The Dream: Zermatt Winter 2005
I did my second ski season in the Alps in Zermatt. I picked the place after checking out Grindlewald and Saas Fee and a lot of searching on the net. I wanted to do someplace in Switzerland since it just feels so much more here like "the real alps" - with all the little Sound of Music charm. Zermatt seemed perfect because of the amount of ski touring on offer, the large lift infrastructure, the high altitude, and the village seemed about the right size - big enough to offer lots of entertainment options.
Once there I really got to like the place a lot. In fact when I returned in September to score an apartment I liked it so much I figured I'd just stay there the whole damn year, summer and all.
My two complaints about Zermatt: 1) it seems to hardly ever snow there (it's one of the "dryest" valleys in the Alps), and 2) it's IMPOSSIBLE to find anybody to play with - for ski touring or even just off piste in bounds skiing. Other than that, the place is PERFECT. But shhhhhhhh! This information is secret - nono, keep on beliving it's a family-oriented ski resort. Keep believing it's too flat, that the skiing is boring. Keep beliving Chamonix is the place to be for off piste and ski touring and leave my little pow stash alone!
The Stats
Skiing: 70 days
Ski mountaineering/touring: 32 days
Waterfall Ice Climbing: 5 days
4000m Peaks Climbed: Breithorn, Pollux, Alphubel, Stralhorn, Rimpfischhorn (attempt), Gross Grunhorn, Finsteraarhorn, Monte Rosa (Dufourspitze), Allalinhorn, Mont Blanc
Just the mountain eye candy photos - we partied pretty hard too, but SummitPost isn't the place for drunken mayham.
Shout Out to the Hommies
I met some great people during the season and here's some of them, namely a shout goes out to: Canadian Matt, Steve, Phil, Alex, Ang, Cai, Simon, Crazy Jon, and German Thomas.
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