Snow Conditions

Since our last update 5 days ago it has snowed a total of 63cm up top, and 34cm in Zermatt village. The snowline has now come all the way down. The skiing has been limited over the last weekend due to high winds, which have kept most of the upper lifts closed on both the Swiss and Italian sides of the mountain. The wind is also the reason why the snow depth at the top – Plateau Rosa – has decreased to 190cm; however it has increased to 113cm at the Gornergrat station. All in all this has been a very welcome addition to the snow base, while the cold temperatures have allowed snow making to resume on the lower slopes. We’re all set to have all the resort runs open well before Christmas.

Since our last report, In a nutshell, we have had yet more snow and mild temperatures still. We have been skiing fresh powder continuously for the last 7 days, thanks to three substantial snowfalls since our last report. As ever, the season changes gear on the first week of December and more lifts and areas open up for skiing, giving us 218km and 84 runs so far. Down to 2,400m the snow is outstanding and deep, below that it is man-made. Zermatt is fortunate in having the biggest piste vertical of any resort; the powder skiing is currently excellent from 3,880m down to 2,400m – around 1,500 vertical metres of fresh tracks. BTW, if you would like to check our comparison to other resorts, there’s a good listing of current conditions on Skiresort.info.

 

Since the last big snowfall on the Swiss side, the weather warmed up for a week and the snowline hovered around 2,200m. Above this altitude the snow base is excellent, below it is thin. However, the temperatures have now dropped to freezing level, which has allowed snow making on the lower slopes to begin in earnest. Meanwhile, the Italian side has had two substantial snowfalls, with 42cm of snow in the village of Cervinia, and 225cm on the Plateau Rosa, which is in Switzerland. As of tomorrow Saturday November 24th, the Gornergrat and Matterhorn sectors on the Swiss side will open, as will Valtournenche and Cervinia down to resort level on the Italian side. With a total of 167km of open runs, this is more than anywhere else in the world right now.

We are under a southerly weather system which typically brings a lot of snow to Zermatt, and this is certainly the case this week. Yet more snow fell all of last night, with the snow line around 2,000m. So far Gornergrat has had 205cm of fresh snow this year, as has the Plateau Rosa. The snow base for the coming season keeps building up, while the skiing conditions should be very enjoyable once the Foehn wind dies down.

It has snowed a little more and the skiing is already very good. The forecast is for more snow during the coming week, clearing on Friday and sunny over next weekend. The perfect opportunity for some mellow early season turns…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Zermatt has gone straight from summer to winter. Last Friday was a balmy late Indian summer day, the next day it started snowing and now, one week later, we have had a total of 133cm of fresh snow at Gornergrat, 72cm at Furi and 70cm in Cervinia. The Italian slopes are now open as well as the high slopes on the Swiss Matterhorn side. Snow conditions are powder above 3,000m; cold / squeaky down to 2,500m, and humid below that. It’s a great start to the 2018-19 winter season with a perfect snow base to hold and maintain future snowfalls and lovely early season skiing conditions right now.

The summer ski area on the glacier at the top of the Matterhorn Express is open every day, as is the link to Italy (for skiers only). Skiing is open from 08:00 to 13:00, the last ascent for skiers from the village is at 11:20 (12:20 from August 20th onward). In summer the snow conditions are similar to spring skiing, which means hard slopes early in the morning and slush in the afternoon. Between 10:00 and 12:00 the snow is lovely spring corn

 

Yet more snow! We had a good snowfall of 35cm on December 15th, and another one of 20cm today. Temperatures are very cold, which is keeping the snow in excellent condition.

 

There has been a huge snowfall over the weekend, with 80cm on the Cervinia side and 40cm on the Zermatt side, which means that the snow heights in Italy have caught up with those in Switzerland. The skiing link to Cervinia is now open, as are all the resort runs on both sides of the Matterhorn.

The Furi-Zermatt resort run opened last weekend, giving a total vertical of 2,263m, from the Klein Matterhorn all the way back down to the Zermatt village. We had 50 people coming for our first December weekend party, the sun was shining all three days, the snow excellent, and we all went to three of our favourite mountain restaurants: Vrony's, Zum See and Findlerhof. A proper Zermatt start to the season!