Following my fantastic outing at Klewenalp, for Day 3 I headed to the other end of Lake Lucerne to another of the Schwyz region's local ski areas: Stoos. Like Klewenalp, it isn't a big area for the Alps (21 miles of marked trails, 2,100 vertical feet) and everything is basically served by two high-speed sixers, but there's a ton of off-piste between the lifts (more than a mile as the crow flies) and outside.
It was fun to take the funicular/cable railway from the valley floor up 2,400 vertical feet to the bottom of the ski area. It felt like an insane incline for something that was built in 1933. The current cars are almost 50 years old. I read in the base station that they've just finished drilling the tunnel for a new high-tech funicular, slated to open in 2017 (the dotted line in the map above).
The entire railway is single track except a 50-yard section. The trains are attached to the cable so that the one going downhill hits the siding at exactly the same time as the one going uphill:
Here's the view from the top of the funicular:
You have to do a bit of skating, then take a rope tow and a couple t-bars to reach the chairlift:
While most of the offpiste near the trails was tracked out, because it'd been cold and the terrain faces directly north, it was chalky and very easy to ski:
Without local guidance, I didn't feel comfortable going too far afield. A shame as I could see locals getting beautiful untracked runs in the distance. Still, with a bit of traversing to low-angle pitches, I found a bunch of areas like this with soft chop -- not bad at all:
Here's the view from the top of Fronalpstock (a modest 1,922 meters) with gorgeous Lake Luzern/Lucerne 5,000 verts below:
Heading into a mountain hut for a late lunch:
On the Autobahn along the lake, I stopped for a photo op:
It was fun to take the funicular/cable railway from the valley floor up 2,400 vertical feet to the bottom of the ski area. It felt like an insane incline for something that was built in 1933. The current cars are almost 50 years old. I read in the base station that they've just finished drilling the tunnel for a new high-tech funicular, slated to open in 2017 (the dotted line in the map above).
The entire railway is single track except a 50-yard section. The trains are attached to the cable so that the one going downhill hits the siding at exactly the same time as the one going uphill:
Here's the view from the top of the funicular:
You have to do a bit of skating, then take a rope tow and a couple t-bars to reach the chairlift:
While most of the offpiste near the trails was tracked out, because it'd been cold and the terrain faces directly north, it was chalky and very easy to ski:
Without local guidance, I didn't feel comfortable going too far afield. A shame as I could see locals getting beautiful untracked runs in the distance. Still, with a bit of traversing to low-angle pitches, I found a bunch of areas like this with soft chop -- not bad at all:
Here's the view from the top of Fronalpstock (a modest 1,922 meters) with gorgeous Lake Luzern/Lucerne 5,000 verts below:
Heading into a mountain hut for a late lunch:
On the Autobahn along the lake, I stopped for a photo op:
