January / February Skiing

After returning from Christmas break, most of my time was spent trying to maximize ski trips with a goal of 30 days on the slopes for the year, I’ve added a few of the highlights/funny stories below...

St.Anton - Jan. 2 - 7
I flew back from the US on Jan. 1 following Christmas in the US on a red-eye flight (landed Jan. 2).  I went to my apartment for about 2 hours to shower and pick up luggage, which I had previously packed before going to the US for Christmas, and then went back to Gare Cornavin to take the 6 hours of trains to get to St. Anton.  I was quite lifeless by the time I reached St Anton after leaving the US at 12:40 PM EST (6:40PM CET) and then arriving in Austria without substantial sleep at 7:00 PM CET (2:00 PM EST) the following day.  I arrived in St. Anton in a storm with 2 sunny days of skiing and 2 days where most of the resort was closed due to snow/rain mix depending on the elevation.  The skiing was fun, but with the conditions there was very little to do other than ski on piste.  On one day, I had a blast renting a pair of GS skis to then cover almost the entire Arlberg network (to Lech).  Great trip and nice way to ease into busy season; the only negative was a broken phone on the 2nd day of the trip when getting caught in a rain downpour at lower elevations.

Downtown St. Anton - One of the few photos I had before breaking a phone.

Chamonix - Wkd. of Jan. 13
We spent the weekend in Chamonix for Lianne’s birthday with 14 of us renting a chalet in Les Praz (Flegere).  Great weekend with sunny slopes and good friends; fondue was 20x better this year compared to prior years with dinner at 8 compared to midnight the prior year due to a bit too much wine being added to the cheese without a thickening agent.

Part of the ski group

Looking confused with the fondue

Helping frost the birthday cake

Zermatt - Weekend of Jan. 27
I took a short day trip to Zermatt with a US friend in town to see the Matterhorn and to ski a day.  We were happy to make it to/from the mountain as access to/from this area was closed for a few days early January due to excessive snow and then again from Sunday- Wed of the week of the trip:

Matterhorn....always amazing!

La Grave - Feb. 20 - 23

After working in the US to finish US busy season, I spent the weekend in Chicago with Hastings’ friends before taking the red-eye back to Geneva on Sunday night and arriving on Monday night in Geneva.....it was a long day! 

The following day, I went to work, rented a car, and then drove to La Grave, France to Ski for 3 days; this was less than 24 hours from landing from the US.  I arrived late that night after taking one of the darkest, scarier mountain drives that I’ve taken with jet lag creeping up on me.  My lodging also created some confusion as I stayed at the equivalent of a mountain hostel where only French was spoken.

For those of you that don’t know La Grave, I recommend googling it; it’s a backcountry skiers paradise of ungroomed terrain where it’s required to use a GPS avalanche beacon, carry an avalanche probe, and carry a shovel; I also used an avalanche backpack for extra safety.  There’s a single lift that is quite old where it takes 45 minutes to reach the summit as the gondola cars do not disconnect from the cable, but there are groups of 5 cars so the cable most slow any time a set of cars is being boarded or unloaded.  In general, getting 3 runs in during the day is the goal and the resort has about 500-1000 skiers per day so there is never a queue and you only see other skiers at the top at bottom of the lift.

Given I came by myself on this trip, I went to the guide station on day 1 to join a group tour and was lucky to join to other German guys of similar ability that were also doing 3 days of skiing so we were able to ski all 3 days together and with the same guide who was able to vary the terrain by day.  Our guide was Oliver Giroud, but not the soccer player.

On day 1, we did two runs on the front side of the mountain; one run over a glacier and then through the woods and a 2nd through a rocky couloir with a 35 degree incline that then finished through the same woods.  We grabbed lunch at the resort's sole restaurant at the top of the mountain and then our final descent was off the backside of the mountain where we finished in the city of St. Christophe at a bar that likely was only open when skiers arrived that was a 45 minute taxi ride from La Grave.

View from the top

View from the top of the couloir

Top of the final run

Mid-mountain on the final descent

On day 2, we did similar morning runs to day 1.  The highlight of day 2 required rappelling into a 40 degree couloir using a climbing harness to then start the final descent.  The non-skiing highlight of day 2 was when we went to the same restaurant as day 1 and there was a live saxophone player; this was probably the only time I've seen this while skiing.

Setup for the rappel; yes, the camera is level and this is the actual steepness of the slope....

View after the repel and waiting for the 3rd skier and the guide.

On the final day, we did some ski touring in a neighboring city and this was good practice for the Haute Route that I've planned later in the year.  I drove home this same day to Geneva following the skiing.

All-in-all great trip and I would love to go back, but a place where I would highly recommend a guide to avoid getting into too much trouble.

CAT Ski Day - Feb. 24
After arriving late Friday from La Grave, the CAT team did a ski day in Les Carroz.