The gondola goes through stations at Furi, Aroleid, Schwarzsee, Furg and finally Trockener Steg. View there:
From here we took the Klein Matterhorn tram. Its upper station is drilled into the pointed peak at upper left in this picture.
Skiing in this area is done on the Furggsattel chair at right or T-bars at center. This is glacier skiing and tends to be fairly flat. This is the area were Zermatt brags it can offer skiing 365 days a year, and so was one of Patrick’s stops in summer 2012.
Close up of Klein Matterhorn peak with cement top terminal. You walk through a long tunnel to the piste on the other side.
The top of the Klein Matterhorn tram at 12,736 feet is Europe’s highest ski lift, just shy of the 12,804 of Imperial at Breckenridge. View towards Plateau Rosa and Italy from there.
Summer T-bar and wind blown snow near the tram.
We skied to Plateau Rosa and were surprised to see the trail into Italy closed despite fairly benign weather. It was cold, maybe 10F early in the morning, but the wind mostly abated below the tram. So we skied next to the very flat T-bars down to the Furggsattel chair.
With lots of people skiing that chair waiting for Cervinia to open, it got tracked out very quickly.
That new snow was very light and dry, similar to Utah or Colorado, but you had to be aware where the slope flattened to bail out to a piste. From the top of Furgsattel we looked off the back into Cervinia.
We could see people unloading from the next-to-top chair but the top chair was not running. Second time up there we saw groomers working the top piste. From the same spot, a view up to Plateau Rosa, which has a restaurant and a tram coming up to the highest lift served spot 11,414 feet from Cervinia.
With no activity on our third chair we skied a longer run down to Furgg.
Returning to Trockener Steg it was almost 12:30 so we decided to take the T-Bar up and go to the Gandegghutte refugio for lunch if the runs into Italy remained closed. View when T-bar stopped of Klein Matterhorn and 13,658 foot snow-capped Breithorn at left.
Ambitious AT skiers can skin up there before skiing the Schwarz glacier on the other side.
We observed people disappearing over Theodul Pass while riding the first T-bar and so continued up the second one to Plateau Rosa. Liz at finally open border.
I traversed right from the top of the piste to this view.
Below the rollover the powder was thigh deep for 1,300 vertical, the deepest lift served snow I have skied since Fat Tuesday of Iron Blosam week in 2011. Views on the way down.
And back up.
With a rollover and uncertain slog out, Liz declined to commit to this, but she thoughtfully took some pics.
There was a moderate traverse to a fairly long but crude plowed road.
The road had flat spots but let’s just say that the reward to grunt work ratio was about 5x that of Catherine’s/Patsy Marley at Alta.
The road led to the designated lunch meeting area at Plan Maison. By this time nearly all of the Diamond Dogs had given up on the border opening and skied back down toward Zermatt. I texted Liz and it turned out the piste from Plateau Rosa led all the way down to the town of Cervinia at 6,700. While she was coming up I rode the Plan Maison chair.
Italian view of Matterhorn at left
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And a few more tracks in the bowl I skied below Plateau Rosa.
I skied the piste to Chalet Etoile, one of the world's top on mountain restaurants where reservations are often needed. But the delayed opening had resulted in many people not getting there from Zermatt, so they said they could seat me in 10 minutes. Liz arrived 5 minutes after that, and we were soon indulging in another gourmet feast. Liz and I shared black pasta with squid and jumbo prawns and a pumpkin, prosciutto, asparagus and cheese risotto. We were well through those amazing dishes before thinking of the camera but I did get a pic of the crostata dessert.
It’s safe to say I’ve never skied THAT quality of powder and had THAT kind of lunch in the same day before!
Sundeck outside Chalet Etoile.
We started lunch at 2PM but the waitress informed us that last chair out of Plan Maison to go back to Zermatt is at 3:45. There are 3 chairs in total. Only the top Bontadini chair is steep enough to ski powder.
There were also a few other creative lines people skied from Plateau Rosa.
We crossed back into Switzerland at 4PM and soon had this classic view.
Monte Rosa in opposite direction
Zoomed view to Gornergrat and Hohtalli
We got down to town below Furi at 5PM. 20,300 vertical. As for the 5K of powder, even Utah powder princesses would have been wowed by its quality.
