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.