As you can imagine, the ongoing pandemic has made me quite restless. So far, we’ve dealt with it by walking briskly for more than an hour every day. While we often follow the same route (as we know it’s about 6 km long), we sometimes wander off to avoid the sun. We’ve really gotten to know our neighbourhood, and soon began recognizing people who were also walking on a regular basis.
Random scene from suburbia: Pimlico Place, in Kingston, Ontario, Canada
The other thing we’ve noticed is how it is home to much more wildlife than it used to be. There are definitely more chipmunks, and at least as many squirrels, but most notable is the explosion in the rabbit population. Bauder Crescent might be the official name, but we now call that street Chemin des Lapins.
Rabbit at Lemoine Point (Kingston, Ontario)
We also walk at Lemoine Point (a nearby conservation area) from time to time. Most of today’s pictures are from Lemoine Point. The wildlife population there is exploding too…or, more likely, they have been overfed and have lost their fear of humans. The squirrels and chipmunks are incredibly brazen: you just have to pause for a second and you are swarmed by rodents looking for food.
No fear – squirrel at Lemoine Point
Lemoine Point is home to deer and wild turkeys too (I took some deer photos in this post from a few years ago), although we didn’t see any today. Hopefully, they have not become dependent on humans like the squirrels and chipmunks have.
What do you have for me? Squirrel at Lemoine Point (Kingston, Ontario)
As stores are slowly reopening (albeit under significant restrictions), we are trying to spend more time downtown so that we can support our local businesses. Kingston has a beautiful and historic downtown; I hope to include some pictures of it in my next post.
Collins Bay, as seen from Lemoine Point (Kingston, Ontario)
As for travel…by this time of year, I would normally have decided where I’m going for my winter holiday. While I don’t think I’m ready to completely rule out an early 2021 ski trip, and I want to support those who work in the travel industry, I have to be realistic. Any trip will have to be a last-minute decision.
Trail at Lemoine Point (Kingston, Ontario)
A significant barrier is going to be the quarantine situation (both at home and at the destination), and it is simply not possible to predict what that might be in 8 months’ time. Even within Canada, quarantine periods are required for travel between some provinces. A 14-day quarantine at the start of a vacation, followed by 14 days at the end, effectively rules out any kind of long-distance leisure travel for the time being.
The past couple of months have certainly made me think a lot about the future of a travel blog.
The County Court House in Napanee, Ontario
Since returning from Europe in early March of this year, everything has changed. Typically, I wouldn’t even be back from a trip before I had given some serious thought to the next destination. This time was different. Entirely unrelated to the gradually unfolding pandemic, I had very unpleasant experiences with the airline on each leg of my trip. These experiences fully fit into the category of a “first world problem”, but it still made me think about taking a break from very long distance travel.
The County Registry Office in Napanee, Ontario
Although I didn’t quite connect the dots at the time, I now view the unpleasant air experiences as blessings in disguise. It made me think a lot about what kinds of experiences I wanted to have in the future. I had always preferred “experiential travel” to “passive tourism”. Perhaps it was time to focus even more on the experience, regardless of where it took place geographically.
The old post office in Napanee, Ontario
In essence, the most rewarding thing about travel is going outside your comfort zone to experience new things. With a little effort, and within the limits posed by the pandemic, it’s time to make that happen on a more local scale.
The intersection of Centre and Dundas Streets: the core of downtown Napanee, Ontario
All of the pictures here are from a small road trip we took last fall to Napanee and Deseronto, two small towns just west of Kingston. Like just about anywhere, there are all kinds of experiences waiting to be discovered in my area. Have you ever tasted black lemon gouda cheese, imported from Holland by a local deli? Ordered a rare record from a local independent shop? Lawn bowled on a peaceful green overlooking the Trent Canal?
The New York Restaurant in downtown Napanee, Ontario
Last fall, we invented our own adventure. For years, we have driven to Napanee (and beyond) and passed the sign saying “Switzerville Road”, but it was never convenient to check it out. Being Swiss-Canadian, I vowed to someday investigate this mythical place. Perhaps it would be a little slice of Switzerland in a forgotten corner of Eastern Ontario?
Very old fire engine (from Batawa, Ontario, but actually in Deseronto, Ontario)
Well, we finally made it to Switzerville. You can see the “village” in the photo at the very top of this post. It consisted of two (or maybe three?) houses, and a very old cemetery. So…not really a slice of the Alps. But it was fun to check it out, imagining what it might be like and what it once must have been.
Christ Church, Her Majesty’s Chapel Royal of the Mohawk (Deseronto, Ontario)
Stay tuned – I’ll continue to report on local adventures and experiences, with the occasional “flashback”!
Cleaning and organizing have been occupying more of my time lately. In the process, I have found a lot of “souvenirs” from my past travels. Today’s post focuses on some interesting ephemera from my April 2014 trip to Bosnia & Herzegovina.
