A visit with some friends

Action packed Europe!  We had skied with one of our Monoski friends at Monopalooza 2017, and were talking about our Haute Route trip.  Christoph was very interested, but after some inquiry the guide was not.  Our group was larger than he liked already.

Christoph organized a meeting with another Monoski friend Remy and his wife.  We caught some trains (zug) from Zermatt to Zug where he lives.  After some catching up, we got back on some trains (zug) to Andermatt...  With guess what?

The snow was great, but somebody got tired...

Luckily Remy had a couple cats that we could play with.  Remy says you can only have as many cats as you have hands...  Their cats proved to each need at least 1 hand almost all the time...

On our way back to Geneva, we heard cousin Janet and Kalena were in Zurich.  So we organized a cup of coffee which ended up in a walking tour and some Swiss Chocolate. Yummm.  Of course we stopped by the 

Victorinox Swiss Army Knive store.

Haute Route

I could spend several hours discussing everything on the trip.  Russ is working on a Video to capture the experience, but here is a short clip that captures some of it.

A few comments on equipment...  I had a couple runs on hard-pack snow to test out my skis.  Conditions were as expected with these skis.  I mounted the bindings forward to account for hard-pack conditions, but I was probably an inch forward too far.  Kick turns were easy for me, but skiing slush was not easy.  Eventually I may post another story about the rest of the equipment failure on the trip...

Zany Sunday 2017

Another flawless execution of Zany Sunday (but I had help).    

  Phyllis as usual showed up with all the fixings for the 'staple' Bloody Marys.  I brought in a few things.   Ben and Paige brought a lot of the party for Ben's 50th.  

 After a while, things got a little Zany!

 Traci not as confident on her tele skis as her Monoski, I was able to talk her into skiing the flattest run on the Palivichini face.  I caught hell for it, but just check out that grin!

 A penny for your comments in Ben's 50 book got your one of these!

 It was a little exhausting for some...

 Happy 50!

Haute Route Preparation

Time for some preparation.  2 weeks before the trip and I don't even have my skis and bindings setup.

I did requisition some equipment from Jim and Tracy to help offset the otherwise purchase of equipment potentially a 1 time use situation.

 In February Karyn had her setup ready.  Mocha helped out quite a bit.

 But it was very exhausting...

 Karyn skied several days on her ski setup for the Haute Route.  The skis worked as planned.  Jay, Ingrid and I listened to some discussions about packing and equipment for ski touring in Colorado at our local backcountry store.

 But finally 2 weeks prior to the trip my skis arrived (via e-bay and a local pickup by my dad).  Time to set up, and again I had help.  Apparently it wasn't quite as exhausting...

 We met up with the full group for an equipment check.  Jay was already attached to Ingrid, but they definitely sealed the deal...

 The last part of prep was adding anti-balling plates to the crampons.  These are pretty critical for warm snow applications.  They prevent soft snow from building up on the bottom of the boot which can cause the crampons to be unable to touch the snow.  What happens then?  A dangerous slide...

Jim to the rescue again with some 4mm rubber and I used some bailing wire to attach.

Spain and Utah!

Karyn was recruited for another work travel trip to Spain.  She invited me along, but I still had to attend Monopalooza in Utah, so we added a few days on.

 We got out of town a little later than the plan, we got a room in Meeker in an old hotel.  It was pretty nice, and the storm rolled in overnight.

 When we got to Utah the snow was good!

 Gus let us stay over, we had some cute matching hoodies!

 The snow kept coming in, the day I dropped Karyn at the airport I got to Snowbird (after a replacement alternator) about 11am to 12 inches, and skied until it was 20 inches.  I was just loving the Gad2 lift!

 More great skiing at Brighton with some Monoskier friends!

 Reed let me park my car at his house for my Spain part of the trip.  His original monoski with broken tip, he added some reinforcement...

 Yep, I don't know either, but when I ordered I didn't know what I was going to get.  This was sort of a sparkling wine low ABV, with a very special cup...

 Two weeks of work finally complete!

We stopped at the MotoGP track in Seville, but there wasn't much to see in the winter...

 

We spent a couple days in Madrid to see the sights.  The Spanish royalty no longer lives in the Palace, but it still looks great! 

We flew back to pick up the car in Utah, and skied Park City, and A-Basin on the way home