Food is Important

There is a well-kept secret in Italy that needs to be brought to light. It has taken me months of research and undercover work to collect all of the details, but I am now ready to share this secret with the world: fresh, seasonal fruits and vegetables are much better than their imported, lab-ripened counterparts.

As the majority of my reading audience – all two of you – hails from America, this nugget of truth might come as a a surprise; I know that I always took for granted the year-round availability and overabundance of broccoli and oranges in my local Hannafords. Looking back on it, I should have stumbled upon this Italian secret years ago. The oranges I eat in September are always dry and flavorless, and the peaches I eat in January feel like they have been frozen. If I had been more observant, I might have seen Chiquita stickers on this produce reading “Chile #2306”. If I had been even more observant, I might have noticed that the apples at the orchard down the road in September were much better than the supermarket variety in March.

Unfortunately, nobody has ever called me observant. I took living in Italy for almost a year before a beam of light from the heavens struck my forehead. I remember the moment it happened: driving through orange groves in Sicily, I realized that I had been eating a lot of oranges in the past two months. They were cheap and consistently delicious. Looking around, I realized that I had been eating oranges straight from those very trees, fresh and having traveled less than a day’s journey to my mouth. If only this could happen in America!

Now, I am not advocating an “eat locally” attitude, because only hippies feel the need to buy New England artichokes. I don’t mind my food travelling to reach me, but I do mind my food tasting bad. Getting only fresh produce really eliminates this problem, with the only consequence being my choise of vegetables is limited. I won’t be able to get broccoli in the summer, and I won’t be able to make peach cobbler in the winter (unless I use canned peaches). Having lived under such a repressive food conglomorate-lacking world, I can honestly say that things are better this way. I haven’t had an orange in two months. But that’s OK with me, because we are in the midst of peach and cherry season. They are so good, I am eating at least three peaches and a kilo of cherries a day. Will I be sad when the peaches are gone? Yes, but that just heralds the beginning of some other season (clementines, if memory serves) and I will have avoided the risk of eating crappy peaches for the rest of fall.

There are pros and cons of our two produce availabilty systems, but the biggest setback I have encountered here was last week when I couldn’t find broccoli for my quiche. I had to use zucchine (note the proper Italian spelling). On the positive side, in Italy the consumer wins. In the middle of cherry season, the farmers can’t get rid of these things because there are so many, and the result is a huge drop in prices. Think less than a dollar per pound for the good ones. The oranges in Sicily were around 25 cents per pound. Peaches right now are going for 50 cents per pound. In the fall two years ago, I paid one euro for seven pounds of clementines.

On occasion, I will get a craving for something that I cannot find. But overall, I find that the lack of ingredients inspires more culinary creativity and at the least results in constantly evolving dishes. A lot of my visitors this winter were dissapointed in the caprese salads here. That’s because tomatoes aren’t in season in the winter. It’s a late summer dish. Tourists.

Next time you go to the supermarket, think about what you are buying. Are those apples even fresh, or were they gassed to get color and texture? As for me, I don’t have to worry about stuff like that. I just need to worry about weather the Italians have banned DDT yet.

Photo Annual

Now Presenting, the 2007 Courmayeur Photo Annual
Make sure your sound is on.

Sorry Dana

It seems that my eulogy for ski season was a bit early.

We got five days of gorgeous weather, and although Courmayeur is now closed, Cervinia and La Thuile were still open, as is the Toula. Dana and I skinned around up high one morning and then skied the Toula in the afternoon, in snow conditions that we have called "breakable mush" or "bottomless corn". I don't know why it doesn't consolidate, but it is hard to ski because it sucks you under. I now present some brief videos of Dana on that run. Sorry, Dana.





And my Favorite: Watch the end...



Dana showed he could still rip it up, though. Here he is going down one of the steepest lines of the year at La Thuile on Wednesday.

The End of the Ski Season

The end of the ski season is upon us. Dana, Miky, Weeze, and I went to Sicilia for Easter. I was away from the mountains for ten warm spring days and now the snow is a brown color, screaming to the few faithful skiers, “get your turns in now, because I am just going to get darker and darker, until one day you will be skiing in last year’s cow plop.” The whole town is different, too. Normally a sleepy town, Courmayeur has shut down after Easter. Hotels are closed, free bus services are halted, and – the biggest kick in the testicular region – the Val Veny tram is closed. For the loyal readers who remember my first few blog posts, I used to have to take a bus to the main tram. This is what I have to do now, except that the free bus service is no longer operational. Great idea.

