 Poster: A snowHead
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As a skiing addict, I found it hard to accept that my final trip of the year (ski touring near Chamonix in mid-April) was really the final trip, and have been checking the weather conditions in the Alps regularly for the last few weeks. Last week it looked like a short cold snap and fresh snow were approaching, just in time for the weekend  My girlfriend was keen, although couldn't take any time off work so it would have to be a very short break - Friday evening to Sunday evening.
Some good options with lifts open that weekend seemed to be:
Stubai Glacier / Hintertux (2.5 hours drive from Munich, unfortunately no regular flights to Innsbruck at this time of year)
Zermatt / Cervinia - the latter has lifts open to connect to Zermatt glacier every weekend in May this year
Engelberg (only just over an hour from Zurich, and open for skiing until 22nd May).
I ruled out Engelberg because of the tiny area it had open for skiing. In the end I decided on Stubai Glacier, although with some regret over not choosing Cervinia/Zermatt as the ski area is up to 600m higher and it looked like more snow was due to fall in that area.
Forecast looked promising though:
snow-forecast.com
yr.no
Booked last minute flights (Friday evening to Sunday evening) to Munich with avios, a bargain with BA at 8000 avios + £35 return, ski carriage as standard, and with availability on almost every flight.
Friday night in the Holiday Inn at Munich Airport for £45, and Saturday night in Pension Tina, a great B&B in Neustift about 20km down the valley from the Stubai Glacier lifts, for £50.
We drove from Munich on Saturday morning and arrived at the base lifts of the Glacier around midday. Perfect timing to get the 1.5 day lift pass which costs about €55, and would cover us for the rest of the afternoon and the whole of Sunday. Lifts open 8am until 3.30pm. I estimate there had been around 20-30cm of fresh snow which fell the previous day, the snowline had briefly touched 2000m according to the webcams. The ski area currently open is between 2600m and 3200m in altitude so all areas had a good topping up.
On piste the conditions were excellent, especially between around 9am-1pm. You'd need to find the best aspects - around 10am a south facing slope near the summit provided excellent skiing, while later on you needed to move to the north facing slopes. The sun was strong and warm air had moved in after the brief cold snap so by the afternoon the pistes were getting very soft and chopped, but not as far as slushy.
This was never going to be an off piste trip for me, but I ventured into the newly fallen snow a couple of times to see what it was like. The warm air and sunshine (plus the fact that the temperature when the snow was falling was not much below 0C even at the summit) had made it very wet and sticky. Very challenging to ski. There was still a fair amount of ski touring going on. I liked the look of the mountain in the background of this shot, 8-10 people were touring up it on the Sunday morning. I believe it's the Zuckerhütl at 3507m:
During the Sunday morning there were quite a few race teams and local ski clubs on the hill, they must have made up at least 2/3 of the total skiers. After midday they all cleared off and it was almost deserted. You could pretty much have a whole piste to yourself. No lift queues, even during the morning.
We came down around 3pm on Sunday and had time for an ice cream in Neustift, where it must have been about 25C! A very nice little town:
Drive back to Munich and flight to London went without a hitch, and we were back in my flat in London by just past 11pm. A very successful trip!
I would definitely recommend something like this, even if you can't take off any holiday. I reckon the total cost each including flights, car hire, fuel, accommodation, lift pass and meals was around £185 + 8000 avios. It could be done for a similar cost to Cervinia. Having avios makes a huge difference, as flights without them seemed very expensive. I collect most of mine via Tesco Clubcard!
Looking at the forecast, the conditions will be fantastic this coming bank holiday weekend. Should not have agreed to go hiking in the lake district instead...!
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Nice!
Pistes were really nice on Sunday, but there's definitely less snow than usual for this time of year.
| musehead wrote: |
This was never going to be an off piste trip for me, but I ventured into the newly fallen snow a couple of times to see what it was like. The warm air and sunshine (plus the fact that the temperature when the snow was falling was not much below 0C even at the summit) had made it very wet and sticky. Very challenging to ski. There was still a fair amount of ski touring going on. I liked the look of the mountain in the background of this shot, 8-10 people were touring up it on the Sunday morning. I believe it's the Zuckerhütl at 3507m:
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Zuckerhütl is the triangular peak to the left/behind of the one which you can see the face of - most of it is hidden. Some really nice touring up there, including the Wilder Pfaff (4300-something, I think). If you carry on a bit past that there's one big, spined, Alaskan-style face, which looks pretty nuts!
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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?
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Great TR. Thanks.
Hintertux in better shape clarky999?
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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@Mike Pow, I really don't know - I've never actually skied at Hintertux (summer day passes are bloody expensive, and Stubai is free with my season pass 'til end of June and again from early September). I wouldn't expect there to be a huge difference though.
The upper mountain at Stubai is still fine for on piste, but you can't ski (on piste) all the way down to the mid-Station right now (only a 50m walk or so on gravel though), which I've always been able to do until the summer closure before.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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Thanks
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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It did seem a shame that the pistes down to the middle station (2300m) were closed, as they looked in good shape apart from the very last section. There were at least 4 lifts that were closed not due to lack of snow - I guess the amount of skiers they get at this time of year is happily absorbed by just the higher areas that were open.
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@musehead, one of the lifts (Eisgrat) was closed for maintenance - one of the cabins actually fell off the cable a few months back so I'm not complaining about that one! You can for sure ski down to the mid-Station if you want; the lifties won't complain about you getting on there even though the piste is closed.
But yeah, at this point they don't have enough skiers to keep it all open.
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@musehead,
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| It did seem a shame that the pistes down to the middle station (2300m) were closed, as they looked in good shape apart from the very last section |
I think one the main reasons the pistes on the Fernau sector are closed is they've excavated the roads for vehicle access for maintenance, so there are 2 metre deep trenches across the pistes on that side of the mountain, requiring a "portage".
We skinned up the closed Pfaffengrat lift piste (the col to the left of the drag in your Zuckerhütl pic) a couple of times the week before last, and had the whole area to ourselves, down to the mid-station which was ace
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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@geoffers, you mean the 'Joch' 
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Ta for the report musehead.
If you enjoyed a May snow fix, bear in mind that you can get pretty decent cover/conditions into June on the glaciers.
Early July can be good too - I've skied powder in Tignes  - with temperatures of 25C in resort the same week!
Definitely beats lying about on a beach....
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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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.
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Just had a look on the >3D-realitymaps viewer < of the Stubai, and it looks like it would be a seriously tasty ridge route to get there, so it may be better attacking the couloir face on...
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@geoffers, great viewer, thanks! Can anyone recommend a good guide in the area I could use to take me up and down that route and similar ones around Stubai?
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You know it makes sense.
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@musehead, I don't tend to ski that side of the glacier that much, but as above I think you're best just going up the face. For fun terrain in smaller/more bit size chunks take a look under the Rotadl lift - there's 20 odd variations to play in round there.
For a guide, you want Patrick Ribis from Freeride Center Stubai - cool guy.
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