I stayed at the Hotel Konak in Sarajevo (Bosnia & Herzegovina)
The Hotel Konak was almost perfectly located in downtown Sarajevo. I could easily walk to everything. The hotel facade was a little unusual, but it was quite nice inside. It was a very comfortable place to sleep off my jet lag and adjust to my new surroundings. I had a long trip from Kingston to Toronto to Vienna to Sarajevo, and I appreciated the quiet room.
I visited the “Tunnel of Hope” in Sarajevo (Bosnia & Herzegovina)
The next day, I went on a guided “Siege of Sarajevo” tour, and it was an excellent (if sobering) introduction to the relatively recent conflict in this historic city. You can read more about the siege here, including the still “bullet-holed” tunnel entrance. The “Tunnel of Hope” was my first direct introduction to the impact of the war on Sarajevo…although the ruins of the Olympic complex also made a deep impression. I later wrote about a very close encounter with a land mine in Sarajevo.
Specialties of the Restoran Šadrvan in Mostar, Bosnia & Herzegovina
My next stop was the city of Mostar. As I noted in the blog entry I posted shortly after arrival in Mostar, the wounds of war were even more apparent here. But it was also a beautiful city, and my first meal was in a garden-like setting near Mostar’s famous and historic bridge. The photo at the very top of this post is actually a postcard from the Restoran Šadrvan in Mostar (my table was right by the fountain), and the picture above shows some of their specialties. My main course was stuffed peppers, but I also had a pickled vegetable salad…and I’m sure I had dessert too. After all, I was doing a lot of walking!
The Museums of Mostar, Bosnia & Herzegovina
I visited the local museum in Mostar primarily to see a video. They have a small theatre inside the museum where you can watch footage from the conflict that took place in Mostar. The footage of the destruction of the bridge was especially sad. I crossed that rebuilt bridge many times during my stay, and it is easily the most emotional bridge I have ever crossed. I also visited the Koski Mehmed Pasha Mosque, which is now a National Monument. Ascending the minaret was particularly memorable: you can read about it here.
Receipt from the Hotel Platani in Trebinje (Bosnia & Herzegovina), along with bus tickets/baggage receipts from Mostar
My next stop was not very far geographically, but it felt very different in every other respect. Trebinje is located in the Republika Srpska: it’s still in Bosnia & Herzegovina, but it is also governed separately from the “Federation” part of Bosnia & Herzegovina. You can read about that in more detail in my Trebinje post from 2014. The Serbian influence is much stronger here, as you can see from the above invoice from my hotel. The top of the invoice says “Hotel Platani” and “Trebinje” in the Cyrillic alphabet.
Receipt from the restaurant at Hotel Platani, Trebinje (Bosnia & Herzegovina)
The receipt above is from my meal in the hotel restaurant on my first night in Trebinje. While the form is all in Cyrillic, my waiter used the Roman alphabet to record my meal. I had a Capricciosa pizza, a glass of local red wine, and a decadent dessert. It was a palačinka … basically a stuffed crepe. But this one was the house specialty: it had an enormous amount of cherries and much more ice cream than usual. (You’ll notice that all prices in this post are in “KM”. This stands for “convertible marks”. The Bosnian currency was pegged to the German mark, and theoretically still is…even though Germany no longer uses the deutschmark.)
I enjoyed reliving my Bosnian trip through these items. Who knows what I will uncover next?
As I don’t foresee a whole lot of travel in the near future, I’ve decided to take a plunge into my “pre-digital camera” travel archives. Today’s travel flashback covers our 2007 road trip to the state of Vermont (that’s the state capitol in Montpelier, at the top of this post). We passed through Vermont again in 2009, but this earlier blog post explains why I didn’t have too much to say about it (and the state capitol was hard to properly photograph then too!).
Mount Ascutney Hospital (Windsor, Vermont)
You may wonder why I’ve included a picture of a local hospital. Unfortunately, we had to make an emergency visit here because my wife was stung by a bee in nearby Claremont, New Hampshire…and she began having a bad allergic reaction. This was when we discovered that she was allergic to bee stings! Fortunately, she was insured and was able to get medical attention without worrying about the cost. The emergency department was empty: it seems to handle mainly broken bones during ski season.
Hotel Coolidge – White River Junction, Vermont
We stayed in the town of White River Junction that evening. While there isn’t very much rail service in this part of New England, this town still has a station. I suspect that the Hotel Coolidge (see photo above) was originally built to accommodate rail passengers. When we were there, we had a huge room and you could tell that it had really been something special once…but it was in a state of transition. However, it seems to have received a significant overhaul and it is now looking spiffier again. It is on the National Register of Historic Places.
Quechee Gorge (Quechee, Vermont)
Vermont is a beautiful state with lots of recreational opportunities. We went for a hike in the Quechee Gorge, which passes underneath Route 4. This is one of those cases where a photograph doesn’t really do justice to the scenery. There is even a small ski area here.
