(Wengen, Switzerland)

You can’t have it all.  While the weather in Grindelwald was splendid, the weather for our day of skiing on the slopes above Wengen was…not so splendid.

It was a very cloudy day and, with the slopes above Wengen being generally a little more difficult than those in Grindelwald, the skiing was quite a bit more demanding.  We could more or less see where we were going but sometimes the dim light played tricks on us.  However, we still managed to hit most of the highlights.

The “epicentre” of Kleine Scheidegg looks the same as it has for decades:  the old hotel is still there, along with the “Tipi” that has been a meeting point for almost as long.  However, the difficult conditions forced us to delay our journey to the legendary “Black Rock” and “Oh God” pistes until mid-afternoon.

Perhaps they are just legendary in my own mind.  But when the skies cleared just a little bit, we quickly went to the Eigergletscher station and made our way to these parallel black-rated pistes.  The Black Rock piste is memorable for me because you plunge into a dramatic canyon with huge black rocks.  “Oh God” is memorable because at one point it has a vertical grade of 71%.  Hence the name!

For about 15 years, I always named Black Rock as my all-time favourite ski piste.  It was still as steep and visually stunning as ever.  While I think it has some competition now (there is a great piste at Cortina d’Ampezzo that comes to mind), one of my ski posse members was also suitably impressed when he tried it for the very first time today.  The weather wasn’t great but I hope the photos convey at least some of the drama.

In a bizarre but happy coincidence, we ran into one of my former Swiss ski instructors when we were skiing down “Oh God”!  It was great to see Simon W. again in a place where we used to ski together.  We may be older now but we both still have the same enthusiasm and respect for these awesome mountains.

As the day drew to a close, the weather rapidly improved.  Under the soft glow of the late afternoon sun, we skied down the famous Lauberhorn World Cup downhill piste.  You can see the starting gate in the photo at the very top of this post:  I think I had my photo automatically taken as I took off through the gate, but will need to track it down online!

Will the sun remain?  Will we encounter Bond…James Bond?   Stay tuned!