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Jungfrau Ski region pt. 2

 Poster: A snowHead
Poster: A snowHead
@Chris Brookes, not racing Chris?
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 Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Not this year !
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 Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Might have asked this before....the black run down from Piz Gloria, how difficult is it? Fancy trying it this time. Doesn`t look too bad on the video clips i`ve watched.....
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@Deedee, depends on conditions, the first little bit can be tricky, though they have done some work on that this year, I'm not sure how much that will improve things, after the top section however it's not difficult at all as you can see if you watch one of the Inferno videos.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
It was closed to skiers last week for some reason. rolling eyes
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@RWDLYN, it's been pretty windy high up so possibly scoured down to rocks and ice...

Or avvy danger off the cliffs above the lower sections.
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Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
Snowed pretty much all day, really heavy this afternoon. Home run just above the village.



Village is gradually getting back to normal after the race. Very few people about.
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 After all it is free Go on u know u want to!
After all it is free Go on u know u want to!
Another bluebird day here, spring-like conditions,which are forecast to continue for a few days.



Great conditions all the way to the village.
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I`m arriving next weekend. Can`t wait Very Happy
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Does it get busy at the weekends? I`ve only ever skied during the week but i`ll be there on a Saturday and Sunday this time.
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@Deedee, depends on the weather. If the forecast is nice we get a lot of people from Interlaken & Berne. If not it tends to be quiet as a lot of people are leaving or arriving.
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 And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
The Mannlichen will be very busy on the Sunday 31st January as the Migros kids ski races take place .
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 So if you're just off somewhere snowy come back and post a snow report of your own and we'll all love you very much
So if you're just off somewhere snowy come back and post a snow report of your own and we'll all love you very much
Cheers folks. I`ll probably head over to Grindelwald on Sunday.
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You know it makes sense.
@Deedee, Scheidegg will be fine too 😀
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 Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
What's the outlook for tomorrow? Heard the weather might not be the best. Looks like they could do with some more snow
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 Poster: A snowHead
Poster: A snowHead
Storm. Snow up top with rain below 2000 metres.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Dreadful yesterday. No skiing and weather was rank.

Today. One of the best skiing days i`ve had. So warm i had to go and put my jacket in a locker up at First. Tremendous Very Happy
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 Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Pistes very hard early on and then a superb day.

However, having returned to Jungfrau after two or three years I have to say how disappointed I am at the lack of progress on almost any front and the actual regression in some areas. The customer never seems to be considered although undoubtedly like many consumer services companies they will pretend they do. The lift company/ies (one is really a train company serving tourists to the Jungfraujoch which they undoubtedly do very well) have invested diddly squat (other than in trains). Lousy lifts are still there and one is virtually never operational - the Fallboden - although they seem to wind it up every day just to check it could work.

What they have done on the railways is to make life very unpleasant for those staying in Lauterbrunnen or arriving by coach and having to transfer to Wengen. You used to be able to walk across the tracks to the Wengen train (given that the track is occupied every half hour and never otherwise and is also a terminus) now you have, because I gather of elf and safety, to walk much further up and down underneath the station to get to the Wengen train. Of course it does not affect the Jungfrau visitors as they come from further afield and can transfer from train to train direct. They have also invested in modern trains to Kleine Scheidegg from Lauterbrunnen that are very long so you now have to walk so much further in the dreaded ski boots. and whilst they are at it have revised the track layout at KS so that the Wengen trains end up at the wrong end from the access to pistes and lifts.

So all in all totally retrograde. No, I personally do not like walking in ski boots - I am sure many snowheads never worry about these things. I believe that it requires minimising not maximising and staying in Lauterbrunnen the walk has now become five minutes longer for the reasons of access to the Kleine Scheidegg trains set out above.

It is probably just the weather why the resort has been so quiet although most of the pistes have been excellent. I would argue it is other reasons as well. I feel really sorry for the local hoteliers.