Also while I was away, the bus services that didn’t shut down changed their schedules. So even the buses that charge you don’t show up at their normal times. Trying to get to the tram this morning, I got the distinct impression that Courmayeur wanted me to end my season. Well guess what, Courmayeuresi: you want my blood? Take it! Take my blood! I am going to keep pushing along until I am skiing on cow plop, just like Samuel L. Jackson in The Negotiator. I still enjoyed myself today, despite breakable mush, and if it gets sunny the skiing will still be great.

I am feeling worse about the end of this ski season than I have ever felt before. The town has changed, most of the other ski bums have gone back to their summer jobs, and the rest of them have gone on to summer activities, like rock climbing and smelling bad. I think the main reason that I am so depressed about the imminent lift closure is that I have never been a full-fledged ski bum before. I ski a lot, and I bummed in Utah for a month, but never for a whole season. Now I am left with a sense of emptiness. It’s like graduating: you have successfully completed an important step in your life and it’s gratifying, but now you have no idea what to do with yourself. I hope I can get a few more good days in before having to decide…

A video/photo journey to Refugio Elisabetta

Last week Dana, Weeze, and I went to Refugio Elisabetta. We decided that we were getting too fat from our slothlike skiing habits and monstrous eating habits. With so much lift-accessed powder to ski, and so much food to get for free from Gianni - the gay barista who has taken a liking to me – we aren’t really culpable. Blame the system, man. Regardless of the cause, though, we used our combined powers of deductive reasoning to infer that, seeing how much snow you can find from the lift and how lazy Italian skiers are, if we actually had to earn our turns, we would have first tracks for days. By golly, our prohibitively expensive college educations finally paid off. Thanks, Mom and Dad!

From the Youla cable car, we skied down into an untouched bowl.Our tracks are in the sun, but you can’t see them. Sorry. Then, we put on our skins and skinned up and over the next ridge, bootpacking at the top as the clouds continued to lift.

This put us into the top of an even bigger bowl, and we skied shallow, smooth powder

all the way down to the Lago di Combal, where the sun was shining on Refugio Elisabetta. You can see it right at the base of the pyramid in the middle of the picture.

As we finished the hour-long skin, clouds started to move in and we ended up with an inch of new snow, on top of the other few feet of untouched. We saw some old heliskiing tracks coming down to the hut, and we were worried about not getting any good turns. But the hut was comforting. Although it is officially closed in the winter, there is a room with mattresses, blankets, electricity, and a table. We could see why Italians don’t like backcountry skiing…

The next morning, we woke to bluebird skies, and picked out the most obvious line, as seen from the hut.

This picture was actually taken at 7 PM, after we skied the face for two days. You can see our tracks if you look closely, but the face is north facing so it is shady most of the day. This is what it looked like when we first skied it (credits: Weeze getting first rips with Dana providing the soundtrack):

Gosh that was good skiing. It was a hard and long skin to get there, so we headed down after one rip. But then we realized that it stays sunny until 8 PM now, and we skinned up the other way to the Pyramide Calcaire. We got to the col at around 7 PM, so the depth perception was way off and the photos are crap. But suffice it to say that we didn’t need depth perception for snow so powdery and untouched (possibly not skied this year).

And yes, it does drop off steeply below Dana.

The next day when we woke up after 12 hours of sleep, the clouds were socking us in. We decided to skin up to the same stuff, and when we arrived at the top, this is what we found:
Someone had skied everything out! Just kidding, those are our tracks (mine are the high ones, but that is Dana in the picture) after two days of skiing. Another prefectly sunny day! We took a few more laps on the upper part, and skied back to the hut after a second perfect day of skiing. The final damage looked something like this:

As you can see, we were making small, low speed turns, just like the italians., and there was nothing left to ski after the second day. The next day, we headed back into the front country. A whoppng hour and fifteen minutes from the hut, we were on top of the regular ski mountain again, attracting funny looks with our big packs.

The moral of this story is simple. The Italian Backcountry sucks. It takes too long to get there, there is nothing good to ski, and the huts are dumpy. The italians are absolutely right when they say that everything good to ski is groomed nightly. As for me, I might not be checking my email for a while. Please address correspondences to Refugio Elisabetta.

