Slushy spring skiing

We popped down to Austria for a final ski trip of the season yesterday. It's so easy to do this that I'm having a hard time remembering that Austria is, in fact, another country. You'd think after two years in Switzerland I'd be over the novelty of popping into another country for a day trip, but you'd be wrong. What can I say? I'm easily impressed.

The time change meant we got even less precious sleep than we normally would have, but on the plus side now we can be happy that all that daylight is no longer going to waste. And, we're finally back to our normal 6-hour time difference from the east coast of the US. Whew.

We went to the irrsinnig gross ski area called SkiWelt Wilder Kaiser Brixental, which was indeed quite sizable. The skiing was pretty good - slushy, to be sure, but that slush allowed me to ski the red slopes like a rock star, granting me the opportunity to think that my skiing skills have actually improved in the past couple seasons. The sun was brutal and relentless (some people might have called it 'pleasant' or even 'beautiful'), and we probably could have spent most of the day skiing in little more than t-shirts.

Forgot to bring the camera this time, but I'll add a photo off of the old camera phone as soon as I can figure out how to magically beam it to the computer. Or you can just get the general idea from any other photo I've taken skiing.

Austrian snow therapy

We would be awfully bummed about moving away from Switzerland in the middle of ski-season... if we hadn't moved to Munich. The oh-so-conveniently-located Austrian Alps are close enough for easy day-trip skiing. Unfortunately this season hasn't been as snowy as we would like, but the Austrians seem to be pretty good at filling in the gaps with man-made snow.

There seem to be dozens of resorts to choose from. In January we hit Kaltenbach, and just yesterday we were in Alpbachtal. Kaltenbach had a nice variety of runs, and our enjoyment was greatly enhanced by a covey of skiing witches. Alpbachtal was a little short on the blue (easy) slopes, but I managed to stay entertained for the entire day (and conditions were even good enough for me to successfully navigate a couple red runs). We also enjoyed riding the charmingly antique single-chair lift.

While lift tickets seem to have comparable prices in Austria and Switzerland, equipment rental is noticeably cheaper in Austria (skiing pro that I am, naturally I own my own, but Scott is still renting until he finds a snowboard he can fall in love with that doesn't have a wild west theme painted on it). From what I've seen, Switzerland has more ski areas that are easily reachable by train than Austria does. We've heard that Germany's Garmisch is a quick and easy train ride away, but haven't had the chance to try it out yet.

Montana skiing, take two

Better snow, warmer air, more fleece clothing - we had a good day of skiing at Bridger Bowl yesterday (even though it didn't end with anything fried on a stick).

Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrr Montana

I've learned there's a key difference between skiing in the Swiss Alps and skiing in Montana: ambient temperature. I had no idea how good we had it in Switzerland, where we could ski on perfect snow in little more than an unzipped ski jacket for most of the season. Not the case in Red Lodge, Montana. All my warmest clothes worn simultaneously proved no match for the frigid air, and I only survived a handful of runs.

Luckily the Bierstube ('stube' rhymes with 'tube' here) at the bottom of the slopes serves a whole lot of yummy microbrews, so the day wasn't a complete disappointment. They also had deep-fried candy bars, which Scott insisted on trying. It came in a coating that made it resemble a corn dog. I found the whole thing rather disappointing - I mean, something that sounds as ridiculous as a deep-fried candy bar ought to at least taste insanely good, right? It didn't.

The town of Red Lodge itself was very cute and small-towny, where the locals all seemed to know each other and restaurants and bars posted their opening hours as "11am till close". "Close" in this case tended to be rather early, since most folks are done eating and back at home by 6:30 or so.

Skiing in Davos – a post for posterity

Sunday morning we woke up hideously early and hauled our ski gear to the train station for a day in Davos. On the way there my husband joked that someday we would tell our kids about this last day of skiing ever before global warming made it a thing of the past. So I figured I better write about it so we’d be able to remember.

We took the train to Davos Dorf (don’t you just love the word Dorf?) and then a short bus to the Parsennbahn, which brought us up to a lovely cluster of blue slopes at 2600 meters.

At least it was a pretty good ski day. The snow was the best we’ve skied on all season (and would actually have been some of the best skiing I’d done in my life prior to last year’s fabulous Swiss ski wonderland). Plus it was a beautiful, sunny day, without a cloud in the sky. The slopes were somewhat crowded, which was to be expected on a Sunday, but even so the lift lines were for the most part tolerable.

The bummer is that neither of us feels like we’ve improved at all this year. Not the best way to end a ski career. I guess we’ll just have to cross our fingers and hope for some snow for next year after all...

Planning ahead gets you nowhere

So my first attempt at premeditated week-long skiing was not particularly successful. We're back from Grindelwald, two days early. I'll let this article in SwissInfo explain why:

The month of January is set to be the warmest on record in Switzerland despite the cold snap at the end of the month, according to the national weather service. [...] This development coupled with little snowfall, has wreaked havoc with the ski industry, with many low-lying resorts unable to open for business.

