Locarno Work Trip with some Skiing

For the first 2 weeks of March, I was working offsite in the Ticino region of Switzerland (near Italy).  While working in the area, I tried to take advantage of being in Southern Switzerland.  I realized one major problem about combining a work and personal trip within the first 30 min. of using public transportation:

Work and ski gear; this was quite the struggle!

Zermatt - Wkd. of March 3
For the 1st weekend (before work), I went skiing in Zermatt with a few friends.  Visibility was great the first day....

At one point, I was skiing boundary pole to boundary pole and had no idea which direction was down with little visibility to the next pole.  It did manage to clear at night to get a sight of the Matterhorn:

Day 2 was much better, with good visibility in the AM so our group managed to go skiing and enjoy the slopes for most of the day.

Mountain fondue for lunch

Champagne apres ski bar on the side of the piste

As I departed from Zermatt to Locarno for work, I learned a quick/valuable lesson after 2.5 years in Switzerland.  The SBB (train network) will transport and store your luggage very inexpensively and this proved to be a lifesaver for the remainder of my trip! 

The work week was work so nothing too exciting, but the location is a popular summer vacation destination so there were plenty of nice restaurants and great views:

View from the hotel of Lago Maggiore

Dolomites - Wkd. of March 10
On Thursday, I rented a car to drive to Val Gardena for the weekend (Dolomites) to meet some friends to Ski for the weekend. 

Our AirBnB was in St. Cristina along the Saslong Run, which is a piste used in the Ski World Cup circuit.  Our actual AirBnb was quite cool as it was a neighboring building (servant’s quarters?) of Castle Fischburg that was ski in/out.

Castle Fischburg

City view from the above the AirBnb

We spent 2 days skiing as a group and then I also skied the 3rd day on Mt. Marmaloda before driving back to Locarno for work the following week.  The 1st day of skiing was spectacular in the sun at Lagazuoi (see last year’s Dolomite post) and then the other days were snowy/overcast so a bit more difficult.  The food of the region was delicious and we had our fair share of desserts (as a group) of 6 apple strudels, 5 tiramisu, 4 ice cream black truffles, 2 white ice cream truffles, 2 kaiserschmarrns,1 sacher torte, and several rounds of bombardinos....

Bombardinos

Dolomites Apres Ski

Funnier moments of the weekend were:

1) Our group did not venture far for dinner as we ate at the same restaurant every night, which also included sitting at the same table, in the same seats, and with the same waitress.

2) When skiing Lagazuoi, a small group chose to ski there and back rather than drive as it was an hour of driving or 1.5 hours of skiing.  On our return trip, we quickly realized that we may not make it home.  While on a gondola, we spotted our friend’s car on the neighboring mountain road and called them to pick us up in the next town.  While skiing, I was texting the car back and forth to update them on our location and when nearing the bottom I had planned to send a note with the lift name to get picked up.  While skiing alongside a road in the city, I hear a honk of the horn and it’s our car randomly parked to pick us up when seeing me ski by.

I returned to Locarno late on Sunday and worked the week again before taking buses/trains to St. Moritz on Thursday.  I made certain to have my ski gear delivered directly to St. Moritz prior to another adventure on public transportation!  The travel went quite smooth and I arrived in St. Moritz early evening to grab dinner; I love Swiss trains.  Pretty low key night as I travelled by myself on this trip.

St. Moritz - Wkd. of March 17

St. Moritz is an impressive ski town; I skied in 3 of the areas and did the night ski on a Friday night.  The city has many remnants of the 1928 and 1948 Olympics, which really added a lot of character to the city.  If you visit before 4 March, you’re able to try bobsledding on the world’s oldest track; unfortunately, I missed this by 2 weeks.  

For the Friday day skiing, I went to Diavolezza; this resort has limited lifts and lots of off piste access.  The snow was one of the better days of the season with 6” of new snow on Thursday night and a sunny day.  I finished early (3), took a nap, and tried the Corvatsch night Ski at 8.  I’m quite sure the last time that I went night skiing may have been when I was half my age and in the Hastings Ski club.  It was a very different experience form skiing at Bittersweet where the entire hill is lit up and all runs are open to here where there is a single piste open that is 4.2km with bars/restaurants along the way; both are fun in their own right, but not easy to compare.

