Faire Du Ski

I love to ski. I absolutely love it. It makes me so happy to be on the slopes, in the snow, flying down the mountain. Every time we go, as much as a pain it can be to get all our gear together and get up on the mountain, once I'm up there, a smile forms on my face, and I just know its going to be a great day.

I had forgotten how much I loved to ski. When I was little, my family used to go to the mountains all the time. I remember hating taking lessons cause they never let you use poles. And I remember my mom teaching me as I got older, how to transfer from the snow plow to a more parallel stance.  Those were always fun trips, but somehow as I got older, I stopped going skiing as much. If I was lucky, I made it to the mountains once a year.

But this winter, I have already been skiing 6 times! And each time, I feel myself getting better, more comfortable, and loving it more and more.  Since the new year, that's pretty much all I've been doing on the weekends.

Before Travers left for his 2 week trip to Kiev, we went with a group of friends to a nearby town called St. Cergue.  It was an hour train ride away. We lugged our gear to the train station, got on board, and enjoyed the short trip. Unfortunately, the directions on the website weren't quite clear, and we ended up getting off the train a stop too early. And even more unfortunately, there wasn't another train for an hour. But we made the most of it. Shelley and Mike went sledding. And the rest of us went inside the one small cafe for some coffee and apple strudel. Delish!

We finally made it to the mountain, and to Travers' dismay, had to take a tow rope up the mountain. For skiers, its not a big deal, but for snowboarders, its very difficult to maintain balance. And this tow rope was one of the longest I've been on. But after falling off once, he made it up the hill, and were immediately surrounded by clouds, and snow, and wind and cold (this is why I have no photos of this day as it was too cold to take my camera out, and no visibility to take any good photos). It was going to be a rough day. Our group worked our way to the one chair lift on the mountain, and we braved the weather for a few hours until breaking for lunch at a tiny hut on the mountain.  Thankfully, the food was delicious and the building was warm. We all needed to thaw out a bit. And after lunch, I only lasted one more run as my gloves, which I've had for too many years to remember, decided they didn't want to keep my hands warm anymore, and my fingers were on the verge of turning blue.  So Shelley and I headed back to the lodge, and got some vin chaud to warm up as we waited for everyone else to join us.

As convenient as it was to go an hour outside of Geneva to ski, I don't know if we'll go back to St. Cergue. It was a small mountain, and with only one real ski lift, the rest being tow ropes, it is too difficult to get some good runs in. Maybe it would have been better if the weather was good, but I don't think we'll go back anytime soon to find out.

But all that bad weather was erased from my mind the next weekend, as Travers was in Kiev, I went with another group of friends to Megève, France. Here in Geneva, you can sign up for the season to take the ski bus. It goes somewhere different every weekend.  So some friends of ours were taking it to go to Megève, and I tagged along, paying just a small fee to get a seat on the ski bus.  The downside, is that the bus leaves at 7:30am. So early. So I was up at quarter to 6am, and out the door by quarter to 7am. I got a minute away from the apartment and realized that I forgot to put my contacts in that morning! So I ran, carrying my skis on my shoulder, back up the hill and into the apartment. Threw my contacts in, and speed walked back down the hill to the bus stop. I had to catch a specific bus in order to get to the ski bus pick up location. Timing was everything. Luckily, I made it and Shelley and Mike saved me a seat with them on the bus.

About an hour and a half later, we were in Megève ready to ski. It was a beautiful day, sunny skies and not overly crowded. We had a great day of skiing, finding some great runs on one side of the mountain. Megève is actually pretty big and we never made it to the other half of the mountain, so we will definitely be going back there someday.  We enjoyed a nice lunch outside on a sun-filled patio, then hit the slopes again for a few more hours before heading back to the bus for the ride back home. It was a long day, but such a fun trip and a great day of skiing.

Travers got back the following week from Kiev, and we immediately left the next day for Zermatt!  We had been to Zermatt in the summer when my friend Katy was visiting, and we were really excited to go back to see it in winter.  It was our friend Mich's birthday and she had invited us to go along with a bunch of other friends of hers. So we took the train that Friday afternoon, bringing wine, a baguette, salami and cheese for our dinner, and enjoyed the 3.5 hour ride.

Once there, we got settled into our hotel, Haus Darioli, and met Shelley and Mike at one of our favorite spots, Grampi's. Every night, there is a guy that plays the piano and sings, mostly american classic songs. He is so entertaining, and we had a great time listening to him for a couple hours before meeting up with Mich and the others at the Hotel Post Broken Bar Disco club downstairs.  We danced for a couple hours and got caught up with everyone. We knew we wanted to get up early the next day to go skiing, so we forced ourselves to go back to the hotel and get some rest before it got too late.

The next morning, after mis-setting my alarm and miraculously waking up, we made it to the bottom of the gondola, and realized that the majority of the slopes and lifts were closed due to bad weather.  But we didn't let this stop us. We got our tickets and took a train up the mountain, that went through a tunnel at what felt like a 60 degree angle. It was a little scary. But it got us to the top of the mountain in no time.


The weather wasn't that great, but definitely not as bad as St. Cergue. The best part though, was that it had dumped snow the night before, so everything was covered in fresh powder! It was amazing! For the skiers in the group, some slopes were really tough as we really had to work on each slope. But for Travers, his snowboard floated over the top of the fresh powder, and he had an amazing time, finding jumps, going through the powder, and just having so much fun.

We went down one slope that from the chair lift, looked tough, but we were up for it. We would take breaks after a few turns to catch our breath, it was that hard. Thankfully, there were people that really looked like they knew what they were doing stopping too and also out of breath. It made me feel better about my ability.  Unfortunately though, all of us took a spill on this slope at one point or another. I don't know how bad the others' were, but my fall was pretty rough. I somehow got turned around edges caught, and went flying backwards down the mountain. Never a good thing.  I landed flat on my back, looking up the hill. It all happened so fast, so I layed there for a minute, making sure everything was where it should be, until Shelley came over and asked if I was ok. I slowly got up, and after the initial shock of the fall wore off, I actually loved it. The snow was so soft and I was getting such a rush out of skiing that I didn't really care about the fall.

After a few hours, we stopped for lunch, then immediately headed back out to get in as many more runs as we could. We met up with the entire group of people by the afternoon, and the group of 12 of us did our final run of the day all the way down to Zermatt, ending at the bottom of the train that we had taken up that morning.


We had a glass of vin chaud to warm us up, before heading back to the hotel to rest, shower and get ready for dinner.  Mich had made a reservation at an italian restaurant called Chalet de Giuseppe. It was a cozy restaurant, with a friendly owner who greeted us at the door and made sure our entire night was wonderful. They automatically served us prosecco upon arrival, with a piece of bruschetta. Then after dinner, we got complimentary grappa to help digest all the food we ate.  It was the perfect meal to have after a long day of skiing.  We topped the night off with a quick stop at Grampi's, then back to Hotel Post for a little dancing. We were all pretty exhausted from the day and called it a night somewhat early.

The next day, we slept in, took our time getting packed up and checked out of the hotel. Then wandered the streets for a bit before grabbing a lunch at the Brown Cow Pub and heading back to Geneva on the train.

We love Zermatt. It was such a fun trip and we were so happy to help celebrate our friend's birthday.  I just hope we can go back again soon. I absolutely loved the skiing there. And I hope next time, the rest of the mountain will be open. Its been four days since we were skiing Zermatt, and I already can't wait to go again. Unfortunately, we have a couple weekends where we won't be skiing, but I'm already starting to plan the next trip.