Area: | Meiringen-Hasliberg |
Base: | 1060m |
Summit: | 2250m |
Skiable vertical: | 1200m |
Lifts: | 10 (4 draglifts) |
Total lift vert: | 4000m (est) |
Slope orientation: | West-facing |
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For a zoomable, scrollable map of the areas, see this online map using Openstreetmap or Opencyclemap.
Meiringen town itself is quite low down in the valley, to the East of the Brienzersee and within easy rail reach of Interlaken. From the edge of the town, a cable car lifts you up to Reuti, one of the two main bases to the resort. The other base is at Wasserwendi, reached by bus from the Brünigpass.
From Zürich, you change at Luzern to get to Brünigpass, reaching Wasserwendi in around 2h20. A "Snow and Rail" ticket from Zürich currently costs CHF 62, or a day lift ticket on its own costs CHF 49.
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There's a nice selection of runs here, mainly reds up at the top and blues lower down. The big plus is the enormous amount of between-the-piste space in almost all areas. The lifts are mostly a mix of gondolas and T-bars with just a couple of chairs, and connect together well.
There's no terrain park available at the moment, but it looks like they're building one above Mägisalp, and it looks big. Otherwise there's plenty of off-piste to keep you entertained.
The area covered is pretty large, and it's quite easy to work your way around the network. Signposting isn't fantastic, but adequate. The scenery is fantastic, especially if you walk a short way out from the Alpentower restaurant - you get great views to the Brienzersee, across to the Grosse Scheidegg, and up the Gental to Titlis.
Mägisalp is in a bit of an awkward bowl - so much so that a short, slow kiddie-lift is necessary if you're coming from the left, and a bit of a trudge if you're coming from the right. Also the blue from Bidmi to Wasserwendi is awfully flat towards the end, requiring some walking.
There are several T-bar drag lifts here, most of which are relatively friendly. You could get away with avoiding the drag lifts for the day, but the Mägisalp kiddie-lift is unavoidable unless you just walk up. Note that it's difficult to get on the gondolas at the midstations, at least in the mornings when they're mostly full, and there are signs advising people to avoid this before 11am.
30 January 2004 - unbelievably beautiful conditions. Swathes of untracked soft blessed by blue skies and sunshine. Lots and lots and lots of fresh snow, and hardly any lift queues at all, apart from for the chairlift to Hochsträss. It doesn't get much better.
Resort information is at haslital.ch, which includes a few area maps as huge jpegs or pdfs. Snow'n'Rail details are at railaway.ch. Snow conditions are at snow-forecast.com.
For hiking in the area, there's a Winter walk from Reuti to Brünig described in the Hiking in Switzerland section, and also the Alpine Pass Route passes through Meiringen between the Jochpass and the Grosse Scheidegg.