Tag Archives: Travel

Tahoe! (Take One)

Posted on January 31, 2014 | Comments Off on Tahoe! (Take One)

I just spent the last few days staying with some friends in Reno, NV.  Now, my intent was to spend about a week skiing in the Lake Tahoe area.  Those of you who don’t live in the Western US (and who aren’t weather-obsessed skiers) might not be aware, but everything on the West coast is running way, WAY under the normal amount of snowfall this winter.

This fancy weather infographic even shows it:

Ooooooooh.

(For skiing, red = bad, green = okay, dark blue/purple = good)

Normally the Tahoe area during ski season looks something like this:

Okay, got it?  Good.  That’s a photo from the Northstar ski area.  Careful observation will show that there is a lot of snow in the picture.

Right now Northstar-At-Tahoe looks like this:

Very pretty, but lacking in snow.  I’d say about 2/3 of the ski area is closed.

Now, the good news is that Northstar actually has snowmaking and a grooming crew that would be right at home at one of those Eastern mountains that doesn’t get any snow:

So there were at least a few trails that were workable.  The other problem is that it was about FIFTY DEGREES at the base there, with Reno and most of the region getting close to record highs for late January.

So that was too depressing.  I was supposed to stay in Reno until this Friday and then travel to Salt Lake City, but I had to get out of there.  So I drove from Reno to Salt Lake, which was… boring.  Like really, really boring.  Except the part where the crosswinds threatened to blow my car off the highway.

The good news is that there was actually some snow forecast in SLC, and the EpicSki Gathering crew is arriving there next week (http://www.epicski.com/t/119773/utah-gathering-2014-set-for-2-7-feb-2014).  So look forward to upcoming exciting reports on all that next week.

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Matt and Lili’s Excellent Adventure, Part 2: All That Other Stuff In Europe

Posted on January 29, 2014 | Comments Off on Matt and Lili’s Excellent Adventure, Part 2: All That Other Stuff In Europe

Sorry for the long break; it turns out traveling internationally while trying to work and ski doesn’t leave a lot of free time.  Especially when jet lag has you falling unconscious at 6PM or so.

Val Thorens

So… Val Thorens is fine, I guess.  If you like stunning high alpine vistas:

Delicious French food:

(er, note to self: next time photograph delicious French meal before eating it.)

And bluebird days with wide-open, empty, beautifully groomed trails and more off-piste terrain than you can shake a stick at:

I guess if you’re into that kind of stuff it’s not so bad.

Val Thorens (www.valthorens.com) is the highest village in the “Trois Vallees” (Three Valleys, http://www.les3vallees.com) ski area in France, south of Chamonix and near the Italian border.  Unlike the other ski areas we visited in Europe, Val Thorens was essentially built from the ground up as a destination ski resort in the early 1970s.  This has pluses and minuses.  It doesn’t have the history and charm of a place like Zermatt or St. Anton, and some of the early architecture is, to put it charitably, uninspired.  On the other hand, it has an unbelievably good village layout where almost every piece of lodging is ski-in/ski-out or close to it and you can walk everywhere.

The week that we spent in France had unseasonably warm temperatures — Val Thorens is the highest point in the Three Valleys at 2300m (about 7000 feet), and it was above freezing in the village every day.  It was extremely warm down further in the valleys, which was really doing a number on the snow.  Above 2000m things stayed relatively solid, but much further down than that and things got very slushy and/or icy.  So we spent a lot of time skiing in Val Thorens itself.

Even without fresh snow the skiing in Val Thorens was pretty damn good.  With a big powder dump it must be off the charts — just the obviously accessible off piste terrain looked incredible, with a huge variety of difficulty available.

We did visit the other ski areas.  Meribel was a charming village with some great ski slopes.  The day we went over to Courcheval, however, conditions were a mess, and there were just way too many people crammed on the slopes over there.  We literally skied one run there and just turned right around.  Orelle, on the other side of Val Thorens, was beautiful:

The last night we spent in France we ended up staying down in Moutiers, which is where the train station is.  And no visit to Valais would be complete without seeing the fabulous local dairy cooperative:

And their shiny new robotic cheese cave:

So all in all I’m going to say that Val Thorens was a big success:

 

Verbier

I’m going to be honest — we weren’t as impressed with Verbier as we were with St. Anton or Val Thorens.  Maybe it was the overpriced shops, maybe the people weren’t just as nice, maybe we just got it on a bad week.

But it wasn’t all bad.

There was snow:

And food:

And a little sun:

And even some powder:

The problem with the skiing in Verbier was that we went there the week after those abnormally high temperatures across central Europe.  Verbier isn’t as high up as Val Thorens, so a lot of the lower pistes were in really, really bad shape.  Even a couple days of moderate snowfall couldn’t really salvage that skiing.  But when we went higher up and stayed off the pistes, it was a whole different experience.  I can see how if the conditions were much better, and you were equipped to go way off-piste, the skiing there could be unbelievable.

But even crummy pistes and high prices couldn’t ruin things entirely:

So… Europe!  Land of mystery and enchantment!  And cheese!  And nutella!  And high costs of living!  And sometimes snow!  Not a bad place to spend a month traveling around.

Stay tuned for our return to the US, and ski adventures on the West Coast!

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Verbier!

Posted on January 14, 2014 | Comments Off on Verbier!

After a long trip from Val Thorens with a stopover in Moutiers (France), we finally arrived in Verbier last night.  In the middle of a blizzard.  With all our bags.  Whereupon we hailed a taxi whose driver seemed to have no idea where our chalet was (despite having both the street address and a Google Maps printout with the location marked.)  After a couple laps around the town square we finally arrived.  This morning we woke up to:

SNOW!!!!

