Dave and Sara, Author at Dave and Sara’s Excellent 2018 Adventure

The Road Trip Begins

By Dave and Sara on Saturday, February 24, 2018

This morning, we woke up to about 6-inches of snow on top of the car. It is really hard to leave a ski mountain when you know the conditions are going to be really good. That being said, it is time for us to move on to Milan.

We are making the post this morning because we have quite a busy day. After making the approximately 2-hour drive to Milan, we need to unload the large quantity of bags we have then get the car returned to the train station. The plan for the afternoon is to do a bit of siteseeing followed by heading over to see Inter Milan vs Benevento.

Now that we are done skiing, we should be able to take many more photos which will hopefully keep our loyal following of the blog thirsty for more.

Champoluc

The Hills Are Alive! Last Powder Day

By Dave and Sara on Friday, February 23, 2018

So today was our last day skiing. Luckily for us, it snowed all night and it was a powder day. While visibility was low, we were able to find a great area of rocks and trees that helped provide perspective. The snow was great. Really light and around knee deep. After we had our fill of skiing the powder, it was time to head back towards Champoluc to meet Karen at the top of the funicular for lunch.

After lunch, Dave took a ride up the magic carpet to get one last powder run before taking it up again to take the funicular down.

After skiing, Sara and Dave headed to the Spa for a very painful massage to try to mend our sore legs after three weeks of skiing. Tonight we are going to have a nice Mountain dinner and pack up for our move from the mountains to the city.

We also had some other exciting news to celebrate!

See you next time Champoluc!

A post shared by David Grunat (@sncarbone) on Feb 23, 2018 at 10:27am PST

We appologize for the lack of photos today. Due to the heavy snow we were bundled up pretty tight.

Also if you thought we could say ‘until next time’ Alps without a Julie Andrews meme, you were sorely mistaken.

Champoluc Zermatt

Heliskiing Revisted

By Dave and Sara on Thursday, February 22, 2018

So we were pretty tired yesterday, so we left a very short post. Sorry about that, we were really tired. So here is how yesterday went.

Jeff, Sara, and Dave woke up and were all nervously excited about our day ahead. We got dressed and under Dave’s direction showed up to our first lift 30 minutes early. We took the funicular up followed by two chairs. Once we got to the top, we had a short hike to reach the area where the helicopter picks us up. We met our guide Loris and he took all of our skis and tied them in to a bundle. As the helicopter arrived our skis were placed in the rack and we all jumped aboard. Within seconds, the helicopter was off. As we pulled away, the force of acceleration and turning was quite intense and we all looked at each other in excitement. The video yesterday doesn’t really do justice to how amazing the view was, weaving in and out of the peaks just below 14K feet. Once we got to the top, we quickly unloaded and dropped to the ground to allow for the helicopter to take off. The whole process was quite organized with the helicopter only on the ground for pickup/drop off for no longer than 15 seconds. The ride was so short we thought there might have been a mix up and that we weren’t actually going to drop down into Zermatt but we were actually in the right place, high up along a ridge line separating Italy and Switzerland.

From there, we clipped into our skis and started a very long traverse around the peak to reach the Col that drops into Zermatt. At the top of the Col as the resort came into view, we realized how much higher we were than the Klien Matterhorn Tram which is the highest ski lift in Europe (3800m). Once we finished our traverse the wide open Col was somewhat chopped up but the snow conditions were quite nice. The powder was maybe mid shin deep. Once we got a bit lower, our guide took us off the beaten path to an area of wide open untracked powder. He said he preferred not to follow the tracks. We said that was fine by us.

There wasn’t anywhere to place a Jake sticker in all that wide open but we brought one just the same.

Once we got to the bottom of the glacier we were back in Zermatt where had we started our trip back on February 2nd. It was quite surreal to be back on the lifts where we started this trip. We took the Matterhorn Glacier Express and the Klien Matterhorn backup to the top and headed towards Cervinia to ski back to Champoluc. As this area sits in the sun all day, the snow was quite crunchy. Also, it was quite cold at -24C. We ended up deciding to skip lunch to try to take advantage of what good conditions remained. We chowed down a cliff bar and after a brief pause at the edge of Cervinia headed back down the hill. While the snow conditions weren’t great, the skiing was still very fun and the terrain stunning. We crossed glaciers, frozen rivers, forests, abandoned stone buildings and an old aqueduct. The end of the run was a very long traverse that took us back to the last town in the Ayas valley, Saint Jacques, just above Champoluc. By this time, Dave’s legs were completely destroyed and quite tired from all the long days of skiing. Luckily we made it to the bottom of the hill unscathed. At the bottom, we walked over to the bar to grab a spritz to finish out the day. With the purchase of the spritz came a ride in the Fiat Panda back to the parking lot where we had left the car. All in all we skied 40 Km across two countries and three resorts. Pretty rad day!

