Dave and Sara’s Excellent 2018 Adventure

Last Day in Switzerland

By Dave and Sara on Friday, February 9, 2018

Tonight is our last night in Switzerland. It is sad to leave but our next adventure in France awaits us.

To recap from last night, we were planning to go out for some pizza at La Pergola. Unfortunately, when we arrived, they said that their pizza oven was broken. I am not sure that I believe them as others who ordered after we arrived were able to get Pizza. I think they were so busy that they were trying to disuade people from ordering pizzas to give the kitchen a break. As we couldn’t have pizza, we went for pasta instead. It was still quite good.

This morning, we headed back out to the mountain. As it hasn’t snowed in a few weeks the mountain is pretty chopped up. In fact, last night we learned that one of the yellow runs we took yesterday is known as being one of the longest mogul runs in the world. The moguls across the mountain were big. Some of them four to five feet tall it seemed. Anyways, on day six of skiing, Dave was having some troubles getting in the groove. At least there were some great views to be had. Below is a photo with Verbier at the base.

After skiing some off-piste next to the runs, we decided to try the last run we did yesterday this time with good visibility. The run was quite nice. The beginning started with large moguls, followed by a wide open bowl that had some nice snow in it. We descended in to the town of La Tzoumaz:

The path went down a winding road where after a while, there was an actual road with cars next to the run. The path continued to provide us with breathtaking views. The photo below shows the bowl that we skied down way off in the distance.

We also passed a really adorable cheese shop off the road.

Once we reached the town, we took the Gondola back up and headed to lunch on the mountain. We found a great chalet called Chez Clovis. We both had, of course, soup and enjoyed the beautiful views.

After lunch, we worked our way back to Verbier. We ended up taking this route that went right through the town. I am bummed we didn’t get a photo of it; however, they even had slots in the road, so you could ski across the asphalt without damaging your skis. You had to watch out for cars. There were also a couple times where you had to cross an active pomel horse lift. The run went through the chalets in town which I plan to buy a few of with all the money we are making off the stock market right now. Stocks are up, right?

After skiing, we headed back to the room to clean ourselves up. We then went to grab an Apres at Le Rouge. This was another recommendation from Sara’s friend.

Tonight as it is our last night in Switzerland we are of course going to eat some cheese. Off to eat Raclette at La Caveau.

Before we leave Switzerland, here are some of our closing thoughts:

You really do eat a lot of cheese.
If you ate meat, you would be very happy.
People here are very nice.
They aren’t lying when they say it is expensive.
In one part of the country everybody speaks German (Zermatt), then you drive 1 hour and everybody speaks French (Verbier).
Skiing many days without a washing machine results in a really stinky hotel room.
It gets cold here, -24C is a new low for these two California constitutions.
We would happily come back to both towns! Switzerland, its been a blast.

Verbier

Above the clouds

By David on Thursday, February 8, 2018

Bonjour from Verbier!

We spent yesterday afternoon relaxing and walking around the town, it’s very different from Zermatt. Where Zermatt is down in a valley, Verbier is on the hill and more spread out with fancy chalets and hotels going up from the town center. It’s got a very different vibe too. The terrain reminds us a lot of Kirkwood or Deer Valley with a lot of fun off piste options and it’s steep too. We’ve seen many more skiers with alpine touring gear and even telemarkers than we did at Zermatt and the off piste areas seems more well tracked (although it hasn’t snowed since we got here so it might be looking like this in Zermatt too). So there’s a soul skier group. Then there are lots of well heeled Brits of all ages. In addition to the normal restaurants and apres bars that you’d expect in most resort towns there are also tons of nightclubs. Like DJ battle, EDM nightclubs.

Last night we had a lovely dinner at Aux Vieux Verbier recommended by one of Sara’s colleagues in LA (thanks Patrick!)

We also stumbled on a great wine store called Vinabagnes where we met some very nice locals who gave us recommendations on where to ski off piste and also let us taste the local wine from the Valais region of Switzerland. Wine is grown here on some pretty steep terrain, similar to what I’ve seen in Piemonte, and the earth is very minerally.