Unfortunately, the visibility quickly turned into something like this:

and kept getting worse.  We saw lots of people coming *down* off the mountain, so we decided that maybe we’d just go for breakfast at the Offshore Cafe:

The next problem was that my trusty ski jacket decided this was the right time to have a catastrophic main zipper failure.  Ugh.  Maybe fixable, but not in the middle of a week in Verbier.  So now Lili’s happy because we get to go SHOPPING!!!  For a ski jacket.  In one of the most expensive ski resorts in the world.  In peak season.  Yay.

The first problem was finding anything that would fit me.  Europeans, it seems, don’t believe in ‘big and tall’ sizing.  It looked grim at first, but we did find a few shops with some jackets that would fit me.  The second problem was that ski jackets in Verbier cost only marginally less than a used car.  But after visiting pretty much every sport shop in town we did eventually manage to find a workable new Salomon ski jacket for me that will not require a second mortgage.  Look for it in this week’s pictures!

Then, about 2:30 PM, the skies began to clear and the visibility dramatically improved.  But at that point it was too late for us to try to ski today — by the time we got back to our chalet, changed into our boots, and got onto the lifts it would have been at least 3, if not 3:30.  So we just enjoyed the view:

And we’ll be out to hit what’s left of the powder tomorrow.  Looks like clear weather for a day, then another storm system rolling in.  Hopefully we’re not snowbound the rest of the week!

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St. Anton (again)

Posted on January 4, 2014 | Comments Off on St. Anton (again)

I’ve got the clock ticking down on our hotel WiFi here, so I’ll try to make this quick!  We’ve been in St. Anton for a few days, seeing the sights and slopes.  Some more pictures should eventually make their way to Flickr, but here are a few that I managed to sort out and upload (click through for bigger versions):

A view from the ride up to the Valluga (the highest point in the Arlberg):

Looking down on some birds from the top:

I found this up at the top (!):

Sunset (and moonrise) in St. Anton:

A bit foggy today, but we managed:

The forecast for tomorrow: SNOW!  Not sure if we’ll be able to ski (visibility was pretty bad the other day, could be worse tomorrow), but on Monday they’re saying we’re gonna get bright sunshine.  I’m hoping for some drool-worthy shots from Lech.  Stay tuned!

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Matt and Lili’s Excellent Adventure: Part 0

Posted on December 21, 2013 | 1 comment

So I got married in October.  As part of that whole process there was a lot of discussion about where our lives were going, and where our careers were going, and where we wanted them to go in the future.  Bucket lists were discussed.  Dreams were voiced.  Crazy ideas were floated.  The most immediate result of that process: we’re going skiing and travelling.  More or less for six months.  Leaving tomorrow.  (Well, technically much later today.)

Based on reactions of people at the wedding and that we have told about this in the last month, I have prepared this handy list of frequently asked questions:

Q: Wait, what?  You’re leaving?

Yep.  We’re flying to London tomorrow.

Q: When are you coming back?

We’re back from Europe next month.  Then the US leg of the tour starts!

Q: What?  There’s more?

You betcha.  After that Lili is headed to LA for a couple weeks, and then she’s meeting me in Salt Lake City, and then we’re going on a road trip to ski and visit people for the next few months.

Q: But what about your job(s)?

For a variety of reasons that I don’t want to delve into right now, 6-12 months ago I started thinking about leaving my job after the wedding.  Then some really crazy things happened at the office in the last few months.  The upshot of all that is that once we’re back from Europe I will be doing some work for EMC remotely while we are travelling in the US, probably for the next six months or so.  Lili is going to be making some side trips to Los Angeles to network and audition throughout the spring.

Q: So where are you going?

We’re spending Christmas with some of Lili’s relatives in the UK, and then New Years with my in-laws in Switzerland.  (Lili’s mother is from Geneva.)

After that we had planned on coming back to the US.  But then Vail Resorts started adding European partnerships to their Epic Pass.  So now we’re staying a couple more weeks in Europe and visiting:

None of which I’ve been to and which I’m very excited about.

Once we’re back in the US, we plan on skiing in:

With additional road trip stops in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Vancouver, possibly Boulder and/or Denver, and anywhere else that looks promising.

Q: Woah, that’s pretty crazy!

Well, there’s been a lot of planning.  I’ve been trying to do a big ski trip like this for a few years, so there’s been some saving involved.  I’ve already been to a lot of these places and learned the ins and outs of (reasonably) cheap travel and (somewhat) afforable skiing.  Honorable mention to Vail’s ‘Epic Pass’ (http://www.snow.com/epic-pass.aspx) for being pretty ridiculous.  And my wonderful wife for being exceedingly understanding and adventurous.

Q: Can I come with you?

Well… probably not the whole time, no.  But if you want to try to meet up with us somewhere, let us know!

Q: Can I help?

We’re pretty well set.  But if you know anyone who wants to rent us a condo in Summit County for a few weeks, cheap…

Q: Can I follow your crazy adventures?

Definitely!  You can follow along here (www.theskigeek.com), or with my fancy new Facebook page-y thing (https://www.facebook.com/theskigeek), or @TheSkiGeek on Twitter (https://twitter.com/TheSkiGeek , if I ever remember to use it).

I’m not sure how easy it will be to upload stuff from Europe, but when we have WiFi accessible I’ll try to do so.  Once we’re back in the US there should be a more regular stream of updates.

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