....and then we come to the dreadful lifts - the embarrassingly slow Mannlichen gondola - ah to be replaced we are told in whenever (I think whenever was originally at least this season) with a wonderful new one. Some local gossip has it that this may never happen and the life of the existing one is having to be ever longer drawn out. They will pretend that this is a Jungfrau railways project but I understand the Mannlichen gondola is part of a completely separate outfit, GGM, and they have to raise their own finance even when/if permissions and land acquisition takes place. Apparently this also explains the dreadful Tschuggen drag as it is the link between the two companies areas of operation.

As always they have been mean with snow making, not Austrian, and not put in proper bases - the run back into Wengen is very patchy in places after yesterday's rain.

The mountain restaurants have been quietly easing up their prices even against a dire exchange rate - no doubt the swiss on their high minimum wage can afford them - but the days are past when they represented UK prices.

All in all most places you go have invested and moved forward - sadly this resort has not and is looking ever sadder relative to others to the undoubted detriment of the local winter economy.

I suspect I will not be visiting again, unless time constrained as getting to Geneva is relatively easy compared to Austria. Why, because I do not really see this resort being run for the customer. All in all very sad but when other ski resorts move forward I am afraid this does not or when it eventually does it does it far too late and invests the money in the wrong things - trains on half hour services rather than gondolas and cable cars to get people to the skiing as quickly as possible.
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I have to disagree with some of your comments about the lift company

Due to continuous investment we have snow making facilities which are second to none,even today after horrendous rain yesterday we are still able to ski down to low altitudes such as Grund in Grindlewald.New lines are being constantly added or upgraded for snow making every year

One of the reasons why the skiing here was better than other places over Xmas and New Year

The lists have been upgraded except for the odd few that you mention, Eiger Nordwang,Wixi all new 6 pack chair lifts etc etc.

Using the Mannlichen cable car from Wengen you are on the slopes in 10ms if you don't wan't to wait for the train
You mention that you are staying in Lauterbrunnen,where you also have a relatively new Cable Car to the ski area in Murren.
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@Jill t, well said, there has been a lot of investment in new lifts here in recent years.
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countryman wrote:
Pistes very hard early on and then a superb day.



countryman wrote:
I suspect I will not be visiting again


Weird.
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I was going to have a shot on the speed trap run at Scheidegg today. Luckily i looked first Shocked

I won`t be going down there. Laughing
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 After all it is free Go on u know u want to!
After all it is free Go on u know u want to!
I do not know who Jill t is but sounds like an employee/apologist for Jungfrau Railways. Hopefully she is not and privately gives them hell.

The fact of so little comment is probably indicative of how far down a once great ski resort has descended into the skiers conscience. Most british skiers tend to be 60+ and I am not seeing a younger brigade. Believe me I used to love this resort but when you see what other resorts and countries can do - and you read the comments on resorts such as sauze d'oulx you can see how easy it is to lose a market and reputation by failing to invest. I criticise in sorrow rather than anger and in sympathy with the poor people who are trying to make a living locally (but not all of them - a small minority are just rip off merchants).

Celebrating investments made years ago..... and no comment on the real likelihood of the new ggm gondola. Such a wonderful potential investment that it shifts less people slower than the proposed new cable car to eigergletscher. Durrrrr. Oh sorry no doubt you would consider that replacing the Gimmeln tbar with another tbar on exactly the same line was an investment - the rest of us would have called that repair and renewals - certainly not enhancement and certainly a missed opportunity. I wonder how many new tbars as opposed to relocated ones were installed in the alps last close season.............