View from the train after following a group of skiers on the Bernina glacier and finishing in the neighboring city.

Restaurant along the piste

The single lit run for the night ski

I skied both Corvatch and Corviglia on Saturday, which are the traditional St. Moritz resorts with first having the highest lift access in the area and the second having hosted two world cups and many FIS championships.  Visibility was tough as I found myself skiing boundary pole-to-pole again at one point and it was difficult to differentiate the sky from the piste and I even sailed off the edge at one point, but luckily regained composure quickly.  I skied both the 2017 FIS championship run and the 1928/1948 Olympic runs and they were quite different.  The FIS Run was very wide whereas the Olympic run was lower, very thin, and winding through the trees.

This was my 31 miles of skiing on Saturday

For Sunday, I did not ski and embarked on my 6 hour train ride back to Geneva where I had not been in 18 days.

I mentioned food above already in the Dolomites post as there were plenty more desserts to be had while in this region of the country; I also wanted to highlight the number of times I had pizza given the repetition:

Dinner Friday in Zermatt

Lunch Sunday in Brig (to Locarno)

Lunch Monday in Locarno

Lunch Tuesday in Locarno

Lunch Thursday in Locarno

Dinner Thursday in Val Gardena

Dinner Friday in Val Gardena 

Dinner Saturday in Val Gardena

Lunch Monday in Locarno

Lunch Tuesday in Locarno

I was definitely craving a salad when arriving home!

Granada - Wk. of March 21

After returning home on Sunday from St.Moritz, I worked Monday in Geneva before flying to Malaga, Spain on Tuesday morning for work.

Malaga view from the hotel

Malaga has a training facility for customers, suppliers, and employees to demonstrate the full line up of equipment and the capabilities it was all very impressive!  The location was similar to going to sporting event with a mini arena and dirt pit.

After working in Malaga, I took advantage of working in the area and went to Granada the following day to see Alhambra.  First impression when arriving was the awe of the Sierra Nevadas as I did not expect to see tall, snowy mountains.

...snow...in Spain...

Walking through the Alhambra was very interesting and I enjoyed learning about the history.  Highlight of the visit was likely the food!  I likely had Iberico Jamon as least as an appetizer with most meals and the area has great wines as well (Riojas and Tempranillos).

Inside Alhambra

Only issue with the trip was discovering after my first night in Granada that I would be unable to stay a second night (as planned and booked) given there was not an early enough bus to the Malaga airport.  This left me in a small scramble to book a bus and find accommodations in Malaga.

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.

Escalade and Verbier Opening - Wkd. of Dec. 2

Escalade Run - Friday

Following the weekend of 2 Thanksgivings, I participated in the Escalade Course du Duc; this is a 20km race that is held every 5 years.  The Escalade is an annual event each year to commemorate the Genevoise defending the city from the French invaders and there’s typically several different runs in the city and a weekend long city festival.  Typically, I’ve missed this event every year as it is the first weekend of December and during ski season; however, the Duc race is Friday night so I was able to do both.

The race starts in Reignier, France at 9:30pm and all runners are bussed to the beginning on packed buses (standing room only) a few hours prior to the race....I spent a lot of time on my feet!  Running the race was nice as there were quite a few supporters, some live bands, many sections  of the route were lit with Christmas lights, and all of the runners also received headlamps to help light the way.  There were quite a few coworkers running along with client contacts that I knew.

The Route

Starting Line

Glad I did the run, but made for a long night as I finished near 11:30pm and then planned a ski trip the following morning that required me to get up at 5am.

Verbier Opening - Saturday

The following morning, I awoke at 5am to meet friends to drive to Verbier for their official opening ski weekend.  This was my second ski outing of the season as I went to Saas Fee for the 'Ski Test' the weekend before Thanksgiving (no broken skis similar to prior year).