This morning we headed up the hill via the Medran gondola. Since we arrived there’s been an inversion with a very low cloud cover (this morning it was actually snowing in town) and clear blue skies at higher elevations. After the first gondola we took one more gondola and two trams, all the way to the top of the Mont Fort peak. Although we wanted to follow the alpine touring folks off the back we weren’t exactly sure how to make our way back to Verbier (one of the locals we met said it required an hour of skinning, the other said 20 minutes)and since we didn’t have skins and an hour hike seemed extreme we stuck to the front side. Still very fun and very beautiful.

We found a great place in the sun high above the clouds for Jake’s sticker. Thanks to everyone who helped me try to find a few more. A day before I left I found a few in a very random place at my house. I have no idea how they go there but once I found them I had enough for each stop on our trip.

After that we skied a bunch of different runs all over the mountain; they could use a good snow so a lot of crunchy bumps. We grabbed a late lunch of the hill (soup again cause Verbier is $$$$$) and then decided that we would take this long ‘yellow line*’ run down the valley and call it a day. Judging from the runs we had already done it looked like it would take us about 45 minutes to an hour. Perfect!

*A ‘yellow line’ is an off piste run that is marked in the center with neon yellow poles about every 20 ft. The skiable area is so massive off each lift that it’s easy to get lost, but more on that later.

Leaving lunch we followed a ridge line and topped into really fun stuff that took us down to a gate. Yea, the yellow line we planned to take down to the base was marked with a gate and a bunch of signage. Luckily it was open but still. We waited until we saw someone else go in and then we dropped in behind. The top of the run was fine, a little crunchy but still fun. We watched the skier in front of us disappear into a little gully, beyond the gully was a random cat track with really high walls on either side. Couldn’t see much of anything as we would our way down this cat track except that it looked really freaking steep on either side. Then we got to a giant sign that said a bunch of stuff in French and also don’t turn right, high avalanche danger. So we went forward a little bit and then visibility dropped a lot. We were in the clouds. Luckily two locals and a ski school instructor with a little kid came up behind us. The local guys went right and told us to follow them. The ski school dude and the little kid went straight. I’m not sure we made the right decision in hindsight because the local guys said the visibility was worse over there but we followed the ski school. We lost the ski school in the fog so stuck right to the poles, it was hard to see one past the other but we make a really good team and eventually got below the dense clouds and back onto the mountain run. After that we called it a day.

After skiing, we walked around town for a bit. We stopped by a local butcher and purchased some stinky cheese and bread to go with the wine we purchased yesterday for our hotel room apres-ski. We watched a bit of TV and waited for our next pizza adventure at dinner at La Pergola. I think all we are going to eat on this trip is melted cheese in some for. Tomorrow is our last day of skiing in Verbier and the. We are off to France on Saturday.

Verbier Zermatt

Next Stop Verbier

By David on Wednesday, February 7, 2018

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.

Zermatt

Corrections!

By Dave and Sara on Tuesday, February 6, 2018

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

Zermatt

Zermatt- it’s a wrap!

By Dave and Sara on Tuesday, February 6, 2018

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!

Zermatt

Gone with the Wind

By Dave and Sara on Monday, February 5, 2018

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.

Zermatt

Skiing with a Guide Part 1

By Dave and Sara on Sunday, February 4, 2018

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.

Zermatt

The Most Magical Place on Earth

By Dave and Sara on Saturday, February 3, 2018

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.

Zermatt

Planes, Trains, and Electric Automobiles

By Dave and Sara on Saturday, February 3, 2018

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.

Pre-Departure

Next Stop Switzerland

By Dave and Sara on Friday, February 2, 2018

As you saw before, we packed most of our bags last week. Today is the day we leave for our epic adventure. With the few final touches, the bags are all packed up.

Look at all of those bags! So many we had to take the biggest Uber ever. $99 and it wasn’t even surge pricing!

We got to the airport and Dave had to take a business call at the most opportune time:

Surprisingly, with all seven bags (not counting our carry-ons), there were no baggage fees. Thanks Swiss Air! Getting through security was relatively easy. Dave’s bag got searched, of course. After a short walk, we made it to the United Lounge to enjoy all the luxurys of lounge life.

The lounge is packed and the only space available is in the pay-phone room where there is barely enough space for both of us. Luckily there was free sparkling water to quench Dave’s thirst.

The hardest part of all of this is obviously saying goodbye to the dogs. Luckily they are in good hands. Thanks to my parents for watching them in the beginning and end. They will have a fun time out in the country as well.

Our next update to the Site will be from Switzerland, so get excited!