Here are the photos from our heliskiing a few days back.
So today was our last day skiing. Luckily for us, it snowed all night and it was a powder day. While visibility was low, we were able to find a great area of rocks and trees that helped provide perspective. The snow was great. Really light and around knee deep. After we had our fill of skiing the powder, it was time to head back towards Champoluc to meet Karen at the top of the funicular for lunch.
After lunch, Dave took a ride up the magic carpet to get one last powder run before taking it up again to take the funicular down.
After skiing, Sara and Dave headed to the Spa for a very painful massage to try to mend our sore legs after three weeks of skiing. Tonight we are going to have a nice Mountain dinner and pack up for our move from the mountains to the city.
We also had some other exciting news to celebrate!
We appologize for the lack of photos today. Due to the heavy snow we were bundled up pretty tight.
Also if you thought we could say ‘until next time’ Alps without a Julie Andrews meme, you were sorely mistaken.
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…
Last night, we went out to Le Petit Coq so that we could share with our friends all of the wonderful attributes of cheese. We had some wonderful raclette and fondue with a few liters of wine.
After filling up on cheese, Sara, Jeff, and Dave spent our last day with our guide, Fabio, that came over from Chamonix. After taking the funicular up we skied as fast as we could to make it over to the Punta Indren which is above Alagna.
This goes to the highest point of the Monterosa Ski Resort that is lift accessible. At the top of the Gondola, we put our climbing harnesses which we thought was for skiing on the glacier. We were wrong… We skied across the traverse, and hit the first of many side stepping portions which were quite exhausting. Once we got to the top, we arrived at our first open bowl area which had some relatively nice powder. We skied down a bit and hit another traverse. After side stepping to the top of the second traverse here, we realized what the harnesses were for.
There was a very steep very tight chute that we were going to rappel down in our skis.
The way this works is you ski down and clip on to the rope. Then skiing backwards the guide slowly lowered us down in to the chute. It was one of the gnarliest things I have ever done. The photo below does not give any justice to how steep this was.
Once we got down to the bottom of the chute we got to a wide open bowl of untracked powder.
It was a bit crunchy below but was great skiing. After getting to the bottom, we took a long traverse that also included a rope portion where we had to slowly lower ourselves through an icy chute in the woods.
This part was a hiking trail along a pretty stream and waterfall that had frozen over. After the hiking trail we joined up with a road that took us to a very small hamlet that had a parking lot and a pommel horse. We took the pommel up and then skied down the valley through backyards, across foot bridges and at least one little park. Once we arrive in Alagna, it was 2pm. We left the house at 8am and we basically did one run. With our legs shot, we needed to hurry back up the mountain to not get trapped in Alagna. It is a 6 hour drive from Alagna to Champoluc so rather than break for lunch we grabbed the gondola out of town. Once we got to the top of the Bettaforca, we finally stopped for lunch at 3pm. It was a such an amazing time. Here’s our wrap photo.
Karen had a lovely day at the spa and Nate and Christine hit the piste runs. Tonight we are laying low in the cabin and Jeff is cooking us a delicious smelling polenta and mushroom dinner.
After such an epic day yesterday, our legs were pretty tired today. We headed over to Grand Montets, again, where the reservations for the high tram were full (yes they have reservations). We decided to wait in-line (on-line?) for our first run. After about 25 minutes, we boarded the tram and headed up. The snow was still quite good but pretty chopped up. We were able to find some goods hidden and still had some fresh tracks. On the way down, we were able to find a location to put the sticker for Jake. We are thinking of him the whole time we are here. In the background of the photo is the Glacier d’Argentiere
After making our way down, we took the Gondola on the frontside back up. The frontside is a bit lower and much more chopped up. Dave did find a small 4 foot cliff to jump off which he did successfully. The highlight of our day will be our Valentine’s Day dinner at Hameau Albert 1er which is a 2 Michelin Star restaurant. Although, we won’t have any money left after, we are looking forwards to it.
As promised below are the photos from our ski guide yesterday (unedited). You can click on the photos and enter full screen.
Note: Leave us a comment if this works. The internet is really slow so it is hard to tell if it is working.
Last night we were able to decrease our number of grocery store runs. This is good because most everything was closed because it was Sunday. After enjoying a glass of wine next to some folks from Michigan, we headed home and Sara made a great penne pasta with smoked salmon and romanesco. It was delicious.
This morning we took the leftovers and made it into a fritatta. The perfect fuel for our day to come. It snowed most of the night and we decided to head out to Grand Montets earlier today. We were on the Base Tram before 8:30. The visibility remained poor but the conditions were amazing. There was knee deep to waist deep powder. That early in the morning we were able to get two runs on the mid mountain gondola that were basically untracked. The day prior, we made a reservation for the high mountain Tram at 11:05. We thought most of the snow would be tracked out but we were wrong. Nearly the whole run we were able to get fresh tracks. Following our first team ride we made another reservation for an hour later and grabbed some lunch. During lunch the sun came out and our second run on the tram was also amazing. Light fluffy powder. Unfortunately the GoPro died before the second tram ride but below are a few shots of our day today.
Not much to post today. The highlight of the day was getting the washing machine to work. We had so much laundry and it is great to get it all clean. Having a place with a kitchen means that we have been trying to eat in. Last night we made some Salmon and Romanesco. It was great to eat something fairly plain.
This morning we headed over to Grand Montets to ski. It is about 15 minutes outside of town and came highly recomended from the Davidsons. When we arrived, it was snowing pretty good. The conditions were great but the visibility was not. When you are in the clouds, it is snowing, and there are no trees, it is impossible to determine what is up and down. Undeterred, we skied a few runs from almost the top, but decided not to go all the way up because it was just too hard to see. We skied for about 3 or 4 hours and decided that it was getting too hard to see. The takeaways from our first day here in Chamonix is that the snow is fantastic and the mountain is really fun. They are expecting to get about 30 cm tonight so conditions should be fantastic tomorrow. We have a reservation to take the highest tram at Grand Montets tomorrow. Hopefully we will get some great photos/video of the good conditions for our loyal followers. Tonight we are going to make some pasta with leftover romanesco. Yum!
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.