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…
Here are all the photos from our ski guide the first two days at Monterosa.
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.
Last night Christine and Nate got in around 11 after a few complications at Linate airport. We had a light dinner of bread, meats and cheeses and then shared the sweets we brought over from Chamonix.
This morning we woke up to a beautiful view of the mountains.
We met up with Fabio, our guide from Chamonix at 8:30. He’s from this area and used to guide here so offered to come over and guide us here. Fabio is the mayor of Champoluc, everyone knows him here. After grabbing a coffee at the bar and saying goodbye to Karen the six of us headed up the gondola.
We took a few lifts up and arrived to the ridge line between the valley we are staying in and the next valley over. Fabio led us through the off piste, it hasn’t snowed here in a while so the conditions were a little tricky. By the time we made it to the other side of the second valley it was lunch and we stopped at a great place with an amazing view of the Monte Rosa. After lunch we split up and Sara, Dave, Nate, Jeff and Fabio did another off piste run headed back to Champoluc. We came through this crazy couloir/gully that was beautiful and at the end we had to walk across an old avalanche path.
That’s Nate putting his board on after waking across the debris. It was so cool!
This resort, like everywhere we’ve been so far, is expansive. From lunch back to the base area we’re staying at took 3 hours. By the time we rolled into town it was time for Spritz and we met up with Karen and Christine at the bar next to our apartment. We settled with Fabio that tomorrow we’ll head all the way into Alagna, the third valley over to the east from here where it’s a little higher and hopefully the snow is a little softer. Tuesday we’re taking the day off from skiing to explore the region and Wednesday we and Jeff are going to go heliskiing . The route will take us back up to the Klien Matterhorn in Switzerland, down through Cervinia and finally back into Monte Rosa. It’s very exciting and we are all hoping for good weather.
Tonight we walked a little ways out of town to a restaurant called Le Petit Coq so we could experience fondue and raclette the Italian way. It was super fun and super delicious. The brisk walk back into town was much appreciated after our Italian-cheese fest.
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.
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.