Last weekend a group of us went skiing for 2 days in Laax: Me, Adrienn, Evan, Shane, Richard, Devon, Travis, Tommy and Lindsey (and Mike came for Sat). We all got ski & rail deals from SBB, which gives you a discounted price for the train and lift ticket. I was expecting that it wouldn't be a very good deal for me, since I have a GA (everywhere train pass), but I was still able to get a discouted lift ticket (go SBB!!!). 46CHF for a day of skiing? Not too crappy!
We woke up bright and early on Saturday morning and took the train/bus up to Laax, about a 2.5 hour journey. I was pretty tired, since the night before we had a rousing game of pictionary over at Kehl (wooooo!!!!). It was awesome, we had Team Girl (Adrienn, Lindsey and me), Team Asian (Richard, Henry, Bernard and ....Tyler (the honary asian) ), and team White Male (Vance, Travis, Warren and Kevin). Talk about non PC team division, lol. Team Girl won the first game, and Team Asian suprised everyone by winning the second game, a nice improvement from the first match. Humerous highlights: Vance misreading the card and drawing Hamlet instead of Helmet (though, he had a nice Shakspearian dude started in the time the rest of us had sucessfully guessed helmet), Adrienn being so excited that we guessed her eyes-closed drawing that she forgot to open them and hit her head on the couch, the realization that the 2-drawing of "seam" and tunnel" was a hilarious combination, *somebody* thinking that Mt. Everest is in Japan, Henry's unidentifiable drawing of Italy....and of course, every turn at least one person guessing "jackal, jackal, it's a jackal!!!".
So back to Laax....we arrived and decided to go by the hotel to drop off our bags. When we finally got there (we got off the bus too early and had to walk a bit) we discovered that the place wasn't even open yet.....Switzerland, you have let us down again. So we just got ready outside, locked our bags together and left them on the porch. By the time we had gotten the bus back to the gondola and picked our our lift passes, it was after 10...good thing we got up so early!!
Trekking to the hotel after we got off the bus a stop early
Travis, the human ski rack
First impression of Swiss skiing: the terrain just goes on forever in all directions. Every time we would take a lift and ski to a new area, there was another lift waiting to take us further. We made it over to the highest peak at Laax, then went around exploring the rest of the mountains. I skiied mainly with Richard, Tommy and Lindsey, since they liked doing the same sort of stuff as me.
Hmmm, where should we go first?
Second impression of Swiss skiing: you hardly ever ski in the trees. Most of the runs are above the tree line, and when there are trees they are so dense that it's hard to find a good line. It was kinda strange, but also meant that we had an awesome view of the mountain (see pics below, I brought out my camera on the second day). We had really nice weather for the whole weekend, blue, cloudless sky, and not very cold.
Check out the beautiful Alps
That first day wasn't too exciting (this may have been partly due to the fact that there had been no new snow in the past while)...it was mostly spent checking out the hill and trying to find some good runs. I was a bit dissapointed to find that most of the runs are groomed, though, you can sometimes find mogals and other fun things on the sides (this combo is actually pretty good for skiing in a group of mixed ski levels). Towards the end of the day though, I began to find some fun runs, with a good mix of cruising, mogals and little jumps. My last run of the day was the best by far, always a nice way to end off the day.
On another gondola...this hill goes on forever!
Richard on one of many gondola rides
"This is awesome!!!"
"I agree, but am too cool to show it"
At one point Tommy, Richard and I emerged onto a face that was almost entirely lacking snow. We tried to get around it by skiing past into the trees, but the trees were so dense, and the snow so deep (and heavy, it was all melted from the sun) that it was really hard. At one point I was pretty much caught in 2 trees, trying desperatly not to fall between them since my skis were all stuck. Richard managed to lose a ski, and spent a good 20min looking for it before finally finding it. We vowed to never ever go down that run again, haha.
Adrienn, me, Tommy, Lindsey and Richard ready to break for lunch
We met up back at the hotel at the end of the day, to discover that it was freaking amazing. We each got our own rooms, there was a couple common areas with cozy chairs and a piano (yay!), rooms for skis and boots, it was really clean and the staff was friendly. Unfortunatly, the awesomeness was reflected in the price (60CHF eep!) but I think we'll just have to get used to that when staying in a ski resport area. We spent the evening hanging out, having a few drinks and playing cards. At one point we had planned to go into town to check out some bars, but since that would mean walking back (the busses don't run very late) nobody really had the energy. So we made the good decision of staying in, and ended up getting a decently long sleep (in the most awesome bed ever....I wish I could have brough it back to Kehl, haha).
Chilling at the hotel playing some cards
Playing an intense game of asshole
The next day we had an awesome breakfast provided by the hotel, including what Adrienn informed us was bread to dip in hot chocolate, it was strange.
My second day of skiing was way better than the first, mostly because by then we had figured out the hill and had an idea of where the good runs were. I skiied at the top of one of the peaks all morning (beautiful view), there was a nice steeper run that turned into a long straightaway with some wicked rollers. Tommy and I went on a bit of an adventure and tried out a run we saw from the lift, which was mostly not great, but we hit a patch of really nice snow at one point, yay.
Adrienn and Lindsey getting ready to start off the day
Taking a break on the hill
Lindsey, me and Tommy on the chair lift
Treeless...
Tommy being thoughtful
Lindsey on the chairlift (I'm sure she was being thoughtful too)
Tommy up on a peak
Hot air ballons! I love this picture.
Mwah ha ha, we went left
My hands are so cold...I took off my gloves to get out the camera
In the afternoon we tried out a run that was so filled with little jumps and bumps that I wanted to go back through to explore more. I ended up skiing this all afternoon on my own, since Tommy and Lindsey had dissapered (and were apparenly having a giant trek through the trees that would take them all afternoon, haha). It was really fun, but tiring. The highlight was when I tried out a kicker that somebody had built and didn't quite make the landing...causing everyone on the chair lift to laugh and yell at me, awwww, lol.
Me, Tommy and Lindsey about to try out the run
Not too shabby...
Shane, looking like he just stepped out of a snowboard ad
The journey home was fairly smooth in terms of train connections (we never had to wait!) but one of the trains was so full that we had to all squish on the stairs (which was actually pretty comfortable). Also, Richard somehow managed to lose his ticket and spent one of the trains skillfully dodging the ticket checker, haha.
What a wicked weekend! And it only cost me ~170CHF, including food and the hotel. Hopefully I'll be able to get lots more skiing in this year, I'd like to check out some of the other hills in Switzerland. Cross your fingers for lots of snow!!