Prosciutto and Me

Italy is the home of probably hundreds of delicious “salumi”. The word salumi is not to be confused with salami, which in itself is not the same as the American product that shares the same word. Salami Piccanti, in Italia, are what we Ameicans call pepperoni. Pepperoni, in Italy, is the word for peppers, which has absolutely nothing to do with our bastardization of the word, I imagine. Pepperoni here are pretty much just like peppers in America. You’ve got your red, green, and yellow, and they are all wonderfully succulent, unless you buy them from the Eurospin. Not very exciting.

But American Pepperoni, or Salami Piccanti, are really good here. Imagine a Slim Jim, or a typical-supermarket American Pepperoni. Then imagine feeding those products to your dog, because that is what Italians would do if you showed up in Italy claiming that American Pepperoni are edible. Salami Piccanti are just one type of salami here, and all of them are better than anything we have in the Land of the Free. Which brings us back to salami in general. Salami here are 100 percent pork products, deliciosouly ground and blended with their own fats. There’s nothing I like better than fatty meat, and there are more kinds to try than I have been able to get my hands on. Each region has their own salami, with the meat ground to different fineness and different spices added. You can find them hung from the celing at any fine grocer. Salami here rock my world in a way that “salami” in America never could, and I think Francis Scott Key would agree with me.

Which brings us finally back to salumi. What you know as salami, in the Home of the Brave, does exist here. It is called “Hungarian Salami”, because, if you think about it, it really is just a giant version of the traditional salami, and every knows that Hungarian meat is bigger, right? But Hungarian Salami here is actually a salume. Where does one draw the distinction? Well, you need a meat slicer to serve this stuff, and it is sliced thin and presumably eaten on sandwiches, instead of served by itself, by homeless people. How could I be so insensitive? Because Hungarian Salami is arguably the least prestgious of all the saulmi in Italy, with the only other contender being mortadella. Other more fanciful salumi include the esteemed proscuitto crudo, coppa, speck, pancetta, bresaola, mocetta, lardo, culatello, and cotto.

Italy, for all its culinary ingenuity and prowess, reaches its peak at raw meat. I have been here for a few months, and I still cannot stuff enough salumi into my fat face. I might be in love with prosciutto crudo. I don’t care if it’s di Parma, San Danielle, or Toscano. It doesn’t matter if I eat it plain, with grissini, with cheese, or draped over melon. Just as long as it is raw, fatty, and salty, I will eat it. Today after skiing (there’s the skiing reference) I might have eaten over a pound of Crudo, but maybe I didn’t and I just wish that I had. The other salumi are great, but give me the crudo!

A lot of food snobs reading this might say, “but Hannafords sells prosciutto crudo for $14.99 per pound!” I retort by first pointing out that the fat bald guy who is cutting your crudo has absolutely no idea how to do it. You’ll end up with pieces of cured skin, or he’ll cut away all of the fat on the outside. The slices will be too thick to chew, and he will just plop them all down on top of each other like they were some cheap cold cut, virtually eliminating any chance of your true enjoyment of the product. Look at this picture:

Note how the slices don’t overlap. They are thin and have fat around the edges, with no skin. And then I would tell you that each slice costs less than half the price it would go for at Hannaford. That is exciting.

I hope we have all learned something today. From pepperoni to salami to salumi, if it is raw the Italians know how to do it better. I need to go eat some more right now.

Skiing and Culture

My friend Ian is pretty much doing the same thing as I. Except that Ian skipped winter and headed south of the Mason-Dixon Line. In fact, he headed south of the equator. And then he headed west and lost a day of his life to end up in Australia, "the land of the receding neck line" or some such reference to the harlots who inhabit the presumably clay abodes that comprise the shelter for most of the savagaes who live in such an uncivilized country. I was also reading Admiral Lord Nelson's History of the West Indies (HRM Press, 1806) and apparently Australia is full of criminals as well as wild natives. Bon Voyage, Ian!

Oh, and Ian is also working. He has a legal Visa, and pays for an apartment. He probably receives compensation for his services and pays taxes. Like me, Ian has a blog. It's pretty much what you'd expect from someone who beat out the likes of me to win his high school's literature award: well written, well-researched, thoroughly spellchecked, and largely self-inflating. You can find it HERE. Ian actually inspired me to start a blog, so I should probably credit him for that. While I'm at it, I'd like to thank Ian for teaching me how to dominate the Foosball table, and I'd like to apologize for being so much better than him at the aforementioned test of testicular strength.

