Tomas Matera finished 3rd at the 4th Eigertour Winter Edition

Our representative from Czechia teamed up with Sebastian Weber to participate in the 4th occasion of the winter Eigertour. After having braved the elements to find the sun again on the last day, the pair finished 3rd of this frosted race. Tomas tells us the inside story.

The winter edition of the famous Eigertour took place last January. This original competition that combines skimo and paragliding has been created by our Swiss importer, Michael A. Witschi. With a maximum of 20 teams of 2 very experienced mountaineering athletes, the 4th edition took place in Hospental – enabling daily Race-routes to Ticino, Graubunden and Wallis. The route is highly depending on weather conditions and this 2025 edition saw it all!

« I had already started to think about cancelling my application just 2 days before race start, but then Sebastian Weber answered to my message, we made a team, and suddenly I felt like « Yes, let’s do it! ». Eventually it turned out to be the best decision I could make.

Beside the race itself, the Winter Eigertour is also a great happening and opportunity to spend few days together in great company. Our base camp was located in Hospental village, which is surrounded by mountains and with a good train connection to adjacent valleys. That offers enough options to create daily tasks event in difficult meteo situations, which accompanied us throughout the whole race. I decided to take my older “X-Pyr veteran” AirDesign Hero 1 glider, which is a 3-liner, but it’s really easy to take-off in zero wind or even in back wind.

Day 1

The first task led us through Winterhorn ridge, Andrematt, Oberalppass, and Stavel Nual to the goal in Sedrun. The first part in Uri canton was pretty windy with low cloudbase, which made it impossible (or at least inefficient) to fly, but after Oberalppass the wind weakened, giving us at least some chance to fly from the last turn point to the goal. First two teams were really strong and we were competing for the third and fourth place with one other team. We had decided to take gliders for this stage, the other team didn’t take them, so we were trying to keep up with them and focused on the very last part. It was still a bit borderline, but, fortunately for us, flyable and thus we managed to land inside the goal circle in 3rd place (although we couldn’t enjoy the ride in fresh powder snow).

Day 2

For the second task we moved to Goms in canton Wallis. Expected north Foehn wind predetermined the task on the south side of the valley. Starting from Oberwald, going through 3 turn points on the ridges in altitudes between 1950 – 2300 m AMSL, and finishing in village Muhlebach, where my girlfriend Kristýna works in a café. Since I forgot my tooth brush at home and she brought it there for me, I had a good motivation to finish the task.

Discussing multiple tactical options, we wanted to reach at least the last turn point and the goal in the air. Also other teams had chosen different tactics, so it was very interesting for the race to compare, which one would be the best. I think we did quite well till the second turn point. From there we wanted to continue all the way up to the main ridge, but the wind seemed quite strong to us, so we decided to launch lower on a plateau. Well, we spent on there almost an hour trying to take off with gusty wind spinning around, untangling the lines from bushes and similar pastime activities.

Finally we managed to take off, but we landed again just in the valley, which meant another 800 vertical metres to the last turn point and a take-off place – this time already with katabatic mountain wind for a change. Luckily we managed to take off on the first try and it even seamed we might be able to make it to the goal in the air, because afternoon sun gave us a good glide ratio. At least for a while. We hit a low cloud and wind from opposite direction 3k from the goal circle. That grounded us quickly so we had to walk last 2k on the road, finishing just 20 minutes before time limit in 4th position. This day was tough!

Cake & coffee in Café Hängebrigga were a well-deserved sweet reward.

Day 3 – the final « skimo » stage

Last day was just unbelievable, awesome, and, unlike the previous day, the luck was on our side.

Final task was planned from Oberalppass through Pass Maighels, Gefallenluecke, and back to Hospental. Due to course profile and lot of wind in higher altitudes, we had decided to go light and, as most of the teams, leave the gliders at home. We had also realized we still competed for the podium place, so prepared the route to the navigation in our watches in order to minimize mistakes.

The task started quite as expected – two strong teams in the lead and we were keeping up on 3rd/4th place. We enjoyed the first freeride towards Vermigelhuette in nearly perfect snow conditions, but from there the things started to happen. The first team chose a wrong track and eventually they had to return back. The second team took the lead, but they had to make a new track in deep snow, so in the end we arrived to Gefallenluecke in 3rd place just about 3 minutes behind the leading team. Quick last transition at extremely windy place and we hit the last downhill towards the goal.

Sebi finally benefited from his wide and long skis and we did this freeride in skimo race style. We overtook our podium rivals quite soon and by the end of the rugged downhill we also caught up with the leaders. And then the flat part decided – Nicola from the leading team had some ice on his skis, which meant a lot of friction, so we managed to overtake them as well and won the task in the end with less than a minute ahead of second team. What a finish! I think I’ll remember that day forever.

Thanks to this result we finished 3rd in the overall ranking.

Congratulations to all the attending teams, I believe we all had a great time in Hospental together.

Big thanks also to Michael A. Witschi, his family, and other people involved in organization, who took care of us for whole three days.

And finally hats off to Sebastian, who pushed extremely hard all three days and who was able to team up with me just two days before the race. I’m really thankful, we could enjoy this adventure together! »