Here are the photos from our heliskiing a few days back.
So we were pretty tired yesterday, so we left a very short post. Sorry about that, we were really tired. So here is how yesterday went.
Jeff, Sara, and Dave woke up and were all nervously excited about our day ahead. We got dressed and under Dave’s direction showed up to our first lift 30 minutes early. We took the funicular up followed by two chairs. Once we got to the top, we had a short hike to reach the area where the helicopter picks us up. We met our guide Loris and he took all of our skis and tied them in to a bundle. As the helicopter arrived our skis were placed in the rack and we all jumped aboard. Within seconds, the helicopter was off. As we pulled away, the force of acceleration and turning was quite intense and we all looked at each other in excitement. The video yesterday doesn’t really do justice to how amazing the view was, weaving in and out of the peaks just below 14K feet. Once we got to the top, we quickly unloaded and dropped to the ground to allow for the helicopter to take off. The whole process was quite organized with the helicopter only on the ground for pickup/drop off for no longer than 15 seconds. The ride was so short we thought there might have been a mix up and that we weren’t actually going to drop down into Zermatt but we were actually in the right place, high up along a ridge line separating Italy and Switzerland.
From there, we clipped into our skis and started a very long traverse around the peak to reach the Col that drops into Zermatt. At the top of the Col as the resort came into view, we realized how much higher we were than the Klien Matterhorn Tram which is the highest ski lift in Europe (3800m). Once we finished our traverse the wide open Col was somewhat chopped up but the snow conditions were quite nice. The powder was maybe mid shin deep. Once we got a bit lower, our guide took us off the beaten path to an area of wide open untracked powder. He said he preferred not to follow the tracks. We said that was fine by us.
There wasn’t anywhere to place a Jake sticker in all that wide open but we brought one just the same.
Once we got to the bottom of the glacier we were back in Zermatt where had we started our trip back on February 2nd. It was quite surreal to be back on the lifts where we started this trip. We took the Matterhorn Glacier Express and the Klien Matterhorn backup to the top and headed towards Cervinia to ski back to Champoluc. As this area sits in the sun all day, the snow was quite crunchy. Also, it was quite cold at -24C. We ended up deciding to skip lunch to try to take advantage of what good conditions remained. We chowed down a cliff bar and after a brief pause at the edge of Cervinia headed back down the hill. While the snow conditions weren’t great, the skiing was still very fun and the terrain stunning. We crossed glaciers, frozen rivers, forests, abandoned stone buildings and an old aqueduct. The end of the run was a very long traverse that took us back to the last town in the Ayas valley, Saint Jacques, just above Champoluc. By this time, Dave’s legs were completely destroyed and quite tired from all the long days of skiing. Luckily we made it to the bottom of the hill unscathed. At the bottom, we walked over to the bar to grab a spritz to finish out the day. With the purchase of the spritz came a ride in the Fiat Panda back to the parking lot where we had left the car. All in all we skied 40 Km across two countries and three resorts. Pretty rad day!
Overall, heliskiing was amazing. If we had unlimited funds, it would definitely be our new preferred way to access ski terrain.
Today we had a fun, mellow day on piste with Jeff, Christine and Nate. It’s snowing pretty hard so visibility was low. Took it easy cruising around and then enjoyed a nice lunch. We love this place and it will be hard to leave.
Photos to come…
Today was a fairly low key day for us. Before we get there, we should let you know about our dinner last night. We went to Restaurant Du Pont last night for some fondue. This was one of the oldest restaurants in Zermatt. Compared to Ferdinand’s earlier in the week, it was not as good; however, we were still happy to be eating cheese.
After eating dinner, we headed back to the hotel to pack and attempt to update the blog so images aren’t rotated. Unfortunately, there is a bug where it looks right on an iPad or iPhone but is flipped on a computer. I think we now have it fixed. We also worked on trying to get the subscribe option to work. Therefore, let us know if you get an email notification about this blog post or if you don’t.
This morning, we left the hotel in our electric chariot taking us to the train.
Today was our last time of making the transfer via train. The train was pulling in as we arrived at the station. Once loaded up we headed down the mountain to Tasch to pick up our car/minivan.
The car we got is 4×4 but unfortunately is quite big and ugly. We didn’t get a photo of it but we will at some point. I’ll use this for an example:
The drive from Tasch to Verbier was fairly grey. It looked like the views would have been nice but was mostly covered by either clouds, fog, or smog. We couldn’t tell. Anyways, here is a brief clip showing our drive in.
Once we got here, it was a little too late to hit the hill. Instead we went and grabbed some lunch at some sort of health food cafe that is part of the W Hotel. We both had bowls and I had a juice. It was nice to eat something healthy after eating so much cheese. The rest of the day is fairly uneventful. Mostly, laundry, settling in to the new hotel, and getting important supplies such as hotel wine. The one thing I will say about this hotel is it is not nearly as nice as Zermatt. That being said it will do for the three nights we are here.