For Verbier, they have a promotion for their opening Saturday where skiing is free for everyone dressed as Santa Claus so a small group of us dressed up for the event.  It was very funny to see 2,656 Santa Clauses on the Ski mountain, but it also made it quite difficult to find anyone.

All the santas preparing for the group shot mid-mountain

The event was a blast with free skiing, a voucher for 2-for-1 skiing later in the season, free vin chaud during the group photo, and we finished the night with raclette to kick-off the ski season!

Thanksgiving in Switzerland

Consistent with prior years, Thanksgiving in Switzerland is always a great time as its brings all of the expats together and creates the challenges of trying to make traditional American food with limited ingredients.  This year I had 3 Thanksgiving; it was a great fun, but I had my full of Turkey by the end of the month.

Thanksgiving 1 - Pulley - 11 Nov.

For the first Thanksgiving of the month, the Geneva and Lausanne crew celebrated at Bryan and Lauren’s in Pulley.  I made green bean casserole without French fried onions, cream of mushroom soup, or pre-grated cheese so I had to get a bit creative and make many of these ingredients from scratch.  We had about 25-30 people and dinner was great.

Thanksgiving 2 - Chalet Nitz - 22 Nov. (Thanksgiving Day)

I hosted Thanksgiving for the PwC expat group on Thanksgiving day and we had 26 people; note that my place is much smaller the location from the 11th.  Luckily, I was able to borrow extra chairs and tables from others that lived nearby.

For the dinner, I made Turkey (actually 3 given the size of the ovens and Turkeys in Switzerland).  The procurement of the turkeys involved having a friend drive me to the neighboring country to purchase the turkeys and bring back to Switzerland; I cooked one the day before, one the day of, and Vince made the 3rd.

Hosting dinner went well as everyone brought something to share and we had way too much food (there was an entire turkey extra)!

Thanksgiving 3 - Geneva - 25 Nov.

The Saturday after Thanksgiving, another friend hosted a 3rd dinner for about 10 of us.  For this event, I made chocolate cake; only issues with this recipe is there are no chocolate chips or boxed devil’s food cake so both were made from scratch.

Great celebrating the holidays with these great groups of people!  Although, the rest of the world needs to learn that Americans do not work on the Friday following Thanksgiving.

Alba White Truffle Fest - Wkd. of Oct. 28

For the weekend, a group of friends went to Alba for the annual white truffle fest in Piemonte, Italy.  This was a festival that I had been to my first year in Geneva with the Baleskys and my 3rd time to the Piemonte region (last trip was August 2016 with the Bellgraphs).

The group of 9 of us rented a house one top of one of the hills on the vineyards outside of Alba and then there were two other groups of friends in the area staying in other locations.

Sunset on the drive in

On Friday, we drove from Geneva and the first thing that we noticed along the drive was it was quite foggy after entering Italy.  After further research, we discovered that 30km west of Turin that there were several wildfires and this led to the poor visibility.  Luckily, the smoke was noticeable for breathing, but it did it down on some of the views of the vineyards.  Once reaching Alba, we dropped off our gear and settled prior to going to dinner.  We had dinner at Vinoteca Centro Storico, which is near the castle in the nearby town of Serralunga; the place was great!

Serralunga from above

Chef at the restaurant carving Serrano for appetizers

The following morning we had planned a guided truffle hunt with a truffle hunter and his two dogs where we learned about the truffle and the ‘hunting’ season and it was all quite interesting.  While searching for truffles, our group found 2 black truffles and 1 white truffle and it was fun to see the dogs search the forest floors and then begin to dig when catching an aroma.

Truffle hunter

Truffle Hunting

Post truffle hunt

The remainder of the day was spent in Alba at the trufflefest.  The festival is a large tent with farmer/vendors selling truffle and other truffle flavor foods.  We used the opportunity to purchase an assortment of food as the group (9 from our house and the 9 others in the area from Geneva) had a giant pasta family-style dinner where we were staying that night.

Truffles at the trufflefest

Dinner is served

The following morning, we did a wine tasting in the area to re-stock on Barolo and Barbarescos before driving back to Geneva.

Short movie that one of the people on the trip created: