Coming Soon

Coming Soon, Courmayeur 2007 and Eurotrashed will present their first ever photo annual, with photos! It will be spectacular, with photographers from all over Entreves, Italy, weighing in with their contributions. All photos will be selected by a jury of our peers. Everyone who lives at 14 Rue Colle del Gigante will have a chance to vote, probably more than once. Be sure to check back, as I'm sure we'll be putting it up soon-ish.

Russ, I'll e-mail you the photos soon, probably.

Green and Gray

Those seem to be the colors of Courmayeur right now, not surprising given the season. It wouldn’t be any different at home in Vermont. Yet somehow it caught me by surprise, mostly, I think, because I have been so accustomed to shockingly blue skies and stark white mountains framed beneath them. Lately the mountains have lost their mantle and started turning new-life green, slowly at first but lately with a more powerful insistence. Entreves, where we live, was one of the last strongholds, a fact that we noted with pride while riding down the Mont Blanc tram. It held snow longer than the town of Courmayeur. It also was the last to get significantly green. Now it’s a moot point. The entire valley has given over to the other side, allowing flowers to bloom profusely. As much as I enjoy it, it’s one more reminder that winter is gone.

The gray is another new development. Today it’s raining, not the flirtatious young spring showers of yesterday that teased the sun but a persistent, mature downpour that’s not going to give up until it gets what it wants. From our balcony I can see the river running out of the Val Veny, fed by the Miage and Brenva glaciers, among others. It’s busy moving rocks the size of small houses in it’s rush downhill. The once-snowy chutes across the valley on the side of Mont Chetif, the same chutes we looked at longingly every day from the tram, wondering if they were skiable or not, are long white ribbons of runoff slowly melting away at the avalanche debris piled at the bottom.

Everything is slowly moving downhill, it seems.

Louise and I spent the last few days in Chamonix. While sitting at one of the cafes near the main roundabout in town, we saw more than a few cars with British plates, loaded down like college students after graduation, heading back to their island. Our favorite bar, a shockingly pink art-deco place perched above the Arve river in the center of town, was celebrating its last night, the English waitress told us. Les Grands Montets had their closing party, complete with pond-skimming, and then shut down. Most of the shops had end-of-season sales on just about anything you could want. Snell Sports, the biggest store in Chamonix, had moved all the skis to a miserable little room upstairs from the main floor, climbing rope hung where skis once stood stacked four pairs deep.

Maybe the Chamoniards understand how I’m feeling. In Courmayeur, far fewer do, I’m sure. Far fewer of them know what it means to really live by the seasons. They, like many others, conceptualize seasons as something abstract and economic: winter season in Courmayeur is a time to make money, followed by a spring shutdown and then a brief revival for a couple months of summer. They’re not so much living by the seasons as making a living by the seasons. But I think many of Chamoniards know differently. They know what it is to spend the rest of the year making a living so that they can live by the seasons. Winter’s end for them as well as for me, means one step closer to the return to the quotidian. Many of them will probably put it off and go climbing up high on the massif, as I’m doing, prolonging winter through elevation. But even that can only last so long before inevitable reality sets in. I’ll have to go back to wherever I’m supposed to belong and find something to do with my time, waiting for winter to set in again.

I’ll have to move downhill as well.

Dear Someone,

An open letter to all gear manufacturers.

Yes, in high school I called them label whores, people who proudly wore egregious labels on their clothes. I shunned them. I mocked them. But now I would like to be one.


Dear Black Diamond,
I am willing to overlook the fact that your climbing ski attachment system broke if you send me a pair of Verdicts, size 175 or so. I am not a good telemark skier but I am told that I faceplant like no one else. Maybe your skis would eliminate this, but I think not. Nonetheless this "skill" of mine would be a good selling point. "Who's that guy," people would ask each other, watching me delicately faceflop down a moderately inclined run. They would want to know me, to know how I could withstand such a beating, time and again. They would talk to me and say "Hey, nice skis. Why do you suck so bad?" And I would make mumbled responses through bleeding lips and black eyes but they would notice those skis. You can bank on that, Mr. Black Diamond Rep.

Dear Scarpa and Rottefella, and also Venture Snowboards,
Rottefella, your NTN bindings are great looking in the pictures I have found on the Internet. Finally, no stupid duckbill to get in the way of crampons (number of manufacturers making any sort of adapter for telemark boots that I know of: 1. Way to go Petzl! You can send me some, if you want). Scarpa, your boots look great, judging from the beater pair I saw downstairs in the one telemark shop in Chamonix. The liners looked a little cheesy, but heck, I'd still take a free pair. Here's the kicker, though. I've got a great plan. We already know that I suck at telemark skiing (see post above). So, for the reasons mentioned there, you'd get plenty of exposure through my lack of ability. But think of this: a snowboarder, ripping down Insane Clown Couloir, or something equally rad and sick, bro (pow, gnar - when you're on a bra-speak kick, it's hard to stop) and coming to stop on the glacier below it. He casually reaches down and clicks out of his really cool looking Voile mountain plates mounted to his Venture Divide split board, splits it apart and slaps on his Black Diamond skins and clicks in to the board-cum-skis with his awesome looking orange Scarpa boots on. Later on that day, while casually doing a mellow ice climb called Chips of Fury, he simply leaves his board at the bottom and straps his crampons on, toe and heel bail fitting perfectly, crampon and boot melding together like cheap American cheese on a greasy burger cooked over flames! Rejoice! No more ill-fitting crampon/snowboard boot interface! A real Vibram sole!! Not having to take any shit from elitist skiers about "those comfy little snowboard boots"!!! These are all things that could be real. I've got the plan, I just need the gear. People would be sure to ask questions. Why did you go to all that trouble? Who makes those boots? What kind of system is that? Scarpa, Rottefella, Venture, we could go far. Let's face it, snowboard equipment is still stuck in the adolescent phase. Someone actually tried to sell me a pair of hemp snowboard boots with a "onie" pocket. If you don't know what a "onie" is, talk to your kid's weed dealer. He knows. Snowboarders want crampon-compatible boots with a Vibram sole. They want a splitboard that is light, skins well, and doesn't have traditional strap bindings. We could give them this, guys. I could be the first, unassuming as I am. Don't be afraid to dream, friends. Don't be afraid at all.

Dear EuroSpin of Italy,
You provide such great quanitites of low-quality food at such low prices. I know. I've been eating it for the past two months. And I've grown to love you with all my heart. I'm not asking for much, just a standard sponsorship agreement. I'll proudly wear your colors if you take an additional 25% off your already ridiculously low prices. Also, if you would call me when new shipments of that cheap champagne that I like arrive, that'd be great too.

Why’d you hike up that?

Today we went to Cervinia, which is like Zermatt, but Italian. They have the Matterhorn, all right, but not the view you’d recognize. Pretty nice town, Cervinia, but it’s not quite Zermatt, somehow. Smaller, sure, quieter for certain. Fewer deadly electric cars that sneak up on you like squat pumas, pouncing at the last moment, scattering groups of Japanese tourists like frightened gulls. Seems like most of the Italian ski towns are like that…same mountain as their cross-the-border counterparts without the international fame and recognition. Or the crowds on powder days. Or any days. That must be because they suck. Badly. Don’t come to Italy to ski, even if you lose a bet.

Ironically, even though Cervinia, like all the Italian mountains is totally heinous and virtually unskiable, we managed to find a couple of lines that looked like fun. Surprisingly, there was no lift to the top of them nor even, shockingly, a snack bar once we got to the top. Just a large cylindrical building with what looked like a satellite antenna and four canisters marked “Oxygen” in bold white letters. The cylinder stood sentinel over a large, lonely bowl full of creamy spring corn, finally softened at 12:00 by the oblique rays of the sun. Russ and I stood near the cylinder catching our breath. The south-facing approach had more than softened up by the time we got to it and what looked like easy walking turned out to be 45 minutes or so of thigh-deep postholing followed by desperate scrambling on loose shale. The best part was, we were in full view of the lift attendant who no doubt was thinking “What the hell are they doing?”

Well, we knew what we were doing. Or at least had the confidence that we knew what were doing.

At the top we surveyed the run and watched the chairlift spin in the distance, relishing the fact people were no doubt sitting on the lift, sweat-free and breathing normally, thinking “Why’d you hike up that?”

They’ll probably never know why we hiked up a mostly-melted out ridgeline but 400 vertical meters of creamy turns, a rock drop or two and a tight chute finishing in a series of rollers more than answered the question for us.

Hut Trip, cont.

The hut itself. Yes, that is a glacier in the background.

Skiing is so hard when the snow sucks. Luckily it didn't here. Weeze laying down some pretty tracks.

We all know that skiing makes people tired. It also makes skis tired. These three pair are soaking up some rays and getting ready for tomorrow's turns.

Hut Trip: Elisabetta Soldini Refuge

Before you can play, you have to pay. Weeze, charging it.

More Payment. Nice scenery, but gosh, so many ski tracks!

Play time. We barely managed to find this stash of fresh snow. There were only 1,209,234,235 more like it.

Cold smoke with no helicopters anywhere in sight. Russ getting down.

Do you have it?

Anyone who has ever ski-bummed, or even anyone who has lived in an area where skiing is the primary winter activity has heard this term. Towards the end of the season it creeps up on nearly everyone, slowly, naggingly, until it’s presence is as palpable as the stench emanating from the long underwear drawer. It shortens days on the mountain, prompting otherwise zealous skiers into calling it quits after only a few runs. It has nothing directly to do with the weather, the snow, or muscle fatigue but it is absolutely indirectly related to all those things. A different form of it can be seen in marathon runners who, having focused their energy for months and months on a specifics 26.2 mile goal suddenly find themselves burning their running shoes the day after the race and wondering what it would be like to take up shuffleboard instead.

It’s called ski-sickness and I might have it.

Ski-sickness is an awful condition because it puts you into a complicated situation, one that is difficult to explain to someone.

“Yeah,” you say, “I’m just tired of having fun skiing.”

Your friends look at you as if you had just sprouted another head. “Right,” they intone slowly, “you’re tired of an activity that consumes the thoughts of a good portion of the population during their working hours in the winter, an activity that spurs them to work extra hours to earn vacation time and extra money to buy lift passes, clothes, gear, rent condos, and travel all over the world. You’ve had enough? Must be rough.”

Surprisingly, it is. For the past five months it’s all I’ve done. I skinned up the barely snow covered trails at Stowe for the privilege of sliding down a fairly awful mixture of grass, rocks, and wind crust that left me wondering what the hell I was doing. But I knew that it was fun and, lacking the motivation to find what people in my peer group call a real job, I made it my purpose. I scratched my way down the early season snow at Stowe, one trail of man-made blue-and-icy snow on my telemark skis, dreaming of the day when it would be powdery instead of icy, dreaming of a time when I would be somewhat proficient in my turns instead of sliding awkwardly around with one ski weighted and the other doing a poor imitation of an injured bird’s wing dragging along behind. Through the frustration and pain that came with learning to telemark came a certain sense of satisfaction that I was learning something. February came and with it the move to the Italian Alps. Russ hadn’t had too many good reports about the snow here, but this all changed as soon as we arrived. Three feet of fresh snow and a total lack of motivated off-piste skiers was absolute heaven for weeks, it seemed. We were skiing powder almost every day with only a little effort. This, I told myself, was what I had been hoping and preparing for all winter, all through the fall when I ran and rode my bike everyday and did horrible ski-racer exercises that would make my powder turns just that more enjoyable. It seemed as if finally my goals were being achieved, limited as they were.

And then the snow stopped. It rained, blasphemy in the Alps. The Alps, for Chrissakes! It’s not supposed to rain there. On the East coast of the USA, fine, I’ll accept that as part and parcel of the deal, but the Alps? No way. But rain it did, and it stomped our skiing pretty hard. There was still plenty of snow, for the most part, but it wasn’t quite the same. Periodically we’d get little storms that would leave a few inches and we’d ski it for days, finding little powder pockets all throughout the mountains. But it seemed as if the denouement of the season was upon us, the climax reached and surpassed. Now instead of anticipating the next big storm we were grasping at the remnants of old ones come and gone.

With the skiing at the resort growing increasingly mediocre we took a trip up the valley to a hut at the foot of Petit Mont Blanc. On the way up to the hut from the top station at the resort we found great snow and no tracks. The hut itself was anything but basic. We arrived expecting to find a little winter room with some mattresses on the floor, dark and dirty, but out of the wind and weather and easier to carry than a tent. What we found instead was a spacious room with solar-lighting, three levels of bunk beds with mattresses, pillows, and blankets, and a large outdoor patio with benches where we could relax in the sun after skiing. Despite there being 24 beds we were the only ones there and were the only visitors since the beginning of March. To top it all off, the snow around the hut was completely untracked. We spent the next few days putting in skin tracks and reaping the rewards of powder perfect snow from ankle to knee deep on a good solid sun-crust base. Avalanche danger was low on northern aspects and we all felt really strong. Meanwhile we could look down the valley to the resort and the see the resort socked in with dense lead-gray clouds. The morning we left the clouds had moved up the valley to encircle us and the ski out was appropriately somber. We were heading to Sicily with Michela for an Easter vacation, something that all of us were looking forward to with mixed emotions. We knew on some level that this trip marked the end of the season in some way. Sure, we’d ski when we got back, but by that time the tram near our house would be closed so it would mean taking a bus to the main tram every morning. A chapter was definitely coming to a close.

A week in Sicily spent visiting ancient Greek temples and theaters, watching traditional Easter parades in which Sicilian men carry really heavy religious floats around on their shoulders for a full 24 hours, and lounging on the beach and swimming in Mediterranean left us all happy to have been there but equally happy to return to the mountains. In our absence, however, a lot had changed. The tram had closed. The free bus was finished for the season. There was more dirt than snow on the lower parts of the mountain and the snow that was left was like skiing through luke-warm instant mashed potatoes. It was…demoralizing. We tried the glacier the next day, finding that it too had suffered some abuse. The sun had baked it during the Easter vacation week when hordes of Milanese had descended its flanks, digging deep trenches in the sun-baked snow that hardened into deep ruts and ridges. Lower down where the temperatures remained high even at night the snow had become almost consolidated but oddly bottomless so that skis and boards sank deep into it as if the mountain was actively trying to pull you down with every turn.

The feeling of the season had changed. It was tired. It needed a rest. It wanted you to leave it alone.

Weeze and I decided to listen to it, at least for a day. Russ, bolstered by the recent purchase of a used pair of alpine skis, decided to go for it again, skiing the glacier with our Swedish friends, Pelle and Stian. But it left us all with a strange feeling of emptiness, this knowledge that the season was slowly closing in on us. There’s still plenty of snow higher up, there’s still plenty of climbing to do, and the thrill of this place still has us in its thrall. But for the moment we’ve got to get over a little bout of ski-sickness. It’ll probably just be a little 24 hour bug followed by a quick recovery. Skiing’s still fun, after all. But too much of a good thing is still too much.