Overall, heliskiing was amazing. If we had unlimited funds, it would definitely be our new preferred way to access ski terrain.

Today we had a fun, mellow day on piste with Jeff, Christine and Nate. It’s snowing pretty hard so visibility was low. Took it easy cruising around and then enjoyed a nice lunch. We love this place and it will be hard to leave.

Champoluc Zermatt

Heliskiing Monterosa/Zermatt

By Dave and Sara on Wednesday, February 21, 2018

Photos to come…

Champoluc

Storming the Castle

By Dave and Sara on Tuesday, February 20, 2018

Today we all took the day off from skiing to do a little sightseeing and wine tasting around the Valley.

We started the day with a coffee and pastry at a bar across from the apartment (very traditional Italian breakfast) and then jumped in the car and headed down the valley. A bluebird day, much different than the wintry mix we drove up under, made the valley look a lot different and more inviting. At the base of the Ayas valley where we are staying is the town of Verres. There’s a pretty cool castle there you can see from the road so we decided to check it out. The drive took us through the old part of the town which was small but cute and still decorated from Carnivale. The castle sits above the old town on a hill (if you recall from a previous post you can see the neighboring castles along the valley so they sit up a little above the towns). The visit was very reasonable so we decided to go in. Glad we did, it was really well preserved and very cool. Nice view of the mountains too.

From the castle we took the autostrada to the regional capital Aosta. We had a nice walk through the historic area which includes the old Roman city walls and then had lunch. The mountains are visible all around the city.

Leaving Aosta after lunch we headed to a wine tasting appointment Jeff made for a winery called Grosjean. The winery is family run and one of the original modern day wineries in the Aosta region. The grandfather, Dauphine, started making wine in the late 60s, reviving a wine business in the region that had gone away in the previous century. Our visit was hosted by Simone, one of the grandchildren still active in running the family business. He was very knowledgeable and it was fascinating afternoon. The family, along with others in the region, are dedicated to bringing back many of the indignious grapes to the area that haven’t been cultivated in a long time. Their wine is available in the US (one of their whites is on the menu at Al’s Place in SF) so check it out!

We spent a while at the winery chatting with Simone and tasting the wines so when we finally left we decided to grab stuff for dinner at the grocery store down in the valley and cook a simple dinner at home. Dave, Sara and Jeff are confirmed on their helicopter tomorrow morning early so it’s a quiet night in Champoluc. Karen is headed to a spa and Christine and Nate have another day planned on the slopes.

Champoluc

Another Day, Some More Powder

By Dave and Sara on Monday, February 19, 2018

Last night, we went out to Le Petit Coq so that we could share with our friends all of the wonderful attributes of cheese. We had some wonderful raclette and fondue with a few liters of wine.

After filling up on cheese, Sara, Jeff, and Dave spent our last day with our guide, Fabio, that came over from Chamonix. After taking the funicular up we skied as fast as we could to make it over to the Punta Indren which is above Alagna.

This goes to the highest point of the Monterosa Ski Resort that is lift accessible. At the top of the Gondola, we put our climbing harnesses which we thought was for skiing on the glacier. We were wrong… We skied across the traverse, and hit the first of many side stepping portions which were quite exhausting. Once we got to the top, we arrived at our first open bowl area which had some relatively nice powder. We skied down a bit and hit another traverse. After side stepping to the top of the second traverse here, we realized what the harnesses were for.

There was a very steep very tight chute that we were going to rappel down in our skis.

The way this works is you ski down and clip on to the rope. Then skiing backwards the guide slowly lowered us down in to the chute. It was one of the gnarliest things I have ever done. The photo below does not give any justice to how steep this was.

Once we got down to the bottom of the chute we got to a wide open bowl of untracked powder.

It was a bit crunchy below but was great skiing. After getting to the bottom, we took a long traverse that also included a rope portion where we had to slowly lower ourselves through an icy chute in the woods.

This part was a hiking trail along a pretty stream and waterfall that had frozen over. After the hiking trail we joined up with a road that took us to a very small hamlet that had a parking lot and a pommel horse. We took the pommel up and then skied down the valley through backyards, across foot bridges and at least one little park. Once we arrive in Alagna, it was 2pm. We left the house at 8am and we basically did one run. With our legs shot, we needed to hurry back up the mountain to not get trapped in Alagna. It is a 6 hour drive from Alagna to Champoluc so rather than break for lunch we grabbed the gondola out of town. Once we got to the top of the Bettaforca, we finally stopped for lunch at 3pm. It was a such an amazing time. Here’s our wrap photo.

