After two weekends at Ikea, Freddy and I needed to head to the mountains! In the week coming up to this trip, we were certainly struggling with the weather. It was definitely going to snow - a lot, but slopes at or below treeline did not have a ton of snow, and above, you probably won’t be able to see. We searched and searched, using SwissTopo, MeteoSwiss, Fatmap, and other resources, but honestly didn’t have a great plan. It’s just hard to know where to begin! In the end we booked a hotel in Engelberg because the most important thing is to get out there.

Saturday was definitely the heavy weather day, so we did not try for an alpine start, instead waking up at 7, rummaging through all our bags to find our ski stuff, then hopping on the T7 to start our journey to Engelberg. We went from Wollishofen to Zug to Luzern to Engelberg, taking about 2 hours. The highlight of the train ride was ascending the valley to Engelberg - it starts as a flat valley with green pastures interrupted by quaint villages with cable cars ascending to peaks that were covered in cloudy mystery - needless to say there’s a lot to explore just in this one valley!

We got off the train and took a bus to the bottom of Brunni Engelberg ski resort. It was raining in town, and we wanted to move fast because the rainline was forecasted to move higher. We took the cable car to the mid station with a group of very kitted dudes that were taking a class (turns out one of the was a Googler!). They had a funny saying that at Brunni, it’s always knee deep, you just don’t know if it’s snow, water, or mud.. We got off the cable car, and reality set in - we were about to tour up in the rain. Mustering all the positive energy I had, Freddy and I set off up to the Brunnihütte. 

Lower down, we witnessed interesting avalanche activity - tons of glide avalanches. Shallow snow + plus grassy base + rain event = stuff was sliding to ground, especially where there was wind loading on eastish facing aspects. In some places, there were these cracks where the slab had started to slowly break away from the slab above - an Italian man we met said they call it “bocca di balena” - a whale’s mouth - wouldn’t want to fall in one of those! 

We skinned to the top of Schonegg chair (the resort still hadn’t opened for the season) and dropped down a south east facing slope. The top 200 m was fun heavy pow that slowly turned to mashed potatoes that was very hard to turn in. There was not much else we could do but transition and do it again! Going back uphill, I became extremely conscious of how wet I was. I could feel drops of water running down my legs and my gloves felt like they had gained a kilo with the amount of water. When we got to the Brunnihütte, we took a break. The Brünnihutte is a Swiss Alpine Club hut where you can stay for cheap and have decently priced warm food. We stayed long enough to realize our stuff was not going to get dry. I put on my extra pair of gloves and tried to not think about how the rain had soaked down to my underwear. We finished the second lap and made our way down to town. 

We stayed at the Banklialp hotel, just your standard chalet-looking hotel on the north facing side so you can have a beautiful sunset view of town! After peeling off our wet layers, we went to the sauna. Protip - spas in Europe are clothing optional! It felt incredible to be warm and dry. We slept well that night!

The next day, Freddy indulged me by skiing inbounds at Engelberg Titlis resort. Since we're carless, we walked 10 min to get to the resort. Tickets are only 72 CHF, a steal compared to what Palisades charges for a lift ticket! 

*INSERTING PERSONAL FRUSTRATION SIDENOTE: Why can’t I pack a backpack like Freddy? It’s an incredible ANGER I feel that I am bearing more of a battle against gravity than someone who is larger/stronger/taller than me. And the problem is I can’t blame him, but deep down I am so MAD that he is better at packing than me, that in my mind he holds this air of superiority as he asks what the hell I brought in my bag. And the answer is I don’t know. I just don’t know how it happens, but it makes me so incredibly frustrated that I am slogging around all these extra trinkets (an extremely heavy pair of shoes, jeans (so I could look good for whom??), 5 pens (I counted), and my super extra heavy puffy that I ended up wearing to prove a point on Sunday but just sweated the entire day). I’M BAD AT PACKING, AND I HAVE A BAD ATTITUDE TOWARDS PACKING.*  

I know this is an oxymoron, but we had a great inbounds powder day. Even with a leisurely 9:45 start, we took the gondola up to Stand then dropped down southwest facing lines that were seriously so fun! The sun would peak in and out of the clouds showing off the remarkable Central Alps in every direction. We chatted up a Coloradan that lives in Palo Alto (small world!) and an Italian man from Como, who showed us Americans around. He kept saying “Yes Engelberg is where you come to freeride.” I have never thought of myself as a “freeride” skier, but I will certainly take the identity! Around three, the vis turned bad and the legs got tired, so we hitched a ride from our new Palo Alto friend (thanks Nathan!) who happened to be staying two streets away from us in Zurich. Though getting to Engelberg by train isn’t bad, it’s only an hour with a car.

En fin, it was a great first weekend skiing in the Alps with my best friend! More to come!