[For those of you who haven’t been following along, we are in the midsts of the warmest and unsnowiest winter in the history of Switzerland (please note that this is just my own estimate, and that I am not a weatherman).]
Not being able to hold out any longer, we finally went skiing today for the first time this season. We knew conditions weren’t going to be great, but we were confident we could handle it. After all, we’ve skied in New England before. How much worse could a Swiss ski resort be?
My wonderful husband did some research on the Swiss ski resorts with the best snow, and based on how long it would take to get to each of them, we decided on Flims Laax, home of the famous Craplift. (Just in case you’re wondering, ‘crap’ is actually the word for ‘peak’ in the local dialect. The locals are well aware of its meaning in English and have learned how to make a buck off of giving us a sophomoric laugh. Also, please note that the title of this post is much cleverer than you originally gave it credit for.)
It was far from a day of perfect skiing. The prevailing snow conditions on the slopes could best be described as ‘solid sheet of the hardest ice you’ve ever attempted to dig your skis into’ alternating with ‘slush up to your ankles’. A couple hours into our ski day it started snowing a little (good) combined with driving wind that closed several of the lifts (much less good). Still, we pressed on, determined to get our money’s worth out of the price we paid for our train-bus-lift tickets. Luckily the crazy winds managed to blow a little powder onto the runs in spots, giving us little teeny tiny reminders of how good skiing can be.
We skied a full day and then retired to the Crap Bar (seriously, it was called that) for a beer before catching the bus/train connection back to Zurich (which takes a little under two hours for the whole trip). Despite the less-than-perfect conditions, skiing reminded me again why, deep down, I really do love Switzerland.
Ha! That’s like the “overfarten” signs in Norway…never fails to get a laugh out of me.
I do hope for you that the weather will improve. If I look at last year, however, we got 50cm in one shot… in March!! So keep your skis ready 🙂
Crap Bar – classic!
Today in Rome I am in SHORT SLEEVES. This is literally unheard of. People are saying it’s supposed to turn cold soon but I sure haven’t seen it yet! Incredible!
And the CRAP bar, that is awesome…
Its getting cold here in the UK, but my OH was canoeing today in Positano! I wanna come skiing too!
My Romansch-English dictionary claims that crap is the Romansch word for stone. My wife grew up in a nearby valley, but her village speaks German and not Romansch.
Of course, the Craplift is a T-bar! What else could it be?
Lots of snow is supposedly coming tonight. I’m giddy as a schoolgirl.
And the Craplift, for the record, was actually one of those disk lift thingies (like a t-bar but with a disk on a pole that you put between your legs. It’s not as naughty as my poor description might lead you to believe.)