Engelberg, week 6 TR w/ Pics

**Jiehkevarri** · 02-21-2007, 01:39 PM

I haven’t contributed much lately. But I've always believed quality over quantity anyways.

So, here we go...

Engelberg, week 6.

I think we scored some. Especially considering this strange winter of 06/07. The locals said we had the best week that far. I can’t complain, keeping in mind this might have been my only “real” ski week this year (slight changes for some spring trip but wife wants to go somewhere warm…

)

First two days = not looking too good. No snow on south facing slopes until ~2000m. Nort-facing slopes had some snow but below 2000m it was basically about 20cm with no base at all!

We managed to find some satisfying skiing, although nothing special. It was still good to be back on skis on some real mountains.

A little cruddy face on Titlis. The snow was ok somewhere between 2700~3000m…

A little lower there was really spring like conditions, Jochpass

Classic “the Point”

Me skiing a chute, hard but chalky, "edgeable" snow

This was probably the best snow we found on two first days

**Jiehkevarri** · 02-21-2007, 01:41 PM

Luckily on the third day it started to dump some. The day was spent just cruising the slopes and trying to find some small features to play just off the slopes.

On the fourth day the scenery looked a bit better. The overall accumulation wasn’t too great, some ~20 cm but we were still happy. The snow was good and light…you could feel the base here and there but who cares…

Some doods (seasoners) even hit the Glacier down from Titlis (first pic under). It didn’t look too gnarly, just the coverage was still pretty thin (seemed like share blue ice under just a thin snow cover at places). Anyway not knowing the area too well we stayed close to the slopes, which actually turned out to be a great tactics in Engelberg…all the “core” people (seemed like some ~30-40 of ‘em!

) rushed to ski the bigger lines and we just milked the little stashes by ourselves.

Less vert than your average e.g Cham routes but who cares again, the snow was good and we lapped some serious vertical. Personally I found it really refreshing to ski with some less experienced friends who were just happy with everything and kept going powered by the pure stoke!

**Jiehkevarri** · 02-21-2007, 01:42 PM

Some more from the first pow day

Jochpass

Jochstock, not too shabby for a late afternoon pow run, 50m from the slope…

**Jiehkevarri** · 02-21-2007, 01:43 PM

The fifth day was cloudy again. At some point it seemed like it really starts to dump big time but actually the snow kept coming in small showers that started and ended in like 15min periods. The day was spent training with beacons and just cruising.

Sixth day was a pow day again. The amount of snow was a slight disappointment at first, looked at only like 10~15cm. However, the wind had played it’s magic and we found some stashes where it had really accumulated. Snow was windbuffed now, just great IMHO, suited my new Gots perfectly (which were by the way surprisingly stiff, I was expecting an easy floater but the feel was more damp, crud-buster like…anyway good skis, only complain is that the base/top sheet material feels pretty bad, base is soft and the top sheet started already chipping big time - china quality vs. the earlier German made…?)

The funny thing was again that we skied the basic face of Jochpass like 4 or 5 times before anyone else started to track it. The snow formations you see on the first pic looked like frozen sastrugi but were actually just soft chunks of snow you could blast through (=fun stuff). Only after we have lapped the face several times people started to follow…

**Jiehkevarri** · 02-21-2007, 01:44 PM

Some more from the second pow day…

The snow along this little ridge was surprisingly good and deep (compared to the surroundings)

Shinehead

**GBB** · 02-21-2007, 01:45 PM

sweet stoke, and yes quality over quantity is the way to go.

**Jiehkevarri** · 02-21-2007, 01:46 PM

One thing we noticed too is that in Engelberg there is a lot of nice natural formations and cliffs. If only the snow conditions (and ski days this year) have been a little better, I think we could have hit more and a bit bigger ones (just maybe though

). What I noticed personally was that I could hit small “mini drops” (up to 3-4m, ~12 feet) pretty effortlessly but when it gets just a little bigger everything changes. I just don’t have enough experience on drops/cliffs, having hit decent sized park features helps some but it’s still a whole different ballgame…

Really mini mini huck

This was nice…

And the landing wasn’t too bad either…

This was the biggest I hit on the trip (15~20 feet I guess?). The pic is from video (too bad we didn’t get any picture)…anyway I pretty much rolled down the windows and crashed a little on the landing. Good stoke though and I got the feeling that maybe hucking off cliffs isn’t that bad after all (I’ve always sucked/pansied on cliff drops even though I’ve hit a fair share of some decent side park kickers)

That’s all for now. Gotta hope it’s not just all park after this.

And I also really hope Euros still get some decent conditions…cause even though we got it pretty good, the overall situation was not normal at all: we couldn’t ski the Brunni side at all, “Laub” was out of question (almost bare rocks lower slope) and there was no tree skiing at all available. I guess this year the skiing in the Alps happens pretty much at over ~2500 m and when the spring comes, over..what, 3000m?3500m?

**geo039** · 02-21-2007, 01:58 PM

NICE TR

I want to get out that way, but I hear you....I need to buy a set of park skis...once I do that the snow will come!

**IridePow** · 02-21-2007, 02:01 PM

Nice one.... I am glad you enjoyed Switzerland.
It's an amazing country....so small, but has pretty much everything to offer... except some real beach.

**Arno** · 02-21-2007, 02:55 PM

Looks pretty OK to me. I was there a few weeks ago and it was hardpack in most places but still some nice skiing to do. The glacier will need lots of snow to be an enjoyable ski, I think. It was possible when I was there but involved a bony traverse over a bit of blue ice. Not very nice

**Jiehkevarri** · 02-21-2007, 03:07 PM

It was possible when I was there but involved a bony traverse over a bit of blue ice. Not very nice

Just what we've thought.