First update: we’ve heard about the upside down images in a few of our posts and our crack engineering team is on the case to update past posts and fix going forward!
Second update (and much more importantly). In the previous post I credited our lovely champagne aperitif to the hotel and while the hotel staff are great, I must give credit where credit is due! The aperitif is actually a gift from my amazing and talented coast to coast team; Annie, Devin, Stevie, Mirian and Rachael. I am so lucky to work with you all and truly touched by your thoughtfulness and I miss you tons! XO Sara
Our last day full day in Zermatt, here’s the recap.
Last night we walked around the town a bit, it really is so pretty here. There’s a lovely church where all the mountaineers of yesteryear are buried and right next door is the town hall and police station. And this!
Also the world’s largest Alphorn. 
We grabbed drinks in a cool bar tucked inside the Old Zermatt restauarant and also ran into our ski guide David there. If anyone is thinking about coming to Zermatt we highly recommend booking a guide through David and his outfit Alpine Exposure. Super nice guy and he found us a powder stash. Yay!
After drinks we had pasta at Pizzeria Roma up the street. Super low key and friendly spot for a comfort food pasta dinner.
This morning we got up early, had breakfast and hit the mountain for our last day. Unfortunately there was weather around the Matterhorn so we weren’t able to go up to the glacier again but it was ok, there is PLENTY of skiing to be had even without the upper, upper mountain. We stuck to the western side of the valley, northern facing slopes which were protected from the storms that tend to come up and over from Italy. We skied the little cable car as everyone seems to refer to it, it’s a peak to peak relic that provides access to a ton of off piste skiing. So fun! Dave tried to make a gopro video but unfortunately just got great shots of his feet.
We also had some important business to attend to today. As many of you know, we put a sticker for Jake up at every resort we visit in Europe. (Sorry this photo is a little wonky but there was a patrol hut right next door and they were giving me the side eye.) Jake loved to ski and travel so we like to think we’re bringing him along with us on a bunch of fun adventures. We hope you enjoy the view of the Matterhorn, Jakey, miss you all the time.
After skiing the off piste area a few times we broke for lunch in Riffelberg. The snow train makes a stop here, I’m obsessed with this little train.
We ate lunch at the cafeteria again today, with the market tanking in the US and Switzerland being mad expensive we stuck with soup and water. But hey, at least it was soup with a view!
The weather got significantly worse after lunch so with our tired legs, we decided to ski just a little bit more and then make our way back down to the village, about 3000 vertical feet 🙂
We’ve been staying at the lovely Matterhorn Lodge and Apartments here in town. The staff; Ruth, Flo and Lea have all been so lovely and the room and lobby are both great. Tonight they surprised us with Apres in front of the fireplace. (…California, who dis?)
We will post about our dinner tonight tomorrow (hint: cheese of course). Tomorrow we are off to our next adventure in Verbier. This will be the last time we have to take our bags on the train. Wish us luck!
So let us start with last night.
Up to this point we have depended on the hotel to get reservations for us for dinner. This time we thought we would try to find something to walk in to. The town is so beautiful with this river running through it.
Our ski guide had recommended that we check out an Italian restaraunt called Guisseppes. When we got there, we asked for a table for two and the maitre-d flat out said no. Distraught and cold, we walked back towards the main area and stumbled on a pizzeria called Restaurant Da Nico. The place was jam packed but luckily there was room for two at the bar. After our hard day we really just needed a drink. We started with a bottle of Barbera di Alba.
Can you tell how professional of a blog this is based on that great photo? With the wine we had two pizzas, one with mozzeralla di bufala and one with mushrooms and black truffle. The food was fantastic. We ate about 3/4 of the pizza and then we were stuffed.
With full bellies, we walked back towards the hotel to sleep. Our legs were absolutely destroyed from the long day, and we could barely stay awake. While we walked, we snapped a photo of the old area that is right by our hotel.
Once we got back to the room it was about 8:00 PM and we were ready to crash out (at least Dave was).
The next day we woke up late and after eating some breakfast it was time to hit the mountain again.
No rush to get on the hill today as it was pretty windy and we heard that a bunch of the upper mountain was closed due to low visibility. Nevertheless we got on the Matterhorn Glacier gondola which has about 4 or 5 different load on/off points including the top one which is right below the glacier (hence the name). On the way up we got a great shot of the town.
