(Eugene Miya) wrote:
wrote:
Ace wrote:

wrote:
Montana - Big Sky - here are
*Longest Run*
Liberty Bowl to Mountain Mall - 6 miles

Hehe. You really think that's long?

You really think that's long?


The Rockies:
Obtuse. Plenty of tree skiing. Plenty of powder skiing. You can ski
more powder in a single day in the Rockies than you can in a season in
the Alps.


The Alps:
Acute, and glaciated. Steep. Vertiginous. Rare to find easy
conditions off-piste.

Say what?
You must only being talking about the USA. The Canadian Rockies are
also glaciated.


The ice shield covered a lot of North America reaching about half way
down the Rockies. But I still find the Rockies obtuse compared with
the Alps.

Nearly every resort (ie what used to be farming villages for high
Alpine pasture) is accessed by a road which has to switchback up the
hanging section of the valley (the cliff at the end). This would have
been a mule track, originally, with sections hacked out of the cliff.
Now made wider for vehicular use. In the Rockies this does not really
happen. If you are not sure what I mean have a look at some
photographs of Lauterbrunnen, Mürren in the Jungfrau.

You can see these sections of road in Google Earth/Maps. The road
suddenly starts snaking back and forth without seeming to go very far.

If I was taking a girlfriend skiing I would choose the Rockies. If I
was skiing for my own pleasure, I would choose the Alps.

She wouldn't be into St Moritz, Zermatt, nor Davos?


Like I said. The criterion is obtuse Christmas-card tree-skiing with
powder.

St Moritz, Zermatt and Davos, which you list are no different to
anywhere else in the European Alpine resorts. So I do not know why you
have mentioned them.


However, examining the resorts you mentioned for suitability for
girlfriend skiing:

St Moritz: Ceased to be the last word in chic perhaps twenty, perhaps
thirty years ago. Maybe in the Eighties. The rising tide of the income
curve in Europe meant that ordinary people, hoi polloi, the
proletariat could afford to visit even Swiss resorts.

I feel like I am giving Carol Reed's voice-over speech in "The Third
Man" - "I never knew the old Vienna..."


So: St Moritz for the girlfriend ? Only thing to do would be give her
a tour of the archeology of Alpine winter sports. What is left of the
old St Moritz is the set of people who keep a residence there, and
circulating with them is, after the first five minutes, very tedious.
It is all the usual stuff of human existence, except with more
aesthetic packaging. Once you have heard one trophy wife moaning to
you how her husband does not pay any attention to her, you've ...

Me - I've got skiing to do.

I can remember being in Verbier once. I cannot remember when it was
but it was way back. I'd finished skiing, dumped my skis and skiboots
and I had mountaineering boots on. I wanted my customary Americano and
went into a bar I forget where but I could find it again.

I was trying to get to the bar to get the coffee and I heard two
girls/women behind me, seated against the wall. They were individuals
of indifferent breeding. It could have been worse, but we will leave
it at 'indifferent'.

One of them said to the other in English

"Look at that man. Why is he coming out for Apres Ski wearing an
anorak with a hood on it."

Her friend says to her

"That's a [something I could not hear] ski suit. That probably cost
[something]"

"Is it ?" - pauses while the cogs of her tiny mind turns

"He probably lives here."

"What - he has a chalet here ?"

"Probably"

Then the pair of them started plotting something to attract my
attention, presumably on the grounds that they wanted to cultivate the
society of a man who owned a chalet.

Eventually they asked me a question or something. I think I turned
briefly to begin my answer and did not even finish speaking before
turning away again.

It was one of those "things have changed" moments. One of them was
perhaps new to this - the one talking about 'Apres Ski' if it was some
chic activity performed by glittering sybarites - sybarites who
definitely did not wear an 'anorak' with a hood on it. Clearly not
what she was expecting.

Years back I was at an end of season party in Verbier that went on
until dawn. Next morning both the windows leading from the downstairs
party room were broken and off their hinges. I remember walking around
the floor with a sticky noise because of the amount of spilled drink
on the floor. A couple of the locals who had had their peace disturbed
during the night were looking in through the broken windows and saying
something like "that's what it must have been". The people at the
party were perhaps the last generation of skiers then 'Winter Sports'
types. Every time I am in Verbier I still walk up to that chalet and
look at those (now mended) windows and reminisce. Wonder where every
one is now.

This is purely a social thing. A personal perspective. Edward Whympher
complained that the new cog railway to Zermatt brought a much lower
class of individual into the village. And how the whole place was
going down hill. So nothing changes. He was very old when I knew him
of course.


On St Moritz: There are some choice little pieces of (black,
off-piste) skiing in and around St Moritz. Although most skiing there
is ordinary.

Davos: Another broad cold valley. Another valley you need an
automobile for to move between lift Talstations.

Note to any one building a resort: You need to make sure that you can
ski between all the valley stations, and all of the hotels. This means
that the hotels need to be scattered around the lower flanks of the
valley so you can ski to them, then ski away from them down to a lift
station.

Zermatt and its V-shaped valley: North American girlfriends will
without exception complain "It's all catwalks !" which means that it
is all little tracks hacked out of the mountainside to enable
red-grade skiers to circulate between different areas of the mountain.

Nothing to make Zermatt stand out for girlfriend skiing.

If I had to do girlfriend Skiing in the Alps it would be Crans-Montana
(note - another resort where an automobile is required).
Crans-Montana is pretty and the reds are huge, in great condition and
have weather which keeps them dry and skiable. Perhaps the next best
to powder.

All of which reminds me did you see how Bernie Ecclestone hiked the
prices in his hotel bar in Gstaad because he did not like the local
boorish farmers coming in. How to win friends and influence people.
Don't make enemies in Alpine villages. Who ever it is, probably his
brother's wife's sister is married to the local magistrate or the
Burgomeister or some one.

"About your application to renew your license to trade, Herr
Ecclestone..."


If distance is your criterion, the area of the large enchained resorts
in the Alps is huge in comparison to the ones in the Rockies.


The people I know see skiing as a way to get around in winter. Resort
is a tourist concept. That's part of what off piste is about.


What does this mean ? Unless you work on the pistes at a resort,
no-one "skis to get around in winter". The animals are all inside for
the winter.