Skiing in Switzerland

My company has sent me to Switzerland to do some work on a machine. So far I have mostly just seen the factory where the machine is, and a bit of local sightseeing in the small town where I live, so not very much to write about.

A bit of local tourism in Badsäckingen

Now that it is weekend however, I took the chance to go skiing. I took an early morning train from my little town near Basel to Engelberg. There I dropped my bags at the hotel, a pretty shoddy military barracks style of dormitory hostel, then went to rent some equipment.

Everything ready, I headed to the top via a series of cable cars, one of which was rotating to give everyone a good view. This must be one of the higher ski resort top stations in the Alps and the view from there was magnificent. They even had a little glacier walking path on a kind of cable bridge.

Having marveled at the view for a moment I took my board and headed out. It felt really good to be skiing again after a year of tropical weather; what made it even better was that i found some untouched powder, right off the track. I was fortunate enough to even find a whole mountain top covered in fluffy white goodness. The hike up was rather arduous, but the ride on virgin snow was well worth it.

I didn’t have it in me to hike up once more. Instead I spent the rest of the day exploring other parts of the system, hunting for, and finding, powder snow. Now to spend the night in this cheap-o hostel and tomorrow, hopefully, more powder.