Ski Season
It is wintertime in Switzerland, which means that it is ski time in Switzerland. Fortunately, there has been a lot of snow the last few weeks which means that the skiing is good and even total bums like me can go out and have fun. It is my aim that before I leave this country I will have advanced to the level of "mediocre" skier, no matter how much pain, suffering and freezing weather that involves. So far, there hasn't been too much of any of that bad stuff, but then again, my advancement hasn't progressed very far.
Fig. 1: The view from the apartment in Valais.
With the new year came an (almost) all new Paul.
Fig. 2: The New Paul features all new skis (sorry Swiss Army), goggles, and a helmet for safety. He still has the same vintage ski poles and totally inappropriate pants (I think Soph bought these for a camping trip eons ago and then gave them to me because they didn't fit). Pictured with the New Paul from left to right, Jens, Matt and Jackie (Jens's friends from U Michigan).
I got to spend three days straight skiing "beginner" slopes with 9-year-olds, and by the last day I was able to do some of the same pistes as normal-sized human beings. It actually did feel like quite a transformation: when I started, I was timid, nervous, and constantly hitting the breaks so that I wouldn't go too fast. By the end, I felt confident skiing on decently steep slopes and I generally tried to go as fast as possible. I honestly believed that I had improved to a not totally shameful level of proficiency. Oh, how foolish I was.
Hot off of my success with Jens and his friends, I decided to agree to go skiing with Serge a couple of weekends ago. First, he wanted me to go with him and some visitors from out of town to a nearby resort, which sounded like a great plan to me. Then, the plan changed -- the visitors weren't coming and instead we would go to somewhere nearer to Geneva. Then, the plan changed from "downhill, fun, casual skiing" to "monstrous, uphill, death-march skiing" in the mountains with mountain man Bernard as the guide. I think I have adequately documented my previous misadventures with ski de randonée or peau de phoque as it is known. If I were sane, I would have ditched as soon as the plan changed from "downhill" to "uphill," but much as Icarus , filled with hubris, decided to fly too close to the sun, I decided to test my new skills in the most difficult possible circumstances.
Fig. 3: Jens showing off the peau de phoque.
When we started, it was cold and snowing. Although I thought I would die in the parking lot, by the time we got started, I was so hot that I had unzipped my jacket and taken off my helmet and gloves. Skiing uphill is really hard work, but similar to a nice mountain hike, its not too hard to get into a rhythm and actually start to enjoy the views which are usually pretty stunning. After a few minutes, I heard Bernard say, "Watch out. Try not to get your skis or boots wet, they'll freeze." We had come across a creek in the forest and the only way across was to balance delicately on snow-covered rocks. Anyone who has ever been hiking with me will know that creeks are my nemesis and rarely to I cross a small stream without accidentally dipping a boot or two into the water. My first attempt in the snow was not much more successful than one might expect.
Fig. 4: Crossing a creek with skis on is about as easy as it looks.
After a couple of hours, we decided to take a break. "Break" here is a relative term -- as there is generally very little surrounding you that isn't covered in a think, powdery layer of snow, there isn't really anywhere to sit. So, you just stand on your skis and try not to think about how tired you are. As we had stopped a couple hundred yards uphill from the nearest cluster of cabins, we didn't really expect any company on our break. Thus, it was somewhat of a surprise when we saw that we had a visitor.
Fig. 5: Mountain Kitty! Although she probably belonged to a chalet out of sight and down the hill, I'd like to believe that she was a wild cat, living off of her cunning, guile, and the frozen corpses of other skiers.
As the cat was super friendly, we all had a good time feeding it bits of dried fruit, watching it try to "ambush" our skis, and of course having it climb all over us.
Fig. 6: I guess it's pretty cliché to take a picture of yourself in the mountains in the middle of nowhere with a cat on your shoulder, but I just couldn't resist the temptation.
