Engelberg

Basically, there is a reason why this place is so popular with hordes of Scandinavians and that is because it is simply awesome. Yes, it does get crowded on powdays, but not the kind of 'running from the chair' but just a solid stoked crowd. I think the main reason why it never gets full crazy is that there is simply sooo much terrain.

Ski Area

Titlis is the main area, and in good Swiss fashion it doesn't dazzle with ridiculous amounts of pistes, which allows for a good deal of freeride-able terrain.

Titlis area (click to enlarge)

In the figure I've marked the main areas which I've ridden (well, actually I haven't hit 'the laub' yet, but it's pretty obvious). I don't really know the names of all the places, so I just gave them numbers. The dotted arrows indicate from where you can access them and the full line arrows indicate how to get back to the lifts. I reckon one of the main advantages of Engelberg is the fact that in general the terrain is pretty obvious and it's always really easy to get back to the lifts.
In general all zones consist of rather open faces, which really allows you to hit the throttle full on and for those looking for some air, there's plenty of stuff to huck your meat off. If it's treeruns you're looking for, you'll have to hit up the other side of the valley at the Brunni area, but fortunately I've had plenty of bluebird when I was in E-berg, so we sticked to Titlis.
Due to rather high altitude and north-ish faces, snow tends to be pretty good and conserve nicely days after the storm.

Zone 1
The entire glacier-area is one of the spots which gets attacked first on a pow-day (together with the Laub I guess). Why? Because it's looooooong ride and there's plenty of options to mix it up a little. The glacier area is pretty much split up into a zone skiers left (don't know the name) and a zone skiers right (altiberg or something). You don't want to go straight through the center because you'll be facing several hundreds meters of vertical blue ice. Saucerboy would stick it, but most nobody is as cool as him.

To get there you just duck the rope at the exit of the cable-car and you're good to go. These guys show how it's done:

25/4 Engelberg from Mattias Hargin on Vimeo.
If you ride this place for the first time probably just stick to the main gully and then you can check out all the potential around you.

Because it's so easy to get on this run (to get back to the lifts you'll come across a small path which you just have to stick to) this place does get tracked like crazy but there's so much area and the snow preserves really well, such that even a while after the snowfall it's a chop-run rather than a full on bump run.

Zone 2
 This is a smaller zone, but I personally find it very enjoyable. This is south-facing however, and it's actually the only place at Titlis where I ever encountered any real crust, but you do get some nice sunshine in return.

To get there you follow the red run down from Stand a bit, always sticking left and I think you have to go left off-piste once the piste crossed the cable-car, but I actually have to check this again. Once you get over the top, you can look all the way down and it's all pretty straightforward to navigate.
It's pretty much just a large open face with some nice spine-ish feature to catch some air off. Couldn't find a video of this place, maybe I'll try to shoot something myself when I get back there.

Zone 3
This is the zone between Jochstock and Trübsee and is another perfect place to go straight after the storm, because no hiking is involved.

To get into the first main gully, you can go straight from the lift at the Jochpass. You just have to traverse/shuffle a bit behind the bar, stick to the right and you'll be good to go. This first gully is a really wide powderfield which allows you to step on it big time. Just make sure that you stick skiers left at the end because it does cliff-out. This is also perfect to do laps because you end up back at the bottom of the Jochpass-lift.

The alternative to get into this zone is to take the lift all the way up to Jochstock. You can just duck the rope at the top to get to the zone, just like these guys:

Once you're in this field you're pretty good to go. At the beginning you have to stick a bit to the left or the right, straight down seems to be a do-able but very steep and gnarly group of couloirs (haven't seen anybody ski this yet though). The left is the most interesting zone I think, with the most options. The video above is of this zone and the boys below are killing it in this zone:




This is just a huge zone with a lot of possibilities. The videos above clearly show that the lines range from mellow to big-time gnarly (and the last tend to preserve a lot better).
You've just got to pay some attention when you reach the end because a lot of it cliffs out and you do need to know where to go a bit. As long as you don't come in ridiculously hot you should be fine though!

