Sommet Edelweiss - March 20, 2022
With night skiing coming to a close in the region, a few friends and I decided to go night skiing one last time. We went to Sommet Edelweiss, as I had not been in 2 years, and always loved the Swiss Vibe, long runs, and fast chairlift of the hill. That Sunday night was set to be the last night of night skiing at the mountain. I initially was expecting a large crowd, due primarily because of it being a weekend, as well as it being the last day of night skiing. However, the fact the rain led to a last minute cancellation of the prior night’s night skiing, coupled with the warm and rainy weather in the Ottawa valley, led to the hill being almost eerily quiet.
The conditions were extremely slow and slushy. Snow coverage was pretty decent, with all trails off the Edelbahn Express lift open. The black trails were the only ones with some dirt patches. We started with skiing Streif, then Shotgun, two of the hill’s steepest black runs. While one side of Streif had excellent coverage, it was my first time on shotgun (a natural snow trail), and the conditions there were fair to poor. However, I’ll take thin snow over ice any day;).
Streif:
Shotgun:
After skiing the black runs, we stuck with the greens and blues for the remained of the night. The slushy snow made for some perfect carving conditions.
After taking a quick supper break at 7, one of my slight worries about the conditions was confirmed. The slushy, Spring conditions quickly hardened after the sun set behind the mountain…
The last two hours were very bumpy, and led to extremely sore muscles/joints! The conditions were likely my worst this season, with the slushy grooves becoming icy grooves that shuddered and jolted my skis and body around. Not to say we didn’t have a good time. As the beautiful sunset faded, the night lights were switched on.
To cope with the hard and bumpy conditions, we stuck to the green cruisers, and took our time descending. In all, we still managed to ski nearly 20 runs in 4 hours of skiing, breaks excluded, (the most this season), thanks to the high speed lift. Throughout the afternoon and evening, less than 30 cars were in the parking lot (similar to my opening day experience at Pakenham), leading to no lift lines and runs to ourselves. We left at 9pm, glad despite the conditions that we were able to night ski on the last night of this amazing season. Cheers