The snow finally stopped yesterday evening, and with a weather forecast for a perfect sunny day today, we made sure we were up very early this morning to enjoy the skiing. We weren’t disappointed. A few pictures.
Well over half a metre of new snow has fallen on the mountains, and conditions were absolutely perfect. Wengen is once again looking like a picture postcard.
It’s fair to say that it’s not been the best of seasons for skiing, until today that is. I’m glad I can ski.
It snowed all night and all day, I guess we’ve had about a foot of the stuff. I cleared our steps up to the postbox and our ‘man’ came this afternoon and did the really hard work on the 40 steps down to the path. The view from our terrace is quite different to the photo with all the Choughs yesterday.
The snow continued until about 9 this evening. We had a nice meal at the Eiger with Lesley and Dave, followed by music from Colin and Neville at the Alpine Hotel. It’s still foggy in the village this evening, but it should be an epic ski day tomorrow.
It’s another gloomy, wet day. On days like this we can tell the weather’s awful up at Scheidegg, because the birds that live up there fly down to Wengen in search of food. Here they are on the meadow opposite our terrace.
These birds are Alpine Choughs, and they have just two goals in life. They like to eat as much as they possibly can, and they want to make lots of little Choughs. Their natural diet is very varied. In summer they’ll find things like beetles, snails, caterpillars and other critters. In winter they rely on fruit, seeds and berries. They’re clever birds, and if there’s a plentiful supply of food they’ll hide some in crevices in the rocks, and conceal it with pebbles.
In ski resorts however, the Choughs have it easy. The many mountain restaurants provide them with an endless supply of chips, bread, cake, pasta and other high-calorie leftovers. The reason they come down to Wengen on bad weather days is that they know nobody’s going to be eating outside the restaurants, so there won’t be a free lunch.
EDIT: BREAKING NEWS!
Late this afternoon the wind turned northerly, and the rain became snow. I wouldn’t normally post a video of snow from a ski resort, but it’s been so long since we had any I think it’s newsworthy.
Those Choughs are going to have a hard time tomorrow.
Another pretty rubbish day, we went up to the village through the fog for supplies after lunch. Bumped into Emily and her guests Clare and Fraser in the Crystal bar afterwards, and we were soon joined by Jack and Erin, who are here from Florida for a couple of weeks.
It’s supposed to snow tomorrow, so all eyes are on the cameras up the mountain to see whether anything’s coming. There’s no sign of any weather yet, but the view of the stars is still breathtaking.
For the second time in as many days, I was woken early from my slumber. Yesterday it was the postman with a parcel for Val, and this morning the unmistakable howl of a storm got me out of bed earlier than I might have liked. A quick look at the online ski map revealed the effect of the storm on the skiing.
There’s nothing operating at all, which is a great shame as the village is full of weekend visitors. The camera at the top of the Lauberhorn showed the snow blowing around in the wind.
Val was due to meet a pal for coffee in the village, so she ventured out. Large branches are down, and some of the paths are a bit of a mess.
These föhn storms can be quite violent, but they are usually short lived. We’ll be off up to the Alpine Hotel later, so hopefully the worst will have passed by then.
I have never been to Japan. Nor, for that matter, have I ever eaten Japanese food. The recent opening of a Japanese restaurant here in Wengen was therefore enough to pique my curiosity. Last night we booked a table and wondered what to expect. In the event the food was delightful. Val had a ‘Ramen’ dish which was noodles in a spicy soup, with slices of slow-cooked pork belly. My plate consisted of sliced chicken in breadcrumbs, deep fried, along with rice and vegetables.
The food was really good, and I expect we’ll be visiting again before long. The weather in the village today was nice enough, but up at Scheidegg a storm was raging and most of the ski lifts were closed. We got some shopping and spent the afternoon watching Formula One racing on TV.
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