Zone 4
This zone is probably one of the main reasons why I like Eberg so much. The pistemap doesn't really do this justice because this zone is huge and you can pretty much ski down everywhere with a choice of nice playful terrain with lots of features, it really has it all: small drops, big drops, small couloirs, open faces,...
This is a hike to zone, in contrast to the others, so it doesn't get as tracked as the other places. You have to walk along the cat-track behind the top of the Jochstock lift (there will probably also be a rope to cross) and stick to the right to hike over the ridge, this should take you around 5-10min. From here there are typically two options.

You can strap in here and traverse into the zone (lower dotted arrow on the map). By doing this you will lose quite some altitude but you should still be able to access some pretty sweet terrain. This is what most people do the day after the storm. Moreover when you get to the bottom, you can traverse back to the piste leading to the Engstlenalp lift, so you'll only have hiked for 5minutes in total!

However, in order to reach the good stuff, you'll have to get a bit more exercise. You can choose to traverse up higher and then keep traversing upwards a bit, for which you'll have to hike or skin. Like this you can keep going for 10 till 30 minutes depending on where you want to drop in and it's all good! That's what these guys did:




If you don't hike out to far, you'll end up on the stuff that has been skied by the people who are just doing the lower traverse. This will however allow you to also just take the traverse back to the lift without having to do any more hiking.
If you hike a bit further (and there's really no limit here) you can ski untracked (if it's tracked, hike further!). At the bottom you'll end up a bit below the ski-lift and you'll have to hike back up for another 5minutes or so (make sure to catch enough speed when you hit the bottom in order to reduce the hiking). Usually there will already be a bootpack to make things easy.

Zone 5: Laub
Actually never been here. Some people go completely wild over it, others say it's overrated and gets tracked way to fast. These videos make it seem pretty good though (also shows how to enter):

Comeback! from Jesper Rogö on Vimeo.

...but these make it seem kind of meh:

Laub Engelberg from Aintain on Vimeo.

I think it looks like an smooth ride, but rather feature-less, and you can just ski-in ski-out without having to hike. I will definately check it out next time I go though and provide an update!

Practical Stuff...

First of all, Engelberg is ridiculously easy to get to. I just go by car from Belgium and it takes me a mere 7 hours, which is pretty hard to beat considering that this is a very serious mountain. It's pretty much all high-ways except for the last 15-20minutes.
Even though I haven't tried it, I think it should be quite straightforward to get there using public transportation as well. Fly into Zurich (don't know whether they have low cost airlines) and take the direct train to Engelberg. The train is super convenient and also the reason why there's a considerable crowd from Zurich in  E-berg.

As for lodging, well it's still Switzerland, so it's never going to be real cheap. If you have a car you can stay in Grafenort (actually you can also do the commute by train or bus, but that seems like a bit of PITA) which is only a 10min drive to the Titlis lifts. There is a gasthaus (http://www.gasthaus-grafenort.com/) which is quite basic but affordable. Prices start from about 35chf pp, which is about 25euro.
If you prefer to stay in town (it's not like there's any considerable party-life to hang out for, but still) the hostel is probably your cheapest bet (Engelberg youth hostel), at 38chf pp. Problem is this place doesn't seem to have a lot of last minute availabilities and the booking process is through email, which might be too slow for last minute trips...
Alternatively the Hotel Bellevue Terminus (http://www.bellevue-terminus.ch/) is a bit more upscale place, which is popular with some, but I believe it's still a bit overpriced.
Alternatively you can also try to book a studio or apartment. If you're going for an entire week, this is definitely the way to go and the Engelberg-site has a pretty good system to look for and book apartments (Engelberg apartments). This is the cheapest way to go if you're two or more people and if you get lucky you can also find places for just a couple of days.

Finally what about food? Actually I haven't found anything good for a good price in Engelberg, and to my experience you actually get the best bang-for-your-buck at the Jochstock station up at the mountain. They have a good selection of greasy mountain stuff for, I think, around 12chf, which is the cheapest I've found in E-berg. Then in the evening just get some sandwiches and chips at the Coop to dirtbag it up!