Maybe I have a slight blog inferiority complex, and it was not helped when I received the following email from Ian:

"Hey, your blog has a lot of spelling and grammar errors; why don't you talk about things other than skiing you snow slave?"

Well, I am going to ignore the former comment and I'd like to offer a rebuttal to the subtle accusation that I all I do in Italy is ski. I have been very busy with a variety of activities that may or may not be more worthwhile than curing cancer, and I will now offer proof with photo and dictatorial documentation of said activities.

1) I have been very active in the viticultural sector of society. As a matter of fact, I just spent almost thirty euro on wine. 18 bottles of wine. You read that properly. Thank you, Eurospin.

2) I did what every stereotypical Italian does - went to the Opera. Michela and I went to the Teatro alla Scala, supposedly some big-time opera house, and saw Madama Butterfly. Don't believe that someone with such a sweet goggle tan would go to the opera? Check this:
3) My good friends Adam and Hannah were here last week, and we went on an epicurial expedition of epic proportions. We saw some major sites and ate far too much food.

So I have been doing at least three things that have nothing to do with skiing. And I swear that even if it weren't raining, I would have done at least one of these three things.

Back to Milano

I'm back in Milano after skiing a lot of really good snow all week. So far, the traveling has been working out perfectly: I've left when the snow is getting skied out and returned after a new snowfall. For all the latest happenings, check out Dana's blog:


Eurotrashed

I'll be posting some new stuff soon. I can't wait for Adam and Hannah to get here.

Pic

Yesteray was a great powder day, but I am heading to London today so no skiing. I know. Anyways, here's a picture of Mt. Blanc from my little excursion on Monday. There are two groups of people in the snowfield - see if you can spot them! Everything is HUGE out here.

More Cowbell

First the bad news, then the good news. Courmayeur has a fever, and the only cure is apparently NOT more cowbell. Sorry Christopher Walken, but in Courmayeur, the only cure is more grooming. We’ve already brushed over the grooming situation, but what you may or may not know is how vehemently I feel about destroying all groomers. I would actually consider going all “Monkey Wrench Gang” on groomers, except for the fact that only dirty hippies like The Monkey Wrench Gang. Reason number 8.039.039 (note the euro number system) why groomers are the worst invention since colonial-era British military formations is that the groomers compact soft and wet snow, creating wonderful sheets of ice, complete with indented snowcat treadmarks to destroy your knees. It’s been warm here for over a week, and they groom all the trails every night. Can anyone guess what this means? At Killington, it would be called a “great 50-inch base”. At Bretton Woods, it would be called “2 inches of new snow!!!”. But in my book, it’s called really hard ice. It hurts when you fall, you can’t get an edge in (even with alpine skis), and it is not going to get any better because it causes everyone to slide right over it. When I own a ski mountain, obsessive-compulsive grooming will not be allowed!

The good news is this: everywhere that hasn’t been groomed is still actually pretty good. In the trees and anywhere else that doesn’t get a lot of sun, the snow is soft and forgiving. We need more snow though.

So grooming turns skiing telemark into an excersize in self arrest (Swick might want to try this). But there are still lots of wonderful things about skiing in these shitty conditions in Europe. For instance, this weekend Michela, Evan, Liz, and I skied. We also stopped to have lunch at a bar. Please remember that bars in Italy are not like bars in the US. A bar here is where you go for cappuccino in the morning. So we stopped for lunch, and I got this delicious plate of potatoes with melted cheese and speck. It puts Cannon Mountain Hamburgers to shame, and it only costs 5 euro. Plus, you can get beer, or wine, or grappa. Eating here really puts the fun back into Funivia.

Other items making the list of pros include the weather. When I was in Courmayeur in August 2005, it was cloudy a lot. Yes, I know that we all come from a place that gets 366 cloudy days a year, even leap years, but the Italians were not pleased. As a matter of fact, I was not able to climb anything that entire month because the Italians apparently do not go outside when it is cloudy. This was exceptionally irritating, especially because I had been hiking all summer and was in great climbing shape. I was annoyed that they would not do anything because of clouds.