As you can almost see in the above photo, by the afternoon the snow had stopped and the weather was fantastic. Hiking (especially in the US), it's not so hard to get to places where you literally can't see any signs of civilization, but it really is a whole new level of pristine isolation when you can't see any signs of civilization and everything is covered with thick snow. This really is the one advantage of ski de randonée that cannot be matched by any other activity.
Fig. 7: Although technically you could still see a ski lift on the mountains behind us, I think this was about as far from civilization as I have been, here in Europe.
Of course, it was not all uphill skiing. For the other people in our group, the real highlight was the return trip -- downhill skiing on thick, untouched powder. I had been warned that skiing on thick powder was more difficult than skiing on manicured pistes at ski resorts, but (again) I figured that I was good enough now that I would be up to any challenge. This did not turn out to be the case.
First, I didn't account for the fact that I was extremely tired before I even began. After hours of climbing, my legs were tired and I had developed huge blisters on my heels. I found out fairly quickly that I could barely lift my right leg, which made turning on my left ski pretty much impossible. Second, not only was the snow powdery and thick, it was extremely varied. Every once in a while, you would hit a relatively hard part or a extra powdery bump and if you lost your balance -- wham. Finally, I was totally unprepared for the fact that if you went too slowly, you would sink into the powder and thus have basically no chance of staying on your skis when you tried to turn.
So, my attempt to go downhill went pretty much like this: Stop, go fast, crash, pick yourself up, repeat. The snow was so thick that when you fell it was like landing on a giant pile of freezing cold pillows, so it wasn't too painful, but it got to be pretty embarrassing after about the 20th fall. Every once in a while, though, I would actually manage to stay on my feet and make a really cool, cutting turn, producing a wave of snow. It was like being the star of one of those "Ski Utah!" commercials, at least until I inevitably ate it ten feet down the slope.
Fig. 8: It is fairly easy to identify me in the picture above -- I'm the one covered in snow. As you can see, I am getting ready to make a turn onto my left ski, which means that much more snow is in my near future.
The end result was that all of the confidence and pride that I had built up in my previous ski trip was totally and utterly destroyed by the end of this one. I reached the bottom a bitter, broken man and for the third time in my life I swore that I would never go on another ski de randonée for the rest of my life.
Right after the New Year, my labmate Jens had an apartment in the mountains reserved for a week of skiing with his girlfriend and some friends of theirs that would be visiting. Due to some last-minute changes of plan, a space opened up in the apartment and I was invited to join Jens and his friends for a couple days of skiing. As I had stayed in the US until after the New Year, I basically got off the plane here in Switzerland, unpacked my bags from the US, packed my bags for skiing, slept for 5 hours, then got on a train to meet up with Jens and his friends. It would be an understatement to call it an adjustment for me to leave California, where it was warm and sunny, and then the next day to be in the middle of snow with temperatures in the teens and 20s. It was gorgeous, though.
Fig. 1: The view from the apartment in Valais.
Fig. 2: The New Paul features all new skis (sorry Swiss Army), goggles, and a helmet for safety. He still has the same vintage ski poles and totally inappropriate pants (I think Soph bought these for a camping trip eons ago and then gave them to me because they didn't fit). Pictured with the New Paul from left to right, Jens, Matt and Jackie (Jens's friends from U Michigan).I got to spend three days straight skiing "beginner" slopes with 9-year-olds, and by the last day I was able to do some of the same pistes as normal-sized human beings. It actually did feel like quite a transformation: when I started, I was timid, nervous, and constantly hitting the breaks so that I wouldn't go too fast. By the end, I felt confident skiing on decently steep slopes and I generally tried to go as fast as possible. I honestly believed that I had improved to a not totally shameful level of proficiency. Oh, how foolish I was.
Hot off of my success with Jens and his friends, I decided to agree to go skiing with Serge a couple of weekends ago. First, he wanted me to go with him and some visitors from out of town to a nearby resort, which sounded like a great plan to me. Then, the plan changed -- the visitors weren't coming and instead we would go to somewhere nearer to Geneva. Then, the plan changed from "downhill, fun, casual skiing" to "monstrous, uphill, death-march skiing" in the mountains with mountain man Bernard as the guide. I think I have adequately documented my previous misadventures with ski de randonée or peau de phoque as it is known. If I were sane, I would have ditched as soon as the plan changed from "downhill" to "uphill," but much as Icarus , filled with hubris, decided to fly too close to the sun, I decided to test my new skills in the most difficult possible circumstances.
