I’m sitting in my hotel room trying to summon up the courage and energy to go skiing on my own in thick mist. After four days of intense physical exertion, nothing seems more tempting than to sit in the hotel bar drinking hot Ovomaltine (like Milo, but much nicer) and reading a book.
Today’s Wednesday. Monday was an absolutely glorious day – perfect weather, sunny, no wind, no clouds – and fantastic snow conditions. Everyone went around saying things like ‘Fantastique!’ and ‘Genial!’ I spent the day skiing with Myriam from Les Diablerets and Dominique from Villars, both of whom were very pleased to be out of the office on such a day.
After a short radio interview with Cathy at Radio Helderberg (we had to lean out over the balcony of the piste restaurant to get reception) we hit the slopes with a vengeance. I was in excited puppy mode and it was all Dom and Myriam could do to drag me off for lunch after a couple of hours.
Swiss restaurants may be expensive, but they really can be worth it. The chicken liver and shallot risotto I had in a tiny chalet with ceilings one centimetre higher than my head was one of the most satisfying, stomach warming meals I can remember, and I plan to remember it for a long time (most probably when I’m hiking in the rain).
There were miles and miles of incredible pistes, each with eye-aching views. By the end of the day, I was skiing on autopilot – legs screaming, but mind refusing to quit. When Dom led us down a black run (the most difficult grading) to get down to Villars, I didn’t even notice it was steep. Just that the snow wasn’t very nice: instead of being floury it was like grainy, brown sugar.
So yesterday, I was surprisingly pleased that instead of skiing, I’d be snowshoeing all day. Graziella, a mountain guide, met me with snowshoes and poles at the hotel and we caught a train, then a cable car up into the forests. Snowshoeing is an excellent idea for active people who can’t ski. As Graziella said, everyone knows how to walk. And that’s really all you have to know how to do. The shoes just ensure that when you walk through deep drifts, you don’t sink in up to your waist. (Although I discovered they don’t help much if you decide to fall over face first.)
We spent a lovely few hours walking through silent forests as soft, gentle snow fell, icing everything more deeply in feathery white. Graziella loves snow, and so do I, so we both enjoyed the walk very much, although I’m not sure how much Graziella enjoyed having to pose for endless photographs. I do so wish someone would invent a collapsible photographic model for travel journalists. It gets awfully embarrassing having to boss complete strangers around.
We walked a long route around some valleys taking lots of shortcuts through the forest, which Graziella knows extremely well – it’s certainly not advisable to try this without a mountain guide. By the time we reached Villars again, it was after 16h00 and we’d walked over 10 kilometres, often through deep snow. This is exactly as tiring as it sounds, and by the time I’d had a bath and some supper, I discovered that my knees wouldn’t bend.
This was annoying, as I was supposed to walk up the hill to attend a classical music concert. But since I could barely walk around my hotel room (which had the undeniable benefits of being flat and free of ice) I decided to do the sensible thing: took a muscle relaxant and climbed creakily into bed. It was 20h30. Aaah, the glamourous life of the travel journalist…
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