A lot has happened since I last wrote, but something that has not happened is this: it has not snowed. Now, I think pretty much all three people reading this are from New England, and we all know that a winter without snow can only mean two things: awesome ice climbing, or freezing rain for weeks on end. Some of you avid outdoorspeople might be thinking that freezing rain and good ice climbing usually go hand in hand in New England, but who asked you? But don’t despair! I now understand (partially) why Italians are so hesitant to anything when it is cloudy. It’s not because the mountains are so high that clouds down low could mean snow up high, but rather because they are not accustomed to clouds. Since it last snowed, it has been perfectly clear and sunny every day. I’m not going to count, but that’s almost two weeks of constant sunshine. Ridiculous! This has never happened in the history of New England, I am sure.

Constant sunshine does spell doom for the groomed runs, as I mentioned before, but it opens up a few exciting doors. First, you can sit outside without hats and gloves to eat your delicious lunch. Second, everything is warmer here. It doesn’t really get “cold” in town. It will snow, but 25 degrees Fahrenheit is not bad (to us). I can walk around town for hours without a hat or gloves. That’s nice. Most importantly, though, sunshine means that you can go do things at altitude. This place is a playground. You take a tram up, go climb something, and stop at a bar for lunch before climbing something else. I can’t wait for people to get here so that we can go explore. Even without the skiing, there is so much to do in the mountains. Today I went for a hike from Punto Helbronner, towards the Dente del Gigante. It was a gorgeous day, and I was able to hike in just my long underwear top. It was great to get the crampons out, and scope out the possibilities when someone else is with me.

An idea

Here's a picture of the Toula glacier. Hopefully this helps give you an idea of what you can ski here. The lower Cesso is hidden, but the Passarella is pretty clear, except the top, which cuts right up to the hut. I know, you'll have to click it to be able to read what it says. Deal.

By the way, this photo was taken from a trail at Courmayeur.

22 Days Until Italy

Hey Russ,

Hope everything is going well. I haven't checked the Courmayeur snow report lately, but we are getting pretty pumped for the trip. Only 22 days until departure.

Swick

Video

Here's a video from last Sunday at Champoluc. I think there are a few things to notice. First, that I was able to get a video onto the blog. O'Doyle rules! Second, that the previous sentence was my second Adam Sandler reference in the blog. Ouch. Finally, we get to the important stuff.

There were a lot of people skiing on Sunday. The weekends were a lot more crowded than the weekdays. We had to wait about 45 minutes for one lift. Of course, this was a slow double chair that everyone had to take to get back to the base. Great organization, guys. But, Champoluc was closed Saturday due to high winds. I don't think closing an entire mountain is ever the correct call, but higher up on the mountain everything that hadn't been groomed was blown clean. Scary. Good thing Courmayeur didn't get that wind, or I wouldn't be skiing the Toula again this year. But, let's all keep in mind that they are all Euro weenies and will never ski anything tough.

You might also notice that all of the snow is in the middle of the trail. Euros wouldn't be able to create decent moguls if you spraypainted the snow for them. They just slide down the ice and push it into giant mounds. This is annoying, but means there is usually a narrow line of good snow somewhere.

Sex or Weightlifting

A damn good Adam Sandler skit. And now here's somthing I received today from my brother, which I shall call:

[Sex or Weightlifting, by Matthew A Johanson]

I had 7 hours of lecture today so I came up with a list of reasons why Utah is better than Italy. I won't rank them because they are all important. Enjoy!

The women. Utah has poster children for eugenics- blond hair blue eyed and inbred. Italy has the girls that work at intemessimi (or however you spell it) and thats about it

The religious sites. The Temple is at least THREE times as impressive as the Vatican

Food. Who needs Bisteca Fiorentina, gnocchi, and pizza when you have Shooting Star Burgers

3.2 beer vs. Chiantis and Barollos... this one might be a draw, but PBR is only $1 six days out of the week

Utah fashion rocks (temple garments, for example) You can't even pronounce most of the clothing in italy... Ver- say- si?

The mountains in Utah have ONE lift to the top, while in Italy you have to take three long trams. How inconvenient!

Utah has sick skiers shredding the gnar and telling you 1. how they turned down roles in TGR and MSP films 2. How sweet they are 3. How money/ill/blower/rad/gnarly that last run was; while Europe is filled with sissys who ski only the marked pistes at very slow rates of speed

Pictures

Davide on the lower Toula.

