Mount Titlis Ski Resort
Mount Titlis is one of the tallest peaks in central Switzerland, at 3,238 meters or 10,625 feet. They have a web site you can visit by clicking here.

The base lift is in downtown Engelberg, located at 1,000 meters. The gondola will first take you up to Gerschnialp, which is at 1,262 meters. This area has a couple of novice slopes and the cross-country skiing trails. During the summer months, you can stay at the hotel they built up here. There's also a toboggan run, which is only open December to mid-March.

To reach the real slopes, you continue in the same gondola to Trubsee, which is located at 1,800 meters. There's another hotel you can stay at (there's a total of four on the mountain). This is a midway point at which you can go to the Jochpass mountain to the west, or continue to the top of Titlis to the south.

The slopes are fairly steep, and provide a combination of cruising and carving runs. Overall it reminded me of Alpine Meadows at Lake Tahoe in terms of the terrain. It was very nice. One interesting thing to point out - every ski run is marked with a series of poles in the ground and are numbered. They also have warning signs saying "If you go off the trails, you do so at your own risk", which another way of telling you that it's your problem if you hurt yourself because you flew off of a cliff. They placed large nets in a few places where it would be very easy to fall down.

Here are three pictures I took from the Trubsee area, looking back to Engelberg. They show the deep glacial valley that was carved out of the rock over millions of years.






To reach the top of Mount Titlis, you have to take two more gondolas. The first one will take you from Trubsee to Stand, which is at 2,428 meters. The third gondola, called Rotair, is a one of a kind. It's the world's only rotating gondola - as you're moving upward, the entire floor slowly rotates in a circle, giving you a 360 degree view. This is a picture if it, moving above the Titlis Glacier that you see in the background.


When you reach the top, called Klein Titlis (3,028 meters or 10,020 feet), you're rewarded with an incredible view of the surrounding mountains. These pictures were taken from observation areas at the top. Most of the mountains are very steep with jadded features.





This is a picture of the top of Mount Titlis, located at 3,238 meters. You can walk on a trail along the glacier located on the north side, which would be on the left.


This is looking up the Ice Flyer ski run back to the top. Believe it or not, I'm actually skiing on the Titlis Glacier! In September, there are very large crevasses. They have to wait for the snow to fill them in before the snow moving equipment is brought in to make it available for skiing. Also, many of the towers used for the ski lifts are anchored on the glacier, and have to be repositioned with heavy duty equipment 3-4 times a year.


Along the Ice Flyer ski run, you can see part of the glacier. Although the color's didn't come out as well as I had hoped, the ice was a very translucient blue color.


Mount Titlis Glacier Grotto
At the top of Klein Titlis, there's a special feature. It's called the Glacier Grotto, which gives you a unique opportunity to walk through a glacier. They tunneled out a couple thousand tons of rock and ice out of the glacier, approximately 150 feet below the surface, and set up a path that you can walk through. The temperature is a constant 33 degrees farenheit year round. The blue light you see in these pictures are from ultraviolet lights they set up, although the ice has a natural light blue color when you look at it up close.

Notice the layer of rocks that are frozen inside the glacier in this picture. Many of them are sticking out.


These are a couple of long ice corridors. Along the path, there were displays describing the geological processes that created the glaciers.