See how socked in it was today? We should have paid the weather more mind because a little bit after taking this photo we were in that cloud cover and it started getting gnarly. So gnarly the automatic sensor kept shutting the gondola off due to the wind. We sat with a very friendly Swiss guide who recommended that we stay low and ski the trees where visibility would be better. Why we didn’t follow him and get off at the third load off spot is a mystery to me. We kept riding until the last stop and wow was it blowing up there! Amazingly they were still running the high tram that goes to the top of the glacier. It would have taken a lot of money to get me to ride that one today. So there we are at the top of the hill and wisely make the decision to stay on piste as visibility was probably about 4 feet? I’m guessing because I couldn’t really see my feet but I could see my hands.
We slowly made our way down to the next gondola stop and jumped on and went in search of a more protected area. This part of the mountain is fairly steep and conditions were not getting any better. From there we started making our way over to the place we had made a lunch reservation. It was on another part of the mountain and we estimated it was about a 2 hour trip including skiing and lift rides (did we mention this is a huge ski resort?!?!) On the way we got a very nice view of the area that we skied off-piste yesterday. This is the area where you see the remnants of an old chairlift that was taken out by an avalanche.
Here is said place nestled in it’s pretty valley at the base of a glacier.
Haha it’s kind of hard to see in this photo but it’s dark brown with bright red shutters! So cute right? The restaurant and chalet is called Fluhalp, named after the glacier that sits right above it. I bet in the summer it’s an awesome place to hike to and hang out. Today everyone was hanging out and taking refuge from the weather by drinking red wine and eating cheese and spaetzle. Like this:
Dave and I shared this and a salad. Also, check out the altitude (for those of you like me who can’t do so much math in your head that’s approximately 8500 ft) about halfway up the resort.
After lunch, it was time to ski back towards the town. On the way, we found a nice powder run; however, it unfortunately led to a dead end with a slow chairlift for people learning to ski. Oops. Once we made it out of the dead end, we skied the path back to Zermatt. On the way we found a great view of the city, right next to a mid-mountain champagne bar.
Don’t worry, we will provide more gratuitous cheese shots in the upcoming posts.
Today started as a great day. Dave finally woke up and didn’t feel extremely congested. After some breakfast, we met up with our guide for the day: David from Alpine Exposure. After a short walk we took the funicular up about 1000m followed by a cable car, followed by a very old tram. The tram itself is basically only there for guides and we were the only ones on it. Once we reached the top (3200m), it opened up on to a beautiful field of powder. As we skied it, I kept asking myself, where is everybody else? In California the snow would be all tracked out and there would be nothing soft left. Note: it has been over a week since they had much snow. While this area had some tracks, there was plenty of areas where we had long distances of completely untracked powder. The snow was a bit heavy here and it certainly was a thigh burner. Additionally, the runs were long. Very long. After two laps through this area it was already getting in to the afternoon. Below is a photo our guide took of Dave skiing out of a small coulier in powder.
Next stop was a quick break to warm up and hyrdate. We stopped at the Blue Lounge and had a hot water and lemon, and then we were off to try to eat lunch in Italy. Skiing from the western side of the mountain to the eastern side of the mountain takes at least an hour. That hour is all skiing. Once we got to the eastern side of the mountain, it was time to take the tram up to the top of the Matterhorn Glacier (3883m). This is the highest lift in all of Europe. Up here it was cold. I didn’t see a thermometer but it felt like it might have been colder than yesterday which was -11f. The elevation didn’t hit us too bad, but you could tell that you were feeling a bit loopy. From there we skied down to Italy and stopped for some lunch at the Rifugio Teodulo which was at 3317m. The combination of the altitude and not eating until almost 3pm made for a very interesting time. The bar was very cool. We sat on the guide side which is less fancy than the restaraunt but had much more character. We also learned that you can book rooms at this rifugio which also seemed really cool. We ate some sort of combination of semolina dumplings and French onion soup, and it was so good!
After refueling, it was time to head back towards Zermatt rushing to catch the last chair to bring us up for skiing some powder on the glacier on our way home. To be honest, Dave’s legs were very shot on this ride back to the town. It was about 4:30 and we had been skiing basically nothing but powder (some of which was heavy and/or chopped up) and his legs were dying. At this point, we ducked a rope and skied out on to the glacier to a wide open, untracked, powder field of powder that was much lighter. After skiing down it, we both commented that it was something we will remember for the rest of our lives. The skiing was super crusie-y and really fun! As we worked our way down, there got to be a point that Dave had to throw in the towel. He feared hurting himself as the skiing was somewhat technical and his legs did not have the gas left. Luckily before we stopped, we were able to get a picture of the three of us.
After making it to the next gondola, it was time to hitch a ride back to the village. We left the hotel at 9 am and got back at 5:30. It was a really long day. David was an awesome guide and we are hoping to ski with him again on Wednesday after they get a nice refresh of new snow tonight and tomorrow. Below is a map where I tried to remember what lifts we took and generally what we skied. Yellow are the lifts and the green is generally what we skied. I promise that this map does not do any justice on the shear distance we skied. I am guessing this is maybe the most vertical feet I have ever skied in a day.
