At last, we have touched the first spring snow of the season. Temperatures were quite high these past few days. The snow on northern aspects is moist from 2200 meters down. There is a solid crust from 2800 meters down on which to ski supreme corn snow.

I just returned from another very memorable safari, cruising these Alps from Verbier to Andermatt in search of fine adventure. With a changing weather forecast, high temperatures and winds, the challenge was to find new and fun runs to get to Andermatt.

The first 2 days were a challenge, though a real nice run of over 2000 meters descent and 15 kilometers long brought us all the way to Wengen. Bobby had not been back since he was 14, 95 years ago ( ha! joke! sorry…) We skied a real double black diamond trail in Grindlewald the next day. I thought this idea only existed in the US of A. Extreme! The lifts in Grindelwald seemed to go across the slopes and the runs seemed to go uphill.

But Monday brought us an unexpected blue bird day, high above the Sustenpass. We used the heli to ski 2 runs in powder, the second down a spectacular 50+ degree slope. Sloughing snow rekindled memories of Alaskan steeps. I was in skier’s heaven. Bobby skied like a kid, Jane flew, Rob ripped, and Nick roared down this fine alpine descent. After another hot skin, we descended another long and scenic valley, arriving at Andermatt with the setting sun.

Andermatt and the River House Boutique Hotel was such a nice place to stay and ski for the next two days. We found powder, steep couloirs and nice spring snow. On our last day we skied all the way to Airolo, in the Ticino, thereby crossing through 3 linguistic regions in our little 5 day ski safari.