Jonathan Fors

You want to know what’s great about Zürich? I’ll tell you what. Last week I went to school, unsuspecting about the coming adventures. Talking to some friends during lunchtime I heard that they were planning a ski trip. The same evening I, two other Swedes, one Norwegian and two Dutchmen boarded the train that would take us to St. Moritz.

That’s it — you don’t need to plan long eight-hour trips like back home, the Alps are just around the corner. In fact, they are visible from ETH on a clear day, rising monumentally above the horizon. Skiers paradise. The train left Zürich HB at half past seven and the trip took us almost three hours, which actually is kind of a long trip since St. Moritz is relatively far away from Zürich. The reason for going so late in the evening is that all of us has a Gleis 7 card that allows you to go by the Swiss trains for free after seven o’clock. The six of us occupied sixteen seats in the train because of all the skiing equipment…

The weather was perfect. There had been heavy snowfall during the weekend and the weather report predicted 130 centimeters of powder. I didn’t type that number wrong, we expected one point three meters of fresh, wonderful snow. We arrived in Celerina near St. Moritz at Tuesday evening and checked in to the hostel. There was overcast, but we hoped for better weather in the morning. A good night’s sleep later the alarm clocks went of early in the morning. Martin went up to check the weather. His first report was a dissapointing “I can see overcast”, which was followed by an excited “Wait… I can see stars!”. It marked the beginning of a very good day.

I have never before experienced off-piste skiing that was so demanding. My friends are very good skiers (and snowboarders), so they found some, hrm… interesting paths down the mountain. Since there’d been so much snowing many pistes were closed, and the avalance risk was higher than usual at 3 out of 5. We took precautions and equipped ourselves with active transponders and shovels just to be safe.

The weather report didn’t lie when it talked about the snow. Robin even got stuck when he took of his snowboard because he sunk down shoulders-deep into the powder.

A helicopter was flying around the mountain all afternoon, landing and taking off many times from the same place. Only later I understood that they were dropping explosives on the slopes, setting off controlled avalanches.

Floating in powder way above ground is an awesome feeling. The skis don’t make a sound and you land soft when you tumble around. The snow is untouched and you find your own path down the slope. Combine that with blue skies, no wind and a temperature of a few degrees below zero and you’ve got the perfect day of skiing. It doesn’t get any better. Value for the money? Absolutely!

Wonderful Switzerland!