Between work assignments in Stuttgart Germany and Paris (Rungis) France, had again the chance to catch back up with our friends in Switzerland. Rather than running up the exorbitant cost of flying back to the USA for the weekend in between, our intrepid travelers opted to couch surf again at the Casa Paffhausen in Zurich.
While there, why not get in a day of skiing?
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| From the Zurich HB (main station) you can reach great ski areas in about 1-1.5 hours |
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| Pizol Talstation Gaffia |
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| Trail map Pizol |
Skiing in Switzerland is a frequent post topic here. StringDad learned how to ski in Michigan. Namely at Michigan Technological University, Mt Ripley, with a grand total of 440 ft Vertical (134m for the Metric-heads who follow the adventures of StringGirl). Every ski area in this area boasts vert unknown to the university version of StringDad and not experienced until one trip to Crested Butte, CO. (Vertical 2700 ft or 825 meters or so).
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| Initial conditions were not too promising... |
The entire ride up the mountain we were greeted by rain and foggy conditions. A little depressing after building up the visit for skiing in our minds. But we soldiered on, trusting that the Swiss Meteo service was correct that by 11am we would be seeing partially cloudy skis with sun cutting through.
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| Should we stay or should we go? |
Swiss Meteorology and Mountain weather must be very accurate and predictable, as the weather broke nearly to the minute (OK maybe that is an exaggeration) and the mountain really looked great.
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| Here comes the Sun! |
The Powder had been very inexpertly carved up and deflowered in the morning whiteout conditions. So no big claims at fresh Pow! but it would be very skiiable for the "me" of 20-30 years ago. As it is I managed to make my way down in about 150m increments before succumbing to labored breathing and panting of an out of shape old man who never had to link together more than 400 feet of turns into a run.
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| Let's hit that Pow |
Cloud cover still blanketed the Rhine Valley (Rheintal) below showing in cloud formation the path as the river cuts its way out of Switzerland toward Germany, France, the Netherlands and ultimately the North Sea.
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| 2200m above sea level |
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| From here combine all the Ski Areas in Michigan and put them tip to tail... |
After the humbling lessons of wobbling down the labeled blue runs here and forcing kneed bands that I had not employed since running bumps at Ripley Wipeout, I remembered how to lean into the fall line, aim straight down and link the right kind of turns. About 3 times as many turns as I wanted, but this was not cruising snow, no corduroy in sight.
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| Pretty near the top of Laufboden and 800m of skiable terrain between the top and Schwamm |
From the top of the hill I had to remember for safety that the view of the slope was 4-5 time what I had skied in the "Glory Days" (yep,the Boss is right, the do "pass you by") and muster my strength and endurance to try to keep up with the fit Swiss. That was mostly a fail, but I did manage to make some ok runs at it.
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| Taking the Lunch Break |
A quick break for Panache (Beer with Lemon Fanta that Germans might call a Radler) and snack at One in the afternoon recharged the batteries a bit and kept us going.
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| Pizol Furt, 1500m or so the lower end of 700m of skiable vertical |
A strong and sporty finish to a day that seemingly had little or no promise of anything other than a good drubbing in the rain/snow. Thank you Pizol. You were worth it.
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