Looking up at the Toula. Our tracks are the highest that traverse and come down on the right side of the picture. We also got first tracks on the middle part the day before.



Alfredo coming into the lower part of the Cesso.



Alfredo coming out of the Cesso.

Yep, they are both snowboarders! Davide is probably the best snowboarder I've seen, and he almost, for a brief instant, made me think that snowboarders are OK. But then I snapped out of it. Sorry Dana.

I didn't bring the cable to Milan, so I can't put up any pictures from Thursday-Saturday, but they were all great days.

Shared Blog

I have invited some people who are going to be out here to write in this blog too. I don't really care if it happens, but at least I am not totally to blame anymore if the blog sucks. Feel free to write about preparation, or about skiing/climbing in New England.

If only Gucci made ski clothes

Europeans have always been famous -in circles where Liberace is still a hot topic- for their style. I only brought a pair of jeans and a tee shirt with me for six months (everything else is for skiing), so you can immagine where I stand on their ridiculous costumes. But, having vowed to discuss all things Euro-skiing and having aleady started this sentence with a conjunction, I will venture to delve into some style points.

Europe is not as cold as New England, due to the Jet Stream flowing smoothly up from the gulf (can we charge them for that?). But it was below zero (celsius - learn it!) for the past week. There were still lots of people skiing without hats or gloves. Granted, most of these people are still doing the "Noodle" alla Harkin Banks in Hot Dog... The Movie and are seriously overexerting themselves, but still... their ears are white! Is it worth losing over 50% of your sound reception so that you can look oh-so-smooth on the mountain? I would love to see someone get a finger amputated here. That would probably not teach them anything, or they would have started adopting practical fashions years agao, but it would still be justice.

Look at me! I'm sponsored! This is what Europeans are saying to you when you look at their jackets. In America we have a few of these, too. You can get a Spyder jacket for 500 dollars, or you can get the same Spyder jacket with the same sponsors as Bode Miller for 650 dollars. The only thing is, Bode doesn't pay for his jackets. I bet if he could get the same jacket without logos for free, he would. And Bode is not in the 1500 SAT range. Not even with the new SATs. In America, we laugh at this and at the rare New Yorker who comes to Killington with his Bode Jacket and his Rosignol Cut rental skis. In Italy, I am such a loser - the only company on my jacket is the one that made it!

So if the skier is wearing a normal jacket and a hat and gloves, evrything is wavy gravy, right? I think we all know I wouldn't have posed this question if the answer were a simple yes. The probem with Euros who wear hats is that they wear hats like this (minus the face paint, so far):Seriously. They wear these ridiculous hats with fake hair popping out of their domes in weird colors. And they think it makes them fashionable.

So we can take a few key points from these observations to avoid being ostracized.
1) Try to avoid functional clothing at all costs.
2) If you are going to use functional clothing, make sure it looks as close to useless as possible, while still looking like you gave up two weeks of lap dances at Club Super Sex to afford it.
3) When in doubt, maintain an air of total smuggness.

Europacks

Today I skied the “backcountry” again. Does anyone else ever look at some “bakcountry skiing” backpacks and wonder who the hell would buy them, much less which two items one would actually put in these packs before they were overstuffed? Well, the answer is Euros. When you don’t need to do any hiking, and when every tram stop along the way to the top has a bar where you can buy food and drink, you can use a 15 Liter pack. I need to imagine 15 Nalgene bottles too, it’s OK. The answer to the second alf of the question is, of course, shovel and probe. They really don’t bring anyting else, and really don’t need anything else (cell phones don’t count because they are generally safely tucked between cheek and shoulder). People think I am trying to compensate for something else by wearing a 3000 cubic inch pack. Now that is a measurement that’s easy to visualize.

Here’s a warning to everyone who will be out here: get in shape if you want to ski this stuff. The altitude and snow are killing me (I am also on tele boards, but still…) Yesterday I only took two runs, and today I only took three. The third hardly counts because I never linked more than 3 turns together before falling. Today I skied the Cesso again, which was awesome. The snow was a lot more stable today and there was some new windblown snow in the Cesso so that was sweet. Then we skied the Cesso again, except dropping in from higher up (definite no-fall zone). Than we skied the Passarella, which means “Tiny Passage” . It is steeper and narrower than the Cesso; as Wayne Cambell would have said, “So it’s not just a clever name.” Noone had skied any of these things. Although today there were probably 50 or more people skiing up there, almost all of them just ski the standard route. Those three runs did me in. It is about 3500 vertical per run, which is pretty sweet. The guy skiing with me today has skied from the summit of Mt. Blanc to Courmayeur (over 10000 vertical). Awesome.

