Ski Tour Europe 2010 - Andermatt, Switzerland

Once we woke up to rain in Chamonix and all of our gear was soaked we jumped on a train and arrived in Andermatt, Switzerland. The best part about arriving at night is that you get to be amazed by the huge mountains when you wake up in the morning. We have skied Andermatt two days in a row, it has spectacular freeride terrain and un-touched soft snow days maybe weeks after a significant snow fall. There is this Knife ridge, ass clinching traverse that we discovered which dumps you out either in a sweet powder bowl back down to the resort or you can take a right at the "Y" and ski a huge cirque and then down to a creek that leads back into the middle of town, probably about 4000-4500ft total descent. Andermatt is so, so Awesome it would be very easy to stay here and get lost from the rest of the world.

Ski Tour Europe 2010 - Chamonix, France

The train ride to Chamonix was quite eventful. When we got off the train in Lausanne, Swtzlnd two boarder patrol came up and asked us to follow them into the station. They lead up through a maze of grey hallways and sterile offices to an obvious search and interrogation room. Here they called in another four officers and proceded to tare all our bags apart. They thought that we were transporting drugs because their yellow lab drug dog liked the smell of our bags....it was the stinky cheese an sausage that the dog really like, typical. When it was all said and done, Steve Jay got a full pat down and me a full on strip search. Jesus! After our intense encounter with the border patrol we were able to catch the last train to Chamonix. Arriving around 9:00pm we still had to figure out where we were sleeping that night. We had heard of a British Hostel in town but when we found it the Hostels  Bar Tender said they were full for the night. Our next option was a cheap year around campground that was in the next town 3km down valley. Since it was so late the bus lines and the trains were not running anymore so we ended up pushing our ski bags down the snowy wet road, hauling the rest of our gear on our backs. A brutal hour and half trek to Le Bosson, France dumped us into a campsite, but not before some round about route finding up and down some long hills. The next day we slept in, then went into Chamonix to pick up some topo maps and fuel for our camp stove. Chamonix is quite amazing with the mountains rising 4000 meters right next to town. After devouring some tasty sandwiches from "Mojo's Sandwich Shop" we caught the bus back to our camping. Waking early the next day we geared up and headed for the ski area on the west side of the Mt. Blanc valley, "Le Brevent." This area is mostly all south facing and huge with fun side country terrain. We skied two days here the first just cruising around getting our ski legs under us again, ha...I had a couple epic wrecks the most notable was flying into a cat track blowing out of a ski and face planting hard on to the hard pack, Ouch! I defiantly ate some snow and cracked my goggle lenses, not to mention the wicked skiers thumb I got as well. The ending run of the day day took us from the very top of the tram, so on top of a peak, all the way down a drainage to Chamonix descending about 1500+ meters. The next day was quite eventful, we ski toured from the lifts up some very steep slopes and to the top of a couple jagged exposed peaks. The view and feeling of being on top was awesome mountians as far as you can see. On our two tours that day Steve Jay's lines were very wind loaded and riped out. The First Avy he was able to straight line out of but the second one caught him and chundered him for about 200ft down slope. I thought I was gonna have to dig him out but miraculous he fought is way out on top. Their were definatly a couple teeth marks in his Avy Lung after that ride. The next Morning we awoke to rain down in the valley, when it rains while while winter camping and everything is soaked it just puts you in a sour mood. Sooo...we booked it out of France to Switzerland. I will up date y'all in the next post about our where abouts! Cheers!

Ski Tour Europe 2010 - Paris & Dijon, France

We arrived in Paris the morning of the 18th, got out of the airport and made it to Gare De Lyon. A main conecting train station for almost all of the Alps. We got there are around noon so we decided to walk around and check out a little bit of Paris. We stop and got a beer, did some people watching and picked up a couple grocieres before jumping a train to Dijon. Thats right...its where the mustards name comes from. We stayed the night in a hotel next to the train station so we could over to the station in the morning and figure out how we were going to get to the mountains. After Reserving some seats on a TGV train (high speed train) we strolled around the town and check out some typical European architecture and huge market selling everything from antiques to womens underwear to fresh produce. The Picture of the fountain is actually a spring that the town of Dijon was originally founded around.
A nice relaxing first day in Europe.

What I'm giving up for lent!

I am giving up America for lent! 40 days of fasting in Europe should be plenty of time to reflect, love and ski! I am spending the night in Denver tonight to wake up semi-early, book it to the airport with a ski bag and big backpack filled full of ski, camping and mountaineering gear plus a carry on filled full of computer and camera gear to get some sick picks of 1,500 meter ski lines and monster peaks. I will keep you all updated as the adventure unfolds!

Interior British Columbia Skiing

British Columbia is soo sick! And best experience dirt bag style, sleeping in the car and skiing super chill backcountry! a huge network of FREE HUTS are neat too! Here are some pic's of the last 4-5 days we enjoyed in BC before headed back to the motherland.