After skiing we headed down to the spa in our hotel. Unfortunately, what we thought was a hot tub was more of a warm tub. Interestingly, it had these beds you lay on and it percolates ice cold water out of them. Maybe people are in to that, we were not. After a quick Sauna, we headed back to the room to drink some wine we purchased the day before. Also, it was coed naked, but us prude Americans wore our bathing suits.
Blog notes: I apologize about the large amount of text. Unfortunately, we were too busy skiing so we didn’t take many photos. Also, we will likely tag on our dinner experience on to tomorrow’s blog post as we are likely going to be too tired after we get back from dinner.
Ciao for now.
Woke up this morning like woah!
Since we got in after dark last night we did not notice the giant Matterhorn massif looming directly over our hotel. And it is so spectacular. Here’s a closer look.
Pretty cool right? Here’s one even closer.
(JK, although this was my favorite ride at Disneyland growing up. Inspiration for the trip maybe?)
Seriously though this place is gorgeous. The town is really cute and I bet it is amazing here in the summer. And the skiing area is huge- it connects with Cervinia in Italy so you can really ski all the way around the massif on one pass. Today we stuck to a relatively small portion of the resort which still required a solid 45 minute high speed gondola ride. The snow is great and there is more in the forecast tomorrow and Monday. Avalanche danger is moderate however so we stuck pretty close to the groomers. Still found fresh powder though! (Sorry everyone skiing Tahoe this weekend)
No sight of this guy yet but we will be here for 4 more days.
We are staying at the Hotel Matterhorn Zermatt, centrally located and really nice (feels newly renovated?) Today on the hill we had lunch at Riffelberg with a lovely view of the Matterhorn and Monte Rosa. No photos though and also it was –24 degrees Celsius.
There can only be one cure for -24 degrees Celsius and that is copious amounts of cheese. This cheese-a-palooza was courtesy of Ferdinand at Hotel Cervo in Zermatt.
After our amazing lounge experience we described in our previous post, it was finally time to board the flight. Of course, the most important part of the flight was our celebration champagne.
With the champagne out of the way we had about 10 hours to kill. As expected, Sara slept through basically the whole thing. For Dave, he continues to battle a cold and barely slept a wink. Once we landed in Zurich, getting through passport control and customs was a breeze. Our bags were on the conveyor before we arrived so there was no waiting. I think we mentioned that we brought quite a few bags for our trip.
After leaving the airport, we stopped by the Sunrise cellphone store to buy a SIM card. BTW, it is very cheap here. $2.50 per day for unlimited talk and data. Hopefully we find something similar in France and Italy.
Once we got to the train platform we prepared ourselves for the first difficult part of our trip. Loading all of our gear on to the train. As the trained approached, we mentally prepared ourselves for getting all the bags on to the train in the short window of time before it left the station. Luckily the first train was a breeze and the next stop was Visp.
Things got interesting once we got to Visp. Again, as we approached the station, Sara and I mentally prepared for the transfer. At this station there were no carts and we had to transfer platforms. Upon exiting the train, we were shocked to see people in an all out sprint trying to make the transfer. With our bags in tow, we walked briskly carrying at least four bags each trying to make the train. While we were the last ones on, we made it! Now we had one hour left until we finally made it to our destination.
The new train we boarded was significantly different from the sleak modern quiet train we took from Zurich. These trains were significantly older and had quite a bit of character. While we didn’t get any picture of the train itself, we did get a photo of the track. 
As you can see from the photo this was a cog train. The gauge of the rail was a bit narrower and the cogs in the center are due to the steepness of the route. In just over an hour we climbed from just over 500m to over 2000m. Unfortunately, due to the late hour of our travel we weren’t able to see much, but you could tell that it was beautiful. Once we arrived in Zermatt it was off to the hotel in a small electric shuttle/cab. Like a glorified golf cart the electrical shuttle whisked Sara and I quickly up to the hotel and we finally checked in. Interestingly, we shared the shuttle with one of Dave’s company’s client, who we ended up spending quite a bit of time in the bar chatting with. Great people!
As it is the weekend, finding a place to eat was not easy. Luckily, the friendly hotel staff got us in to the Factory at Hotel Post at the last minute. The food wasn’t that great but the caprese salad and pizza we ate filled the voids in our stomachs after the long journey.
As I (Dave) lay here in bed at 5 am unable to sleep longer, I look forward to a fun day of exploring Zermatt and getting our first day of skiing in. Hopefully, I can shake this terrible cold that I’m dealing with. Stay tuned for more updates.