Fig. 3: Jens showing off the peau de phoque. When we started, it was cold and snowing. Although I thought I would die in the parking lot, by the time we got started, I was so hot that I had unzipped my jacket and taken off my helmet and gloves. Skiing uphill is really hard work, but similar to a nice mountain hike, its not too hard to get into a rhythm and actually start to enjoy the views which are usually pretty stunning. After a few minutes, I heard Bernard say, "Watch out. Try not to get your skis or boots wet, they'll freeze." We had come across a creek in the forest and the only way across was to balance delicately on snow-covered rocks. Anyone who has ever been hiking with me will know that creeks are my nemesis and rarely to I cross a small stream without accidentally dipping a boot or two into the water. My first attempt in the snow was not much more successful than one might expect.
Fig. 4: Crossing a creek with skis on is about as easy as it looks.After a couple of hours, we decided to take a break. "Break" here is a relative term -- as there is generally very little surrounding you that isn't covered in a think, powdery layer of snow, there isn't really anywhere to sit. So, you just stand on your skis and try not to think about how tired you are. As we had stopped a couple hundred yards uphill from the nearest cluster of cabins, we didn't really expect any company on our break. Thus, it was somewhat of a surprise when we saw that we had a visitor.
Fig. 5: Mountain Kitty! Although she probably belonged to a chalet out of sight and down the hill, I'd like to believe that she was a wild cat, living off of her cunning, guile, and the frozen corpses of other skiers.As the cat was super friendly, we all had a good time feeding it bits of dried fruit, watching it try to "ambush" our skis, and of course having it climb all over us.
Fig. 6: I guess it's pretty cliché to take a picture of yourself in the mountains in the middle of nowhere with a cat on your shoulder, but I just couldn't resist the temptation.As you can almost see in the above photo, by the afternoon the snow had stopped and the weather was fantastic. Hiking (especially in the US), it's not so hard to get to places where you literally can't see any signs of civilization, but it really is a whole new level of pristine isolation when you can't see any signs of civilization and everything is covered with thick snow. This really is the one advantage of ski de randonée that cannot be matched by any other activity.
Fig. 7: Although technically you could still see a ski lift on the mountains behind us, I think this was about as far from civilization as I have been, here in Europe.First, I didn't account for the fact that I was extremely tired before I even began. After hours of climbing, my legs were tired and I had developed huge blisters on my heels. I found out fairly quickly that I could barely lift my right leg, which made turning on my left ski pretty much impossible. Second, not only was the snow powdery and thick, it was extremely varied. Every once in a while, you would hit a relatively hard part or a extra powdery bump and if you lost your balance -- wham. Finally, I was totally unprepared for the fact that if you went too slowly, you would sink into the powder and thus have basically no chance of staying on your skis when you tried to turn.
So, my attempt to go downhill went pretty much like this: Stop, go fast, crash, pick yourself up, repeat. The snow was so thick that when you fell it was like landing on a giant pile of freezing cold pillows, so it wasn't too painful, but it got to be pretty embarrassing after about the 20th fall. Every once in a while, though, I would actually manage to stay on my feet and make a really cool, cutting turn, producing a wave of snow. It was like being the star of one of those "Ski Utah!" commercials, at least until I inevitably ate it ten feet down the slope.
Fig. 8: It is fairly easy to identify me in the picture above -- I'm the one covered in snow. As you can see, I am getting ready to make a turn onto my left ski, which means that much more snow is in my near future.The end result was that all of the confidence and pride that I had built up in my previous ski trip was totally and utterly destroyed by the end of this one. I reached the bottom a bitter, broken man and for the third time in my life I swore that I would never go on another ski de randonée for the rest of my life.
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