2011-01-04 46 7

Location

Usually you can ski to/through the hash, see:

Participants

Crox

Expedition

First I found out that the hash was within the Crans-Montana ski resort, then I noticed that it was along an official slope. I checked the snow conditions, weather report etc. All sounded very promising. Yesterday night they announced "27/29" ski-lifts operating. Unfortunately they only show the details during their operating hours. Anyway, the chances that the big chairlift to Bella Lui would be closed seemed rather low, and I thought I would not really need the smaller one next to it to reach the hash.

So I waited for the next morning. Sure enough, one of the two closed ski lifts was the one next to the hash! So I gave them a call, they confirmed that it had been closed since Monday because of a technical problem with the cable. "- But you can still ski there? Or in the worst case walk?" "- No that's out of question of course! It's way too dangerous since you would have to cross the skilift." And they had no idea when the problem would be fixed.

15 minutes later I left anyway, even if the hash was not reachable the expedition and the ski resort were certainly worth the trip. And of course I was hoping that they would fix the problem before midnight (or rather, before the ski resort closed), or that once on site I would find another way to reach the coordinates, despite my maps not showing it. That's when I found out that when you are in a hurry to catch a train you can actually ride a bike while carrying all your ski equipment...

Since I was arriving quite late at the ski resort, I was secretly hoping that I would get a daypass from someone who had gotten one in the morning and no longer wanted to ski. And exactly that happened, which allowed me to save a substantial amount of money.

But that's apparently where my luck ended, they really didn't want anyone close to the defective cable. I considered to walk around it, but balancing between a > 1 km walk in the snow with heavy ski shoes and spend the time left skiing I chose the latter. With snowshoes or touring skis it would have been different...