Karen had a lovely day at the spa and Nate and Christine hit the piste runs. Tonight we are laying low in the cabin and Jeff is cooking us a delicious smelling polenta and mushroom dinner.

Champoluc

Le Petit Coq

By Dave and Sara on Sunday, February 18, 2018

Last night Christine and Nate got in around 11 after a few complications at Linate airport. We had a light dinner of bread, meats and cheeses and then shared the sweets we brought over from Chamonix.

This morning we woke up to a beautiful view of the mountains.

We met up with Fabio, our guide from Chamonix at 8:30. He’s from this area and used to guide here so offered to come over and guide us here. Fabio is the mayor of Champoluc, everyone knows him here. After grabbing a coffee at the bar and saying goodbye to Karen the six of us headed up the gondola.

We took a few lifts up and arrived to the ridge line between the valley we are staying in and the next valley over. Fabio led us through the off piste, it hasn’t snowed here in a while so the conditions were a little tricky. By the time we made it to the other side of the second valley it was lunch and we stopped at a great place with an amazing view of the Monte Rosa. After lunch we split up and Sara, Dave, Nate, Jeff and Fabio did another off piste run headed back to Champoluc. We came through this crazy couloir/gully that was beautiful and at the end we had to walk across an old avalanche path.

That’s Nate putting his board on after waking across the debris. It was so cool!

This resort, like everywhere we’ve been so far, is expansive. From lunch back to the base area we’re staying at took 3 hours. By the time we rolled into town it was time for Spritz and we met up with Karen and Christine at the bar next to our apartment. We settled with Fabio that tomorrow we’ll head all the way into Alagna, the third valley over to the east from here where it’s a little higher and hopefully the snow is a little softer. Tuesday we’re taking the day off from skiing to explore the region and Wednesday we and Jeff are going to go heliskiing . The route will take us back up to the Klien Matterhorn in Switzerland, down through Cervinia and finally back into Monte Rosa. It’s very exciting and we are all hoping for good weather.

Tonight we walked a little ways out of town to a restaurant called Le Petit Coq so we could experience fondue and raclette the Italian way. It was super fun and super delicious. The brisk walk back into town was much appreciated after our Italian-cheese fest.

Champoluc

Cin-cin!

By Dave and Sara on Saturday, February 17, 2018

Crossed into Italy today and guess who we ran into!?! This week we are so excited that Christine, Nate, Jeff and Karen are here with us, it’s going to be super awesome.

Left Chamonix early this morning where it was still raining. We were happy to exit the tunnel on the Italian side where it was snowing at a pretty good clip. It hovered around freezing most of the day in the valley but on the hill it was probably colder so we are hoping for a great day tomorrow!

Champoluc isn’t quite as big as Chamonix or Zermatt but it is very charming. Today we grabbed lunch at a nice bar right next door to the apartment we are renting. The location is perfect- walking distance to the base lift and grocery store, bars and restaurants. Definitely a great home base for our shenanigans!

This evening we went out to grab firewood and saw the start of nighttime randonee. Hats off to those dudes! We’ll catch you at the after party at the finish line.

Also in case you were wondering, we included a map of Val d’Aosta so you don’t have to go and google it yourself 🙂

Here’s another rainy, snowy travel video. This one is of our drive from Chamonix across the tunnel, into Aosta and arrival in Champoluc.

The sky was a little dreary today but the region is really beautiful (so many castles!) hopefully we get some sunny days.

Chamonix

Last Day in Chamonix

By Dave and Sara on Friday, February 16, 2018

So our day started somewhat no great today. We woke up and it was still raining. We packed up and headed off to Grand Montets hoping to ski our last day here. When we got there, we learned that the gondola was broken and the Tram had a queue over 2 hours long. We decided that it wasn’t worth it to wait. The other resorts are much lower and with the rain limit at 2000m, they would all be getting rain instead of snow. Therefore, we headed back to the condo. Instead of skiing, we decided to go to the sports center to run. After our run, we came back for a quiet lunch at the house of bread and of course cheese.

After lunch, we headed out to explore the town one last time.

Chamonix, it’s been grand. Until next time.

Chamonix

Rain Rain Go Away

By Dave and Sara on Thursday, February 15, 2018

Today we one up to a fairly steady rain in town. We knew it was snowing pretty good at elevation so we made our way over to Grand Montets. When we arrived, the high tram was closed due to heavy snow and wind. We took one trip up the gondola and skied down. The snow conditions were good but the visibility was terrible due to heavy snow. If it was our first powder day, we probably would have kept skiing but we didn’t feel like we needed to push it. Therefore, we headed back to the apartment. To lay low for the afternoon. Hopefully tomorrow we get some better weather.