 Poster: A snowHead
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Easter weekend in Engelberg was simply amazing. The best skiing of my life, without a doubt.
We arrived after midnight Thursday night and checked into the Swedish Occupied Hotel (Hotel Bellevue). A quick beer downstairs in the Yucatan allowed us to see men dancing on the bar to the Weather Girls.
Friday was a total washout, with the storm shutting all the lifts. No bother, as we caught the bus as far up the valley as is possible and strapped on our cross country skis. We broke trail for about 15 km back down to the village crossing pastures, avoiding barbed wire fences, traversing the river in a blizzard. It was good fun.
Saturday we awoke to blue skies and well over a meter of new snow up on the mountain. I spent the morning doing laps on the Laubersgrat lift on the Stand side, playing the powder on either side of the piste. Meanwhile, my girlfriend was doing laps on the cross country trails below at Gerschnialp. We met up and went up to Titlis for lunch, and I skied up there and back down before the weather closed in and the snow started flying around 4:00. As we were checking in to our hotel for the next two nights, the Berghotel Truebseehof at 1800 m in the middle of the ski area, a rescue copter looked to be picking someone off of the Jochstock. I hope that turned out alright, and by that time visibility was close to nil.
The advantage of staying up on the mountain is that you have the place to yourself while everyone in the valley is uploading in the morning. There was about 20 cm of fresh by daybreak with gray skies on Easter Sunday, and it was all mine for a good 45 minutes. Again, the day started lapping the Laubersgrat before switching to the Jochpass for a while and then skiing down to Untertruebsee to meet my girlfriend for lunch. It started chucking down during lunch, and afterwards we rented her some alpine skies and headed to the beginners area. With it dumping heavily and zero visibility, she actually made a decent go of it a couple hours, and then it was après ski with beers on our balcony watching the snow fall.
Easter Monday was one of those days. The best I’ve ever had to be sure. It puked all night long, and we were woken by bombs going off right across from our hotel room above the Jochpass. I opened the curtains to see blue skies and massive avalanches before me. Because it is so close to the hotel, I started again with a couple laps on the Laubersgrat in snow up to my waist, and then switched to the Jochpass again for a bit longer this time. Having grown up in the PNW, I’ve seen deeper snow before. But with it being -20° up at the top, this was the lightest snow I’ve experienced. Unlike the Cascade Concrete of my youth, this was wispy, soft, dry snow that I could just glide through. Amazing. With the snow starting to fall again around 2:00, I put in a couple more runs before having to ski down, retrieve our luggage and head back to Berlin.
Pictures here, but mostly scenics as I’m Johnny No Friends while downhill skiing because my girlfriend sticks to cross country.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/berliner_jake/sets/72157604238769464/
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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How was the Berghotel Truebseehof and how much do they charge per night? We've always wondered about staying there 
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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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The hotel is nice. Not luxury, but decent sized rooms with a balcony.
Surprisingly, it's excellent value. Two nights, which included a three day lift ticket, breakfast and dinner cost CHF 350 per person. Drinks with dinner are not included.
The dinners were good. Soup and salad buffet followed by main course and dessert. Duck in balsamic sauce one night, pork roast the other.
The only negative I'd note is that the service at dinner was excruciatingly slow. There were maybe ten tables and three wait staff, so they're not exactly overworked. But after we'd finished our dessert, we waited over ONE HOUR for them to take our plates away and give us the drinks bill. Other guests who had arrived more than 30 minutes later than us ended up being taken care of before we were. And this was not a case of us not flagging down a waiter, either. Even after we requested the bill we waited 20 minutes. The night before the same thing happen to a couple seated at another table near us. They will be receiving a letter from me tomorrow.
Other than that, I can really recommend it. There is absolutely nothing to do there in the evening, but that was fine with us.
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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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Some nice pics. I've skied Engelberg a few times at this time of year but it's never been like that 
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