40 bottles of wine and sparkling wine, 6 ski areas, and 1 ski later...We've been doing the Alps right.
Part 1: The Bizau to the Bezau (Alp hut in Austria)
On the 19th we drove through a blizzard to Zurich to pick up Heather. Unfortunately her flight from Paris was delayed a few hours. We got her and then drove east through more blizzard to the Bregenzerwald where Chris had reserved an Alpine hut for ourselves. We arrived at the 6 person tram around 8pm, shuttled up 2000 feet, piled our gear into a sleigh and pushed it through the falling snow to our own mountainside hut. Chris' friend was already there and had Indian food cooked and ready to eat.
The Berghof hut was located in the Bregenzer Forest above the town of Bizauv(near the town of Bezau). It was heated by a giant wood fired stove. We spent for nights. Cooked fantastic food each night, drank much wine afterwards, and took lazy ski tours from our hut each day. Some even including faceshots. The weather was very interesting. The first two days it snowed and was extremely cold. About -4 F. But then during the night of 21st a Foehn Wind moved in raising the temperatures dramatically to about 65 F overnight. Consequently it melted a lot of snow.
The view from the hut was dramatic. We took plenty of pictures. I'll do them right and post the best ones in the coming weeks.
After four fantistic days, we headed back to Friedrichshafen, washed some clothes, and then drove to Wertheim to spend Christmas at Manu's Parents.
Part 2: I left a ski in Chamonix
On the 26th we drove to Geneva. We did a house exchange with a family so we had a flat to stay in. Their place was actually in France. it was so close to the border that when we parked the car, the bumper was in Switzerland while we were in France.
On the 27th the snow pack was still quite meager, so we headed to a higher area, Avoriaz in Portes du Soleil. We found some closed runs that were quite delightful. We had crepes for lunch. We made a leek tart for dinner.
On the 28th we went to La Clusaz on the otherside of the A40. It started out pretty cold and hard to see. But we found a really fun run under the Fernuy gondola. I think we did that decent 4 times. We had a very fancy (20 euro burgers) for lunch. We made chili for dinner.
On the 29th we decided to try something different, we drove through the Mt. Blanc tunnel to Italy. On the French side there was 2 inches of snow, on the Italian side we popped out to 1.5 meters of snow. We skied Courmayeur. It was my first time skiing in Italy and judging by the quantity of snow I had very high hopes, but the weather was warming up again and the snow was super duper heavy. Almost Cascade snow like. It snowed/rained all day and we still had tons of fun. We found a small hut that we jumped off about 4 times. Since we were in Italy we had spaghetti and lasagna for lunch. For dinner we made mushroom pasta.
On the 30th because the weather was still warming, we took a ski break and visited Geneva. We walked through the old town, visited the Maison Tavel museum, walked by the cathedral, walked along the river, looked for something affordable to buy for lunch, failed and shared an expensive kiesch instead. For dinner we made galette and crepes for dessert.
On the 31st we thought about going to Courmayeur again because there was so much snow there. But on the way to Chamonix it was puking snow, so we pulled over and went to Grands Montets instead. By the time we arrived at the parking lot it had already snowed over a half meter and it was still snowing like balls. Probably a meter of fresh snow by the end of the day. You couldn't breathe fast or it could be a choking hazard. We didn't get a lot of vertical because the lifts were crowded, but we skied fresh lines all day getting faceshot after faceshot. At one point my ski caught beneath a buried bush branch and it came off. It took 10 minutes of shoveling to find it, so I tightened my DINs after lunch. At lunch we had some local potato dish smothered in cheese. For dinner we went out to celebrate Sylvester. We got fondue at La Flambée in Argentiere. We went home, drank some champagne (perhaps bottle 13 of sparkling wine of the trip) and went straight to bed as our biggest day of skiing was still ahead of us.
The 1st. We hired Miles Smart a mountain guide originally from Seattle Washington. Our original goal was to do a descent from Aiguille du Midi in Chamonix. From there it is possible to ski 10,000 feet in one "run." The biggest "lift" served descent in the world. Unfortunately because it had snowed so much, the conditions were not stable enough (this time). So Miles took us to Brevent, which was closed the day before (I assume due to heavy snow fall). Because it was the 1st, things were quiet in the morning and the entire resort lay under 24 inches of fresh powder. We had a killer morning skiing first lines in couloir after couloir. We had an early lunch of onion soup and baguette sandwich.
After lunch the Brevent tram was still closed because the piste was not yet prepared. There would have been lots of interesting descents from there. Instead we booted up the Col Cornu. It was quite the effort wallowing in the deep snow. Fortunately we had hired a guide to kick steps for us. :) After making steps, he came back down and carried Heather's pack up the rest of the way. Our intention was to skin along the ridge for a while and drop down the backside and make our way to La Flégère. Unfortunately weather moved in as we were booting and it started to snow quite hard. So we dropped back down the front side. A 50 degree pitch in 36 inch snow. Could only have been better with better visibility. At the bottom of the bowl Chris and Heather were ahead of me. I cruised along the flatish traverse section. Because of the low light I couldn't see a slight roll in the terrain. I sunk real deep into the snow, my right ski disconnected and I slowly pitched forward and head planted into the snow.
I wallowed back to where I thought I lost my ski. But couldn't find it. 10 minutes later Chris, Heather, and Miles came to help me search. We probed the snow for an hour with our skis and still couldn't find it. I told them not to waste their day and to continue skiing. I took my shovel and started excavating huge trenches every 2 feet. I still couldn't find it. Around 3:40 I had to head out in order to catch the last tram down. With a heavy heart I left my recently obtained 183 cm K2 Baker Superlight ski with Fritschi Freeride binding somewhere in the bowl below Col Cornu. At least I didn't tear my ACL and at least it was a cool place to leave a souvenir.
On the 2nd instead of skiing another day, we took a scenic drive home through the Portes du Soleil. This morning I took Heather to the airport. Today and tomorrow and I am taking some down days by working remotely from Chris' place. Tuesday maybe I will steal Chris' skis and car and get one more hit of the Alps. Wednesday I fly out, but not to Seattle...