I am trying t put up some pictures, because today it was sunny and warm, but it’s giving me trouble. Eventually you’ll see the Cesso and the Toula. Start running those stairs!

Added: Damn pictures wont go on the dialup connection. What's with the font change??

"I just lost a bet...to myself"

So after my last post I completely ignored my own thoughts and went backcountry skiing today. First, let’s keep in mind what backcountry can mean here. In today’s case, it means taking a tram up the mountain and skiing down a glacier. What, that’s not backcountry? This lift was part of the ski mountain until a huge avalanche killed a few hundred people in the seventies, or something like that. So now the tram is used to take the turists to 3000 meters to look around. And yes, I have done that. It is slightly unaccessible - you actually have to take three separate trams to the top.

Second, I didn’t go by myself. I am making friends (and valuable connections). I went with one guy who was a ski bum at Chamonix for two years and who moved here for the winter (“too many people in Chamonix”). There were three other guys, too, all with lots of experience and knowedge of the terrain (another ski bum, a ski insturctor and a mountain guide).

Yesterday I mentioned that the snow was already sliding off the crust, and predicted high avalanche danger today. I was right. There were three Swedes ahead of us (we eight took the first tram(s) up at 10:30), and the first guy on the first pitch got caught up in a slide. But the crust was really stable so only the top layer was sliding, which might have been enough to bury him, but I doubt it. We had localized releases all, and we soon learned to jump on crests to cuase the slides before we started skiing them. I personally did not go first, on purpose. The skiing was decent. Our first run was the standard Toula glacier, which is not very steep, and the conditions were variable due to wind, which resulted in me taking many high-speed facepants on the tele boards everytime I hit windrift or got tired. I definitey felt the elevation, and I was dead after this run. Luckily, the trams close for two hours at midday, so I had plenty of time to recoup. My pals decided that they wanted to ski a line called “Canale del Cesso”, which means “The Toilet Canal”. It is a steep gully (43 degrees) that basically avoid the five minutes of traversing of the standard route and dumps you onto the lower Toula glacier after about 1000 vert. Sounds stupid to do when the snow is sliding? My friends roped up and took turns skiing and stopping quickly, releasing lots of small-to-medium sized avalanches on top of anyone skiing the standard route. Then we skied it, and it was awesome. The snow was actually really good and it was pretty steep. So that was it.

My new friends are pretty cool and they know a lot, and do a lot. Hopefully I can keep tagging along. All these Euros have those crazy airbag systems for staying above avalanches but I would rather just avoid them altogether. So tomorrow I’m heading back up there in the morning and probalby leaving early to get some chores done. The tram from Entreves is now open, which is nice.

Most of you readers are probably wondering why I write so much, and I assure you that I will probably stop writing this once other people get here to keep me entertained. In the meantime, deal.

P.S. Did I mention how HUGE the mountains are here? They're the size of mountains that don't seem to get any closer as you keep going towards them, and seem to get higher as you go up them.

And on the second day, "God said let there be snow"

First impressions are funny little guys. Even if they are totally wrong, they stay with you well past the second, and third. So today I tried to find negative attributes of the mountain, while of course trying to find the gnarliest lines through the tree, and the only thing I could think of was that the visibility was really poor. So it snowed probably two inches last night and it snowed all day, and it is still snowing. That is very good news for anyone who received the snow report yesterday, because that crust was some of the worst skiing I have experienced this year (maybe even last year too). So we went from the worst day of the year to the second best for me (Cannon Mountain opening day was mint). Two inches does not seem like a lot of snow, but the crust also softened up today. Not the “break through me and you will never get your ski back” kind of softening, more like the “drop that three-footer and I will soften your landing” kind. This made for some good skiing, but the visibility was very poor, so I decided to stick to the trees to gain depth perception.

