Ok, ok I know... Another boring "What are the ski conditions in XXX like?" type message. I apologize in advance but I looked through the archives and didn't see anything recent regarding April at Zermatt so I thought I would check again.

Specifically we're looking at the first week in April. From what I can tell the conditions are uncertain but there should be some snow at least. Anyone have recent experiences they can share?

Also, I've heard a lot about a hotel called "Coeur des Alpes" but it doesn't get many mentions here on Fodors. Can anyone recommend this hotel?

Thanks,

John R.

This may not help now but might in the future

www.onthesnow.com

also:

www.zermatt.ch

The Ski Club of Great Britain tracks and publishes historical average snow depths through each week of the season for the major resorts. Unfortunately, unless you join the club you can only see last year's record, which shows that Zermatt had over 200 cm of snow on the upper slopes and 30 on the lower. Based on that, I would assume that there will be plenty of skiing in the first week of April most years (there's skiing on the glacier year-round, but it's somewhat limited), but maybe the runs back into town won't be open.

Sorry, forgot to add that the 200 cm and 30 cm of snow mentioned above is for the first week of April 2005.

When we visited Zermatt in early-mid April 2004 the village had hardly any snow but there was plenty on the pistes above.

Don't know the ski conditions in April but, Coeur des Alpes is a great hotel. It's a small family run hotel with lots of charm / contemporary look to it. The owners are really nice too. I was told that there's always snow on the mountain no matter the time of year. I was there in November 04 and the condition was ok, not great but good enough for a rookie like me. The view is breathtaking up there.

You can expect in general top snow conditions on the glacier and poor conditions in the valley.

We had to take the gondola at the end of the day, when we skied in April. Skiin - skiout was not possible at that time of the year

Thanks for all the info everyone