The Gemsstock cable car operator slammed the doors open and stepped aside for a dozen hardy skiers to file past. We stepped out of the utilitarian summit building into a peerless, marshmallow-thick fog. My friend Sarah and I looked around dubiously. Ten feet away, our new friend Dan Loutrel was already vanishing into the veil of whitish gold. “Come on, girls! This way,” he hollered as he disappeared down a rickety metal staircase plastered to the side of a cliff.

We hurried after him, afraid of being ditched in the marshmallow. Normally, heading into Andermatt’s wild terrain—long known in freeride circles for serious big mountain skiing—with 10 feet of visibility would seem like a terrible decision. Loutrel is, however, an IFMGA mountain guide and American expat who’s been living and skiing here in Andermatt for two decades. He told us he was confident it would clear. Andermatt is subject to extended periods of intensely bad weather, and also high, thick clouds around the Gemsstock—the latter of which we were standing in.

We skied down the ridge as a trio, and the world became brighter and brighter until, as Loutrel predicted, our surroundings were gloriously clear. Sunshine and a deep blue sky backlit towering peaks. There was about 10 inches of fresh. A land of legend unfurled in front of us. This was the Andermatt of skier lore: huge ridges and steep faces separated by wide-open bowls and narrow valleys, along with hair-raising couloirs, twisting and pin-straight.

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