If you know me, you know how much I hate to ski trees. It was very hard for me to ski through all of the freshies when all of the snow on the groomers was getting scraped off, but I gritted it out and only skied the groomers when I had to. Bottom line: with better snow I got to scope out a lot of what is in between Courmayeur’s 100 km of ski trails, and it is very sweet. As I hoped for, the trees are generally thin and moderately steep., the kind of glades where you can go fast and not worry about turning into an unforseen evergreen at full throttle. I fell once (I know, I know) and slid until a tree stopped me, which although probably due to the slippery crust, is still my preferential measurement for if a trail is steep enough. I normally let Swick measure the trail angle this way. There were some places that I scoped from the lift that look pretty scary with (probably) mandatory airs or no access at all unless your name is Jamie Pierre, but I didn’t give them a close look with such poor depth perception and while skiing alone. The best part? I only skied sloppy seconds a few times all day. It is a Tuesday, and I am pretty sure Italians do not ski unless it is sunny and warm, but I counted five people skiing in the trees all day, and two of them had definitely made a mistake to get there. So take heart, because the skiing is getting better and it looks like there is some stuff to keep everyone busy.

Skiing here sure is different. There is no base lodge. There is no place to leave your bag or your shoes. There are no lift attendants (Well, there are, but they sit inside and don’t do a thing). I watched three Brits try to get on a two-person lift together, and the dude didn’t even slow the lift down. I looked into the lift hut, and it was a kitchen. Seriously. The “liftie” was actually cooking pasta over a gas stove when I checked him out. And no, I did not check him out like that. The actual trails are mediocre. And by mediocre I correspondigly mean medium difficulty. Some of them might be really good if the snow is better and if there are bumps on them, or if I can see where I’m going. The bars at mid mountain are pretty sweet. I ordered an espresso and then realized I didn’t have any money. The guy gave me the espresso anyways and put some steamed milk in it too. I told him I’d bring money tomorrow. There is a fairly sad room to sit in where you can eat your own lunch if you bring it, and it is heated, so I can’t complain.

Some odds and ends: -The woods I skied were no more than 1200 vertical feet, but as long as no one is in them, who cares? -It rained all night and all morning in town, so there is very little snow that is just now starting to accumulate down here. –Due to lack of snow, the tram from Entreves is closed until at least this weekend, so I have to take a bus to Courmayeur and get on the lift there. This sucks, but it is actually a shorter walk than to the tram in Entreves. In addition, Google is on vacation here (you know how they take all their employees on vacation every year?) and they have actually reserved a chairlift until Thursday. This would be totally inconsequential as it is a lift from town and serves only to access the upper slopes with snow on them, but for now it means that I have to change buses to ski. I am starting to figure out the bus system so it’s not so bad, and it is also free, so I guess it beats driving an hour to ski. –One guy today skied out of bounds from the top of the highest lift. He went down a steep (45-50 degree) chute of at least 1000 vertical feet, that ends back in the ski area. Can anyone tell me why this is out of bounds other than to make sure that I get first tracks? –Sorry about the lack of pictures, but it snowed today so I didn’t want to bring the camera. With the visibility, you would only have gotten some low-quality first tracks shots anyways. The views, by the way, were amazing yesterday. Holy geez. -But speaking of shots, I got one face shot today, which brings us to…

FORECAST:

Towards the end of the day it was clear that the new snow, now up to about 4 inches, was not bonding with the crust underneath and I experienced some mini-avalanches. They were actually slab avalanches which is surprsing because I didn’t think that it was snowing hard enough or that there were enough winds for heavy overloading. I guess that with such a hard layer underneath anything that is not Utah-pow will slab up. By the way, the snow is lighter than New England snow, but it is certainly not like Utah. I’d say it is similar to Colorado, buy maybe a little heavier. That’s fine for this snow cover. It is supposed to get cold and sunny until Friday, so that can only mean good things for this snow. Either way, I’ll be careful about what I ski tomorrow. Unfortuantely, this snow is going to make it hard for me to get up into the high mountains by myself, so I’ll have to wait and see if I can go do some recon .

I am by myself up here right now while Michela is in school, and it kind of sucks. I am considering staying until the weekend and then heading down to Milan, where I might remain until Someone gets here. Not having any interactions outside of the bus driver is depressing, but I am reading a lot. Of course, this is 100% dependant on the snow. I hope this gives you an idea of life in Entreves, and I hope everyone is excited to get here.