Btw. pretty hilarious that your sig is what Telepath stated to me on some thread about suitable skis for LaGrave...as I stated that IMHO actually soft skis are pretty underrated after all (and stiff skis overrated), after seeing a friend totally blast on his noodly 189 Kahunas. and miself totally killing my legs and lungs on my (now ex-) 193cm Head Im 103's.

I still like (a bit) softer skis but gotta admit that sig is an instant classic!

**gincognito** · 02-21-2007, 04:07 PM

Nice! What dates were you there? I'm guessing it was pretty close to when I was on those slopes (Feb. 9 was a pretty sweet bluebird day)....

Sick and ashamed and happy (and might hijack with a few pics of my own when I get back home),
d.

**Arno** · 02-21-2007, 04:12 PM

Originally Posted by Jiehkevarri

Just what we've thought.

Btw. pretty hilarious that your sig is what Telepath stated to me on some thread about suitable skis for LaGrave...as I stated that IMHO actually soft skis are pretty underrated after all (and stiff skis overrated), after seeing a friend totally blast on his noodly 189 Kahunas. and miself totally killing my legs and lungs on my (now ex-) 193cm Head Im 103's.

I still like (a bit) softer skis but gotta admit that sig is an instant classic!

i was living by my sig on my last trip - skiing hard then stopping due to exhaustion at about 3pm

**squaremountain_local** · 02-21-2007, 04:34 PM

Nice TR. Looks like you found some good conditions there.

**paedde** · 02-21-2007, 06:00 PM

Thanks for the report and pics. I’ve never seen so little snow up there. They skied the glacier – sick and dangerous in my mind. I’m not looking forward to be back home. This spring is going to suck. They usually stay open till the last week of May and you can ski even in June but this year will be so different.

**Egon** · 02-21-2007, 07:50 PM

goddamn. I'm jealous of this too.

**Jiehkevarri** · 02-22-2007, 02:39 AM

What dates were you there?

From the 3rd of February to 10th.

Feb. 9 was the second pow day mentioned, and our second last. We skied until like 5pm, head to our apartment, made some food, got pretty drunk but were so tired that night that we just passed out pretty much at 11 or so (the plan was to head to Yucatan but it failed...)

The last day (saturday) was grey and cloudy without any new snow, and we just pretty much just cruised some groomers until 2pm (we had to leave around 4pm).

One week is just so short time to be in the Alps. Sometimes it feels like you would need 1-2 weeks just to get the "ski legs" back...

And yes, go ahead, add some photos if you like.

EDIT: And yes I'd like to hit the glacier but not in those conditions. There was just a link in "Snow for the Euros" with news of somebody dying after slipping on blue ice under the thin snow. Very scary stuff indeed.

**Hicks** · 02-22-2007, 03:39 AM

Nice pics.

**jedster** · 02-22-2007, 08:21 AM

It was possible when I was there but involved a bony traverse over a bit of blue ice

yeah, was like that in January when I was there. we were new to the area so skied with a guide for a day - his advice: "you WILL skid on the glacier ice so use a bit of speed and you will get across beofre you have time to slip into that crevasse"

as you say, not exactly pleasant

J

**Jiehkevarri** · 03-08-2007, 02:43 PM

Bump for sharing the reality of my skiing. It will be like this until the end of season most likely (and it's pretty damn warm already)...unless I can speak my wife to change her mind about easter trip (fingers crossed)

Anyway, you gotta make the most out of what you have...

Me, trying to steeze it up:

A friend going slightly corked (not too shabby for a father of two who started 360's about a year ago...solid racing background though):

Same guy, jibbety jib (god I sucked at this feature...)

A couple of videos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dXcugFVuQnc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBTxk5Stp7g

And a question: how to post those cool straight links to the (youtube) videos?(link to old thread is enough, i guess I can find it out from that...just didn't find the thread about that)

**geo039** · 03-08-2007, 03:09 PM

Nice work..remember for every Euro TR there must be a snow dance pic!

**sick.bird** · 03-08-2007, 05:57 PM

CAW! CAW!

**Franz Klammer** · 03-08-2007, 10:27 PM

Originally Posted by Jiehkevarri

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dXcugFVuQnc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBTxk5Stp7g

And a question: how to post those cool straight links to the (youtube) videos?(link to old thread is enough, i guess I can find it out from that...just didn't find the thread about that)

Just write youtube instead of xxxtube like this [xxxtube][/xxxtube] and put the Youtube ID in between.

**Jiehkevarri** · 03-09-2007, 02:25 AM

Just write youtube instead of xxxtube like this [xxxtube][/xxxtube] and put the Youtube ID in between

Thanks. Now that is not too hard!

I might post some actual powder skiing videos in the near future too (got some ok ones from the E-berg trip). And damn I even have couple of pretty good (=bad) snow dances too...

First time I got a sick bird comment btw. Thanks alot.Kind of funny that's for park skiing though..cause I think that park skiing is only a good substitute when you can't get to the real stuff!

However, today it's time for some pipe skiing (which can be pretty fun and addictive too...)

**hemas** · 03-09-2007, 02:33 AM

Originally Posted by Jiehkevarri

Blaah, and blaah

How's Talma?

Oh, and you should have been in Aiguille du Solvalla on Wed... Nice new skis from both Völkl and Movement to test... Even the Duke was slapped on one skis.

Too bad, I can't fuggin' ski. ACL-reconstruction should be on monday (I think)... Oh well, it's not like I had a great season anyway

.

Ja kahen viikon päästä näyttäisi olevan paljon kivoja suksia taas tarjolla:
Blizzu Akira, Völkl Katana, Movement ja Elan... plus muita.

http://www.winter-consulting.fi/kesk...a/21032007.php