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  1. #1
    Join Date
    Mar 2006
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    Norcal
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    Some Photo's from Switzerland

    Had the opportunity to tag along with my girlfriend to Switzerland last October on a business trip that took us to the town of Saas-Fee most known for it's glacier skiing training grounds. After a couple days of skiing on the glacier we extended the trip for a few days of riding, it was pretty spectacular, here are a few shots from that trip, we also rode in Zermatt for a couple of days. It was kinda a last minute trip, but I downloaded a few gps tracks before I left, but as I examined them later most where dirt roads. But looking at topo maps on my gps and phone it became apparent there where trails everywhere so we just followed my intuition and every day had some great adventures. We typically got about 2K of climbing in with an additional lift ride in the morning to start us up high, sometimes using buses or trains to return from point to points.

    One great things was we got to load the lifts at Saas-fee before the general public, amazing sunrises from on top
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    Last edited by TahoeBC; 08-12-2018 at 09:49 AM.

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Dec 2004
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    Where the sheets have no stains
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    22,069
    BAD ASS!!!!

    Thank you.

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Jan 2006
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    1,572
    So stereotypically Swiss.

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Feb 2005
    Location
    North Vancouver/Whistler
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    13,985
    Recognize Gornergratbahn, MarkTwain weg, Blumenweg, trail on Weisshorn flank and dh to Randa and Tasch. Looks pretty good for last minute. Well done

  5. #5
    Join Date
    May 2012
    Location
    People's Republic of OB
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    4,407
    Awesome pics. Have friends going over there in a couple weeks, bummed I couldn't go with them. No smoke obscuring everything either!

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Mar 2005
    Location
    Livingston, MT
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    1,785
    OMG! Drooling... awesome pics!

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Mar 2006
    Location
    Norcal
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    2,190
    Quote Originally Posted by LeeLau View Post
    Recognize Gornergratbahn, MarkTwain weg, Blumenweg, trail on Weisshorn flank and dh to Randa and Tasch. Looks pretty good for last minute. Well done
    Now that I think back on my hurried research it was a trip report of yours that gave me the ideal on the tasch route, I had problems with the gps links on the site I looked at, but figured out a route looking at maps, was stoked on that ride!

  8. #8
    Join Date
    Mar 2006
    Location
    Norcal
    Posts
    2,190
    I leave at the end of the month for the Dolomites doing a hut to hut thang, beyond stoked and yea hopefully smoke free, day after day of dealing with smoke is getting old.

    Quote Originally Posted by evdog View Post
    Awesome pics. Have friends going over there in a couple weeks, bummed I couldn't go with them. No smoke obscuring everything either!

  9. #9
    Join Date
    Feb 2014
    Location
    NorCal coast
    Posts
    1,948
    Awesome, thanks for posting this. My wife occasionally does work trips to Switzerland, and we were talking about me coming along next time and getting a day or two of riding in. Did you rent (assume yes)? Did you find sufficient info online, or did you hire a guide?

  10. #10
    Join Date
    Mar 2006
    Location
    Norcal
    Posts
    2,190
    I did rent, but at the end of the month for my next trip I’m bringing my own bike although I did have pretty decent rentals, brought my own pedals. Sure it depends on the airline but looks like my bike will travel free for my trip to Italy. I did not use a guide, I was able to purchase a secondhand chip with the topo’s and trails for all of Switzerland for my gps. There was an app I loaded called SwitzerlandMobility that had the same info but did not really work offline but maybe would if you paid for it instead of the free version. Also AllTrails has topos and maps for the world. Google maps was invaluable for getting from place to place using public transportation. You should go!

  11. #11
    Join Date
    Apr 2007
    Location
    Tahoe
    Posts
    16,124
    Dude! Just. Ok.
    powdork.com - new and improved, with 20% more dork.

  12. #12
    Join Date
    Oct 2003
    Location
    Switzerland
    Posts
    7,578
    nice TR! looks like i need to bike zermatt again someday soon.

  13. #13
    Join Date
    Apr 2004
    Location
    Chamonix
    Posts
    1,012
    Zermatt. Yes/no? Tips for trails? Been on my list for a while but lift prices are crazy.

  14. #14
    Join Date
    Mar 2006
    Location
    Norcal
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    Zermatt is not cheap and even in October it was very busy with tourists but once a little ways from where the lift access terminates it was very uncrowded to the point we never even saw another person on some trails. One negative being there at the time was some lifts had shut down for the season. As expensive as a lift ride up was, we would only do it once a day and make a day of it. In saas-fee it’s self they had no lift served bike access you had to earn it yourself for the most part, cool thing there you got a citizen pass if you stay in a local hotel which did give you free access to public buses and the lifts in town and surrounding villages. One day we rode a trail to a lower village that did have bike lift access they did charge a additional $5 to take your bike up but that was the entire cost with the citizen pass, we did that twice one day with different routes down, then got a free ride on the bus back up to saas-fee which had bike racks on it. Not sure if there are other areas like this in Switzerland but lift access can be much cheaper than in Zermatt. Be ready to get your switchback on, many trails there I’m sure have been there 100’s of years and can have crazy amounts of switchbacks as they drop back into the valleys.

  15. #15
    Join Date
    Apr 2004
    Location
    Chamonix
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    1,012
    Good tips, thanks. I met a BC resident on the Chamonix trails a few years ago who said that Zermatt was hands-down the highlight of his trip and it's been on my hit-list ever since. I could stomach the price now but not sure how many riding buddies I'll be able to convince.

    Slow tech is the strongest part of my riding; I learned to ride on alpine walking trails.

  16. #16
    Join Date
    Sep 2008
    Location
    BoZone
    Posts
    592
    Stunning pics...thanks for sharing!
    Buy the ticket...take the ride.

  17. #17
    Join Date
    Jan 2008
    Location
    Paper St. Soap Co.
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    3,303
    Awesome photos! How was the skiing?

  18. #18
    Join Date
    Mar 2006
    Location
    Norcal
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    2,190
    Skiing was good considering the time of year, a lot of real estate was taken up by teams training, the half pipe and terrain park which limited where you could go, but it was fun and beautiful up there

  19. #19
    Join Date
    Feb 2005
    Location
    North Vancouver/Whistler
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    13,985
    Quote Originally Posted by LC View Post
    Zermatt. Yes/no? Tips for trails? Been on my list for a while but lift prices are crazy.
    I wrote a Pinkbike series with Tourism Switzerland 2010 2012 and 2014 about Swiss biking which has the Zermatt area. 2012 covered east Valais and 2014 had west Valais (Valais is the canton where Zermatt is located).

    Part 6 of 2010 series is how to save money doing Switzerland.

    Re Saas Fe.and using PostBus for uplifts there are lots of regions where this is possible

    You'll have to do some reading to figure out what you want but i went thru the articles a year ago to check that links and info was up to date

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