#Introduction This weekend was spent with the boys up in the Swiss mountains. The weather had been promising for the week with lots of fresh snow and Flims-Laax (https://www.laax.com/) had decided to open a larger portion of the mountain a week earlier then scheduled, on Saturday. We arrived on Thursday evening and had some scouting to do on Friday.
Photos by David Jonsson, Peter Karlsson-Zetterberg and myself.
#Friday
On the first round we scouted an area where I knew we could get a good view of possible lines. The snow as promising so we boot packed for 10-20min. And sure enough, no tracks at the door.
We were rewarded with the first tracks.
This is the north side of the ridge between Crop Masegn and Crap Sogn. The run is about 400-500 vertical and a short transport back to the lift at Plaun. You can basically ski the whole ridge. There are only two slopes at each end of the ridge plus a traversal slope from one side to the other. Nothing else to worry about.
#Saturday Flims-Laax opened up the Nagens side for the first time. Meaning we had a fairly big mountain side completely untracked! Perfect bluebird weather. Which also means a lot of people. Bit of competition for the easy spots.
However, we managed to find some nice lines in the morning.
The Nagens side is south facing and the snow got a bit heavier during the day as the sun kept hammering it. We shifted our focus on the east facing side of the mountain towards Stargels (start of the Grauberg gondola). It is a pretty nice face and you can easily reach it from Nagens station. There are a couple of descents possible with different stepness.
We found what we were looking for. In the three wide couloires starting just above the tree lines. Few tracks, steep enough and lots of snow deposited.
Spent the remaining afternoon tracking the first two couloires of this face.
#Sunday Sunday weather forecast was not too promising but as weather in the alps is pretty local it is hard to predict. We took our chances and got up early to hit the first cable car up in the morning.
We were not dissapointed. 15-20cm of fresh snow. Hard choices.
We continued to ski the east face from Nagens towards Stargel. Traversing the top of the ridge further in we found perfect conditions with just a few tracks. Leaving plenty for us to shred.