Albispass: Pulver gut, Talabfahrt offen!

A ski tour which one can't do every winter! Definitely no risk of avalanches...

This morning when I woke up, I was very surprised how much snow there was in the Sihltal. After having to cancel yet another planned tour for the day due to bad weather and high risk of avalanches, I wanted to do something anyway. I remembered that a work college who grew up in the area once said that there used to be a ski lift on the Albispass and sometimes when the conditions where good the "Talabfahrt" to Langnau am Albis was open. The conditions today seemed right and so I went and did a ski tour up to the Albis.

Since there isn't a SAC ski tour guide for Zurich, I checked my map at home and saw that one can really only start a tour at the bus stop  Langnau am Albis, Unter Albis , but hoped that the sidewalks would have enough snow to ski up there anyway. When I arrived in  Langnau-Gattikon the sidewalks were already cleared and because there wasn't a bus right away I walked up to Unteralbis anyway.

The actual ski tour started right after the Restaurant Löwen which is next to the bus stop. I went up to the second hairpin bend of the Albis Passstrasse and then for a short while in the forest along a path to Wiplätzli and after that straight up to th Albispass. From there I then went up the slope to Albisboden, where the ski lift used to be (and these days is used as sledding hill). Two snowboarders where out there as well and had fun in the powder too!

After a short break up at Albisboden and drinking some tea, I skied down the way I came up. There are 3 slopes which are nice to ski, the rest is kind of flat, but hey - first lines all the way down and very nice rather deep powder! Since I enjoyed it so much, I did it one more time.

 Langnau-Gattikon - Unteralbis - Wiplätzli - Albispasshöhe - Albisboden and back down the same way (twice)