Anyone who has had to suffer the failure to snow cannon the important blue run from Aspen to Grund railway station thus missing the revolting pole across the caravan club field (surely for not much a moveable rope tow could be installed there thus allowing the very few caravan movements to take place in season) or because of failure to put down a base properly, not having permanent snow cannon in place, to have to negotiate on a necessary schuss a barrier across a fairly narrow area of piste back to wengen keeping people off the mud. A railway company that does not allow the doors on the train to be opened at the ski slope side of wengernalp and runs train at less frequency than ten/twenty years ago is clearly ignoring the crisis in the area at present. Oh and then the flashy new trains mean that you now have to suffer the ski school brats, mercifully clubmed does not seem to be nearly as busy with kids as it used to be, whereas in the old days they were shifted onto their own trains for the morning lift from wengen. But then I have never ever seen a skiing customer service office/officer anywhere near the slopes, just railway staff, and the business is clearly being very successfully run for the jungfraujoch tourists who obviously pay far more than mere skiers. I wonder if they even have an operations director skiing - I have never spotted one on the corporate website - the business is run by marketing people as far as I can make out.

The level of waste is just stunning that you are paying for. Yesterday with snow forecast a poor man was sweeping up the grit on the "platform" at Grund station with a brush - no doubt it has all been spread again today after the snow......!!!!!

Sorry they do not GET it whatever you say - and the real proof of the pudding is not what I say it is the lack of custom from non-swiss skiing tourists. Merely making up for that with one or two day weekend swiss skiers, day tripping jungfraujochers, is not going to save the local businesses and they will provide beds for the summer tourists as well. It is notable how many hotels have gradually converted into apartments over the years.

Oh and Telford Mike - nothing weird about it when you have had to walk unnecessary miles, and the following day had a most appalling overpriced lunch in one of the better known named establishments and missed a train because the blue run from aspen to grund was closed due to lack of snow and encountered a closed piste that was not closed when you saw the sign at Kleine Scheidegg but had changed status by the time you got down to it forcing you to take the vile Tschuggen tbar.
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I don't work for Jungfrau railways but I do know that the skiing in Wengen, in what has been a difficult Winter in the Alps has been good this season considering the lack of natural snowfall(although it is dumping snow today)

T/bars are not only a Wengen item ,I know Saas Fee,Zermatt etc etc have them still .I think they are fun they not very long!

The Ski School brats you refer to are mainly local Swiss children who are having fun in ski school and not too many this week as ski school is quiet at the moment,Next week is high season and a ski school train will operate.

The snow cannons near the village can only operate when we have cold weather this winter that has been in short supply but they have run at every available opportunity hence we have been skiing down to the village since the New Year

Wengen is still very special with the greatest views in the Alps and certainly I hope it can remain one of the view traditional ski resorts left in the Alps and not develop in the same way as Verbier or many of the French resorts
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Snow all day yesterday and overnight to produce 33cm of new snow for Mürren -



more to come this afternoon, fingers X
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@countryman, Blimey, quite a rant. Having been to Wengen for the first time in December and LOVED it, I can't help but feel that you're missing the point of the place. If you cannot stand any walking in ski boots, and you want complete and total ski convenience then pretty much anywhere in Switzerland is going to take your anger to Daily Mail levels. Stick to La Plagne, Les Arcs or Val Thorens.

I'd say Wengen and the whole Jungfrau region are very different, typically Swiss and that generally entails normal life continuing with a ski area attached. Either accept the limitations of the place you go to, or go somewhere else...
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 And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
@countryman, ok a few truths for you about the region.

Firstly the replacement for the GGM has I think now been approved, it took a year longer than originally predicted because it has to cross a bunch of new areas since it will be going both to Eigergletscher and Mannlichen, the idea being to shift the tourists going to Jungfrajoch to this transport and off the trains, the new gondolas will probably be slower but they will be much larger so actual upload capacity is increased.

Secondly the Fallboden chair is restricted as to when it can operate because of an accident a couple of years back, this means it cannot run in high winds (which are common along the route) and also means they are restricted on running hours so it mainly runs weekends only, hopefully at some point it will be replaced.

