Summer has been and gone, and judging by this weeks weather forecast winter is about to take its grip in Switzerland. We are supposed to have snowfall down to 600m towards the end of this week and already peoples thoughts have started to turn to ski season.
Looking back on this year so far its been pretty amazing. Some excellent powder days in January and February and bike season began with a vengeance in March. We did a lot of exploring this year rode a lot of new trails and then organised some really fun group rides on some of the best trails we discovered. Most of them have been detailed in previous blog posts.
Last weekend we did our last planned group ride in Ticino. The initial plan had been to do ride up Rigi, but with snow forecast on top and the weather forecast looking miserable we decided to keep going further south and go riding on Monte Tamaro in Ticino instead. The weather wasn’t as good as we hoped when we got down there but the damp weather did not do anything to dampen our spirits and everyone had a great day on some amazing Ticinese Trails.
We currently have no more bike events planned for this year, but keep your eyes peeled on the events section of the facebook page and maybe something short notice might pop up if the sun shines. We may also post some night rides through the winter from time to time for those of you who like their mountain biking in the dark. (Good high power lights will be essential to take part in these rides).
Looking forward to winter we already have some plans. On November 18th we will have a ski social somewhere in Zurich. The idea is for everyone to get together and meet like minded individuals who are looking forward to going skiing. Its a perfect opportunity to meet new friends to share the mountains with this winter.
To complement the ski social we will have a ski season opening day on November 20th. At short notice we will chose the resort with the best snow and weather conditions accessible from Zurich and go enjoy the first day of the ski season. People will be able to ski together and hopefully manage to meet others of similar ability and interests so that they will have people to go skiing with through the season. Everyone is welcome but due to the fact that it is early season and only glacier resorts might be open the day may not be suitable for total beginners. If you are a bit worried and would like to know if its worth your while coming just drop me a mail through the contact page on the website and we’ll try to sort something out.
For the people who have aspirations to ski off-piste or already like their skiing to be in powder we are organising an Avalanche Safety Course in Dec 11th. The guides from www.rockandpowder.ch will give us advice on how to be safe while out and about this winter as well as show us how to use the necessary safety equipment when skiing away from the marked and controlled runs. We will aim to organise two groups for this course, one for those who are attending their first avalanche course and a more advanced group for those who already have some experience.
We do our very best to operate an everyone is welcome policy to all our events. The most important thing is the enjoyment of the mountains we have here in Switzerland. It must be added however that the mountains are a dangerous place and there is always a risk of injury. Everyone taking part in any of our events must take responsibility for their own actions. Nobody involved with Swiss Alpine Adventure can take responsibility for any injuries sustained while participating in an event.
Enjoy what’s left of Autumn and lets hope for a great beginning to ski season.
