(Kingston, Ontario, Canada)
A couple of months ago, I wrote about skiing in the famous Swiss ski resort of St. Moritz. We did it on the cheap by staying in a rather “rustic” pension in the nearby village of Celerina. Seeking even more Alpine fun, a couple of us moved on to the remote village of Andermatt for some additional skiing.
Andermatt could not be more different from St. Moritz. No champagne and caviar: everybody was here to ski. A lot. Andermatt is one of those smaller-scale resorts that attracts hard-core skiers because of the extensive off-piste opportunities.
How hard-core were the skiers here? We’re usually among the first on the slopes, but here we never saw anybody else at breakfast. The breakfast room opened at 7:00 a.m. and everybody was out of there by 7:15 a.m. when we arrived.
Although the total number of lifts and pistes wasn’t on the same scale as Zermatt, for example, the vertical drop was still huge. It was also possible to ratchet over to the nearby resort of Sedrun, as it was included in the same lift pass.
Whether we were in Andermatt, Sedrun, or somewhere in between, we never had to line up for the lifts. I didn’t see too many day trippers here: it’s just a little too far from big cities, at least by central European standards. With no crowds, it was relatively easy to ski every single marked piste in the combined ski areas…and then return to our favourites over and over again.
We also saw a lot of unusual things. One fellow (who, like a number of the skiers here, was a real individualist) brought his dog with him on the chairlift. That was cute, although I wondered how he would ski while carrying the dog. The answer: his dog RAN down the pistes! I’ve never seen anything like it. It was a fairly large retriever and he just took off after his swift-skiing owner all the way down. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a dog that happy. He had the goofiest grin on his face as he jumped into his owner’s arms at the bottom of the next lift. In a smaller resort like Andermatt, this kind of thing can happen.
The town itself was pretty sedate, especially after the slopes had closed for the day: it was nothing like the pumping party scene you might find in the larger Austrian resorts. I remember how loud the squeaking snow sounded as we walked back to our hotel at night. You could see thousands of stars in the sky and really feel like you were “off the grid”. This was also one of the few Swiss resorts where we could afford a hotel room with our own bathroom.
Staying here for an entire week here might be pushing it, unless you hired a guide to explore the back country. However, as you can probably tell from the pictures, I had a blast being a scruffy powder hound here for a few days…an enjoyable contrast to the Belle Époque elegance of St. Moritz.