We did manage to get in a little skiing at the beginning thanks to last week's snowfall, but the oppressive sun showed no mercy, making the conditions worse and worse each day. We entertained ourselves with sledding for a couple days before giving up on more snow coming to save the week.

My brother is still here for two more days, so we're trying to figure out some non-snow-oriented entertainment to round out his Swiss vacation.

Crap skiing at Flims Laax

[For those of you who haven't been following along, we are in the midsts of the warmest and unsnowiest winter in the history of Switzerland (please note that this is just my own estimate, and that I am not a weatherman).]



Not being able to hold out any longer, we finally went skiing today for the first time this season. We knew conditions weren't going to be great, but we were confident we could handle it. After all, we've skied in New England before. How much worse could a Swiss ski resort be?

My wonderful husband did some research on the Swiss ski resorts with the best snow, and based on how long it would take to get to each of them, we decided on Flims Laax, home of the famous Craplift. (Just in case you're wondering, 'crap' is actually the word for 'peak' in the local dialect. The locals are well aware of its meaning in English and have learned how to make a buck off of giving us a sophomoric laugh. Also, please note that the title of this post is much cleverer than you originally gave it credit for.)

It was far from a day of perfect skiing. The prevailing snow conditions on the slopes could best be described as 'solid sheet of the hardest ice you've ever attempted to dig your skis into' alternating with 'slush up to your ankles'. A couple hours into our ski day it started snowing a little (good) combined with driving wind that closed several of the lifts (much less good). Still, we pressed on, determined to get our money's worth out of the price we paid for our train-bus-lift tickets. Luckily the crazy winds managed to blow a little powder onto the runs in spots, giving us little teeny tiny reminders of how good skiing can be.

We skied a full day and then retired to the Crap Bar (seriously, it was called that) for a beer before catching the bus/train connection back to Zurich (which takes a little under two hours for the whole trip). Despite the less-than-perfect conditions, skiing reminded me again why, deep down, I really do love Switzerland.

You’ve seen one Alp, you’ve seen them all

Today my husband played hooky from work and we ran off to Davos to squeeze in one last ski day before the season ends. The snow was remarkably good for this time of year [note: this observation is based on my extensive knowledge of April ski conditions, given that I’ve been skiing in April none times before today]. I even managed a couple red (intermediate) slopes.

How ridiculous is it that I have already started to take panoramic views of snow-covered Alps for granted? We hardly took any pictures today. I really wanted to photograph the crash site from Scott's face plant in the fluffy off-piste snow, but he didn't think that was a particularly good idea.

If there's one ski lift you want to avoid at all costs, it's that first one

I know, I know, you're tired of hearing about snow. Tough.

We just got back from a glorious long weekend in Mürren, an excessively adorable little skiing village in the Swiss Alps. To get there one must take an incline railway to a cog-wheel train to the town. Once you get to the town itself, the only way to get your luggage to your hotel is to drag it through the snow (which we did), or go get a giant sled from your hotel to put it on and push (much easier). Luckily it was only about a 5-minute walk to our hotel, even though it was completely across town.

We spent the majority of the time skiing on the fluffiest snow I’ve ever seen. The lifts were a few meters away from our hotel, and we could ski all the way to the front door. Scott had a blast snowboarding off-piste in knee-deep snow, and I was delighted to have so many different long easy slopes to choose from.

On the third day we rented little wooden sleds and sledded down to Gimmelwald, a village that made Mürren feel like a bustling metropolis. The Swiss do sledding the right way—none of this trudging up a hill to ride down for all of 5 seconds. We sledded on two different groomed runs, each taking about 20 minutes, and then took efficient Swiss public transportation (a ski gondola or cog-wheel train) back to where we started.



We also ventured up the hill to Piz Gloria, a revolving restaurant 3000 meters above sea level which offered, of course, breathtaking views of the snow-covered Alps. Apparently this revolving restaurant rose to international fame in some James Bond movie. The side of the gondola, all pamphlets about the restaurant, and every item in the gift shop made sure that I was aware of this James Bond movie connection (although they weren’t diligent enough to make me remember which one).



The après-ski locales offered by Mürren did not disappoint. The best meal we ate (well, the best one that didn’t consist primarily of melted cheese) was at Alpenruh. The casual atmosphere didn’t adequately prepare us for the elegant food and service we received. The view and the white Glühwein are also not to be missed.
















We aren’t usually the types to vacation in the same place twice, opting instead to explore new places, but we have already talked about going back to Mürren. I think we’re even considering going next weekend, before the ski season ends… although maybe we’ll just stay home and rent a James Bond movie. I’ve never seen one.

Look, those are clouds down there

Yesterday we went skiing in Flumserberg, which is less than an hour away from home. With slopes that close to home, how can you not learn how to ski?

When we left Zurich in the morning, it was overcast. As we drove up the mountain, it got worse. I was dreading the thought of trying to ski in white-out conditions yet again... and then suddenly we burst through the top of the cloud, and it was a glorious, sunny day. And some excellent skiing.