Report from February 23, 2025

Yesterday I awoke early and hit the road.

Down from Courmayeur to Aosta then up over the hills and through the tunnel into Helvetia (Switzerland).

We met up with my old buddy from Japan, Zach.

He’s a ski instructor in Switzerland now and has been living out here for over 5 years.

Z’s got it dialed.

He coaxed us into a little ski resort tucked into the big mountains with a couple of his local buddies.

As I followed the un-uniformed parking attendant’s instructions, he rejected my parking job.

He made me redo it.

Then he made me redo it again.

Then again!

He looked at my plates and said in French, “Oh, you can’t park because you’re Italian!”

I said, “No, je suis de Californie!”

“Oh, that explains it then!” he fired back.

We were instant friends and we bullsh$&ted in the parking lot for a bit about California, Trump, and life.

He shared a few laughs and he told me how rad the freeriding was here and how he was a freerider.

I took in his 60+-year-old stocky frame and said, “Yeah, this place looks great for freeride.”

He told me he’d see me on the upper mountain and ran off to harass more foreigners as they parked their cars.

We paid 48 Euros for our tickets and jumped on a rickety, old fixed grip double chair.

Not long into our journey uphill, a huge scarecrow was strapped to a chair coming down.

We laughed and drank in how authentic and “soul of skiing” this place was.

I had no idea what to expect.

We rode up past two alpine villages as the snow cover increased with altitude.

After about 2,000 vertical feet we finally dismounted to find an alpine wonderland complete with glaciers and wicked terrain.

Nothing but T-bars and Pomas up here.

The only access was that ancient double chair and the only thing up top were surface lifts.

Paradise.

We rode from one T-bar to another and ended up nearly on the alpine ridgeline.

We traversed left until a switchback in the cat track and started scoping lines.

You could see quite a bit from this vantage.

After picking out our lines we slapped on skins and started up.

Only 30 minutes of easy walking put us on top of the “Devil’s Horns” where we planned to drop in.

As it would happen, the sun was out and there was decent visibility all day right until we clicked into our skis ready to drop in…

I dropped first and I couldn’t see a damn thing!

Backseat and awkward was how I tackled the chute.

On the apron, it was as if there was no ground at all…

I struggled and laughed and skied blind until I gave up and stopped partway down the huge apron.

The others bumbled down and said they’d experienced the same.

I’d hope my track would have led to better vis for them but, alas, it had not.

It was powdery, though, so we couldn’t complain.

With all the religious symbolism at hand, I took the ample opportunity to remind our new Swiss friends that it was America that invented both Jesus and English.

We laughed and joked as we slid down the rest of the hill back to the ski resort.

We took another Poma back to the top and did one, enormous top-to-bottom lap that must have taken 20 minutes.

This place is large.

From there we said our goodbyes to Bene and Marcos and headed home to Zach’s place.

It turns out Zach has a stellar place with an eye-popping view.

We lounged and enjoyed the view with one of Zach’s many high-brow teas.

A quick trip to town gained us lots of chocolate and charcuterie galore.

We came home and had one of the most fierce hangouts of the year.

Many different cheeses, 4 meats, 3 different wines, 2 chocolates, and some fancy pretzel bread.

Eventually, we switched to dinner and Zach made something called “Crust of the Cheese” in French.

It was basically French toast, but soaked in peppered wine then drown in cheese.

After a good spell in the oven, the final flourish was an egg on top.

Delectable!

We continued to banter and catch up for hours until 11:30 pm when we finally sampled 2 different, very strong Genepis and hit the hay.

A day in the life that I’ll never forget.

Thanks, Switzerland!

Photos