Balmalp.
It was past 4:15 when I got to Balmalp in very flat light, so I cruised easy blues to Oberlech. I then had another pleasant surprise to discover the day’s final powder under the Oberlech tram. I finished with 16,000 vertical in Lech/Zurs, about 5K of powder in addition to the skiing at Warth-Schrocken.
Overall this day was comparable to the 3 best days in Zermatt 3 years ago, which is high praise indeed. Our dinner sommelier at the Sandhof said we were very lucky to have a sunny day with the temperatures that cold to preserve the powder. Usually it warms up with the clearing weather. The prediction is we will get that warmup the last 2 days here.