The Tschuggen and Bumps T-bars (bumps especially) are apparently difficult to replace with chairs, given that when I first started going there Mannlichen and Lauberhorn lifts were T bars as was the Honegg and god awful Salzegg there is plenty of evidence that they will replace t-bars with chairs where possible.

The chap clearing the Grit at Grindelwald was indeed recycling, in case you missed it the Swiss have been into recycling for decades, in Wengen they try to reclaim as much grit as possible, this results in less blocked drains and a smaller bill overall to be passed on to the tourists.

If you think the lack of Artificial snow is bad now imagine what it was like before they put any cannon in, whilst they do use artificial snow in the area it is without addatives (because they don't want to kill off the alpine pastures that make up the pistes) This means that they need low temps to use the cannon and as a result the runs to Grund will suffer because it tends to be warmer there.

There are less trains per hour but the trains are larger so capacity is apparently actually slightly up, you have always had to walk to the pistes coming up the Wengen side to Kl Scheidegg because the trains cannot go beyond the apex of the hill by law, it's to do with motor position and breaking.

But quite honestly no one is forcing you to return to the area, if you don't like it go somewhere else wink
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So if you're just off somewhere snowy come back and post a snow report of your own and we'll all love you very much
@D G Orf, I was going to type something like that, but you made a much better job of it than I could Very Happy

Snowing again in Wengen now, looks like another all-nighter like we had yesterday. Quite amazing how it's gone from summer on Monday to midwinter again.
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 You know it makes sense.
You know it makes sense.
Well said D G Orf, Countryman's rants are so off beam that at first I thought them a spoof, but sadly, it seems, not so. Most of the innacuracies and extreme opinions have been well answered already, but I would add one think more. I think the delay in development of some lifts and tows are largely to do with the farmers who own the land as Dg Orf implied. What is great is that it may reflects the nature of democracy in Switzerland. Agreement has to be reached, local owners can't be overruled when it comes to development. Long may it continue.
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telford_mike wrote:
@D G Orf Snowing again in Wengen now, looks like another all-nighter like we had yesterday. Quite amazing how it's gone from summer on Monday to midwinter again.


Been snowing in Interlaken too. I had the day off the slopes today due to a sore foot and the forecast didn`t look too great. Back on it the next 2 days before i head home on Sunday.
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...and hit by a snowboarder today as well!! My punishment for telling the truth which is so painful for some it has to be cast as inaccuracies.

I can see the blind not wondering why their favourite resort is in such decline - one day they will find out - probably when it is too late to save.

Anyway no need to post further on this thread as I shall never be returning for skiing here - walking maybe.
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You did not enjoy today with all the fresh snow?
Really great conditions
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Great day today. Manlichen to Grund then over to First and a few runs there; back to Kline Scheideg and ski back to Wengen. VERY warm, but snow held up quite well. Beautiful yet again. Here until Wednesday then back again with family in March. Just love it. Madeye-Smiley
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The snow conditions look amazing today in Mürren with 98cm in the village -


with 235cm over 2360m -


Last edited by You need to Login to know who's really who. on Fri 5-02-16 17:15; edited 1 time in total
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@MacBrian, it was good, wasn't it? Funny sitting in Rocks this evening - not much conversation - everyone exhausted!
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Awesome today. Probably the best day i`ve ever had skiing. Did the start and finish of the Lauberhorn (extremely badly). Also went up the Nordwand chair for the first time. Was really bumpy on the piste back down. The Eiger run back to Grindelwald through Brandegg was just perfect. snowHead
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looking forward to taking my phanny to Mürren with me to do this sort of thing and more (pre arranged and agreed) -

http://youtube.com/v/IAYXwwbAao8
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 After all it is free Go on u know u want to!
After all it is free Go on u know u want to!
@telford_mike, yes, it was great, although a bit heavy down at the village. Tomorrow should be good as well. Bring it on Happy
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@Chris Brookes, looking forward to your footage Very Happy
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Chris Brookes wrote:


Great pic!!
I really must visit the area soon.
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