Day #2
It snowed all of my arrival day at Hochstuckli, so I was expecting a powder pigout today and that's exactly what I got: absolutely one for the books at a locals ski area called Klewenalp, located right alongside the stunning Vierwaldstättersee, known in English as Lake Lucerne.
To get there from my hotel in a tiny mountaintop village (I didn't pay attention to Google Maps during my due diligence process), you go down a brutal switchbacked road that's literally 1.5 cars wide, more than 3,000 verts tall, and with a flimsy guardrail that I'm reasonably certain wouldn't stop a car from plunging to its demise. Let's just say that it was absolutely no fun driving up in a snowstorm last night in a manual, two-wheel-drive Peugeot. This morning, it looked a lot friendlier; the only danger was being hypnotised by the view and forgetting to keep your eyes on the road.
After driving through the six-mile-long Seelisberg Tunnel, I arrived in the lakeside town of Beckenried:
... and left my car in the village parking lot, from which you board a tram to mid-mountain.
Here's the view looking down from the upper platform:
While posting the trail map, I'll once again state the disclaimer about locals ski areas in the Alps: small for them usually feels at least decent-sized for us:
Even though I arrived up top a bit late, around 10 am, finding the goods wasn't difficult. I warmed up with a few quickies on the Klewenstock peak:
... hit a few shots in/near the woods:
Then headed over to the Chälenegg sector, where I spent the next 2.5 hours lapping all that terrain just below where the arrow is pointing on that sign:
Chälenegg chair:
You can see the traverse just below the flatirons -- the cleanest lines were just beyond the ridge on the far right:
The same pitch as Ballroom at Alta, but much wider and zero people to deal with:
Half of these are my tracks.
A guy from Alpinforum who lives right near the base of the ski area posted virtually identical pix, but with a better camera. I have no idea how we didn't run into each other. Around 1:45, I finally took a lunch break with the obligatory lounge chair in the sun:
Rural Swiss people are into guns too (just not automatic assault weapons).
It snowed all of my arrival day at Hochstuckli, so I was expecting a powder pigout today and that's exactly what I got: absolutely one for the books at a locals ski area called Klewenalp, located right alongside the stunning Vierwaldstättersee, known in English as Lake Lucerne.
To get there from my hotel in a tiny mountaintop village (I didn't pay attention to Google Maps during my due diligence process), you go down a brutal switchbacked road that's literally 1.5 cars wide, more than 3,000 verts tall, and with a flimsy guardrail that I'm reasonably certain wouldn't stop a car from plunging to its demise. Let's just say that it was absolutely no fun driving up in a snowstorm last night in a manual, two-wheel-drive Peugeot. This morning, it looked a lot friendlier; the only danger was being hypnotised by the view and forgetting to keep your eyes on the road.
After driving through the six-mile-long Seelisberg Tunnel, I arrived in the lakeside town of Beckenried:
... and left my car in the village parking lot, from which you board a tram to mid-mountain.
Here's the view looking down from the upper platform:
While posting the trail map, I'll once again state the disclaimer about locals ski areas in the Alps: small for them usually feels at least decent-sized for us:
Even though I arrived up top a bit late, around 10 am, finding the goods wasn't difficult. I warmed up with a few quickies on the Klewenstock peak:
... hit a few shots in/near the woods:
Then headed over to the Chälenegg sector, where I spent the next 2.5 hours lapping all that terrain just below where the arrow is pointing on that sign:
Chälenegg chair:
You can see the traverse just below the flatirons -- the cleanest lines were just beyond the ridge on the far right:
The same pitch as Ballroom at Alta, but much wider and zero people to deal with:
Half of these are my tracks.
A guy from Alpinforum who lives right near the base of the ski area posted virtually identical pix, but with a better camera. I have no idea how we didn't run into each other. Around 1:45, I finally took a lunch break with the obligatory lounge chair in the sun:
Rural Swiss people are into guns too (just not automatic assault weapons).
