It’s 10 degrees warmer than yesterday, and it feels like spring. Beanie has a day off so Val went up for a ski with her while I did a few chores.
It’s quite busy – queues at Gummi. The piste down Gummi Nord is open for the first time this season.
Val’s dad arrives later, so this week will mostly be sightseeing.
Minus 11 when we got up this morning, and by the time we left the house it was still minus 10. But it’s a beautiful sunny day, so we dress up warm and head up to Männlichen. Despite the intense cold, it’s quite busy.
We ski up and down for a while on lovely pistes, trying not to freeze on the chairlifts.
By about midday it’s a fair bet we can find an empty gondola down at Holenstein, which makes all the difference as we can thaw out on the way back up the hill. We paused for lunch and started again – it’s always much quieter in the afternoon.
A good day, but I’m looking forward to a hot shower.
Yesterday was grey and overcast, and it was still pretty murky this morning. We had an early lunch, hoping for an improvement, and sure enough the sky began to brighten a little. We headed up to Männlichen. Blisteringly cold with wintry sunshine.
To escape the worst of the cold we skied down to Holenstein a couple of times so we could get back up in the relative comfort of the gondola.
All in all a nice afternoon, but needed another layer of clothing.
Wengen is slowly getting back to normal after the races, and next weekend it’s Mürren’s turn to host a big event – the Inferno races. It’s a beautiful day so we popped over to see how things are shaping up.
The Inferno downhill is held on a series of public pistes that lead from the top of the Schilthorn down to Lauterbrunnen. The final run down into the valley is rarely open, but all the snow this season means that the racers can practice the entire course. It’s a bit weird seeing racers on the same pistes as normal skiers, but there aren’t too many tourists around so it wasn’t a big problem.
The classic Eiger, Mönch and Jungfrau shot from Allmendhübel.
We had a good ski and came home for a late lunch.
It’s been a very busy weekend. The final visitor numbers were published today:
That’s a healthy increase over last year – the organisers are very happy.
We met Neil and Anna for a beer last night. Neil’s been covering the races for the British press, they’re back off home to Austria this morning.
It snowed all morning, and that suited us fine as we’re due a relaxing day. We went for a stroll after lunch and the sun put in a brief appearance.
Back to our normal routine this evening with Duo Centrale at the Sunstar.
The final race of the weekend is the slalom. There are 2 runs down the steep, icy piste that leads from Allmend down to the stadium at Innerwengen. Lancashire’s Dave Ryding will be racing and we expect him to do well. Here he is drawing his start number in the village last night.
Val and Ali have their Dave Ryding fan club hats.
There are 74 racers, of whom 33 crashed on the first run – that’s how tough this course is. The second run provides more excitement, with the top 30 competitors going in reverse order. Every time a Swiss racer comes down the hill the crowd goes crazy.
In the end Dave finished in a creditable 8th place. That’s the end of the Lauberhorn weekend for another year, it’ll be nice to get our peaceful village back again.
The downhill is the premier event of the weekend, and everyone will be up the hill enjoying themselves. We started at Männlichen for the air show.
We skied on deserted pistes around to Scheidegg and headed for the start hut at the top of the Lauberhorn. Hundreds of spectators.
And many thousands more watching at Wengernalp.
Fun facts:
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