Granite Bowling at the Rock of Ages Granite Quarry (Graniteville, Vermont)
In yet another foreshadowing of my eventual lawn bowling “career” (here’s a link to a similar situation in Scotland’s Orkney Islands), I was able to bowl outdoors at the Rock of Ages Granite Quarry in Graniteville, Vermont. The “lane” is made entirely out of polished granite! Apparently, this idea never took off because the granite eventually breaks conventional bowling balls. However, the quarry has specialized rubber bowling balls that can withstand the hard granite surface. The lane is still open from May to October of each year.
Rock of Ages granite quarry (Graniteville, Vermont)
We followed that with a tour of the Rock of Ages Quarry. It is almost 600 feet deep and they claim it is the largest operating deep-hole, dimension granite quarry in the world.
Main Street of Lake Placid, New York – showing the old (1932) Olympic Arena
My photos for most of the rest of the trip weren’t very good. In those days, you just couldn’t tell until you had the film developed. We returned home through the Olympic Village (1932 and 1980 Winter Olympics) of Lake Placid, New York. It’s a really small place, and it is sometimes hard to imagine that the Winter Olympics took place here. But they did!
Stay tuned for more (and older!) travel flashbacks.
I had less than 24 hours in Geneva before returning to Canada: just enough to re-familiarize myself with this famous but not-actually-very-big city at the southwestern tip of Switzerland.
Rue de l’Hôtel-de-Ville, in Geneva
Geneva is primarily a “government” town, as the European base of the United Nations and many other international agencies. Just like Ottawa and other capitals, it can be prohibitively expensive…but also relatively uncrowded on weekends. I was able to take advantage of a half-price offer and stay in a very nice hotel that would otherwise be way out of my price range. It overlooked the Rhone River – the photo at the very top of this post was taken from my window! And they even threw in a free transit pass!
Fruit vendor in Geneva’s old town
As other aspects of downtown Geneva remained quite expensive, I headed to Carouge, a “village” southwest of downtown that allegedly had an Italian feel. It did indeed feel like a small but prosperous Italian town, so I treated myself to a delicious gelato outdoors on the Place du Marché…even though it was still early March.
Place du Temple, in the village of Carouge (now part of Geneva, Switzerland)
Nearby, I spotted Geneva’s largest hockey arena, which is home to the strong Geneva Servette hockey club. They would have been in the Swiss National League playoffs that evening, so I checked if there might be any tickets available. Alas, as a precautionary measure, the playoffs had been postponed due to the COVID-19 situation that was beginning to take a serious foothold in Italy (but had not yet had any real impact on Switzerland).
Place de Longemalle, Geneva, Switzerland
This was the second cancellation I encountered. I had hoped to take a guided tour of the United Nations complex, but it too had just been closed as a precautionary measure. These were the only indications that very difficult times might lie ahead.
Rue de la Fontaine, Geneva
I spent much of my time exploring the city on foot. It is clearly a very prosperous place, and it sometimes felt like a French-speaking Zurich…just a bit smaller and scaled-down. If I found myself too far from my hotel, I would just hop on a tram.
Place du Bourg-de-Four, Geneva, Switzerland
Having just spent two weeks in the mountains, I decided that I didn’t want to eat “local” for my last meal in Europe. Noticing a significant number of Ethiopian restaurants, and not having this kind of cuisine back home in Kingston, I decided to visit the Nyala Barka restaurant. It took me a while to get there, as my “tourist map” unfortunately took quite a few liberties with things like distance and direction (which are somewhat important for a map).
Reformation Wall in Bastions Park, Geneva, Switzerland
Anyway, I eventually arrived and enjoyed a very tasty “vegetarian platter” at Nyala Barka. As always, I enjoyed eating with my hands and using the underlying injera bread to scoop up the food. I was the first customer of the evening, as locals seem to follow the France model and have their dinners considerably later than in German-speaking Switzerland. I didn’t mind: I needed to properly pack and get a good night’s sleep before my long journey back to Canada.
My dinner at the Restaurant Nyala Barka (Geneva, Switzerland)
[Shortly after I returned home, the COVID-19 pandemic exploded globally and the world became a much different place. I ultimately decided to post this entry more or less “as written” two weeks ago.]
Usually, the sixth day of skiing in a resort involves revisiting the highlights of the previous five days of skiing. However, due to the massive size of the Portes du Soleil region, we found ourselves in a completely new area on our last day.
A brilliant day above Les Crosets, Switzerland
Before this trip, I had never heard of Châtel, France. But it hosts a fairly extensive set of slopes radiating out in all directions from the town itself. The snow was excellent and we even made it into Switzerland again briefly: one of the lifts starts in France and ends in Switzerland. When you ski down, however, you soon find yourself back in France.
Turn left for everything, above Champoussin (Switzerland)
Of course, drama is the theme of this year’s trip…so it was only fitting that we had some more of it during our last day of skiing. This time, a power outage knocked out 4 lifts which we had just taken…and these were 4 lifts that we needed to get back to Morzine! We had to take 2 “navettes” in order to get around the blockage: on the second one, there must have been 100 people on the bus. We were wedged in like rush-hour commuters, with people falling onto each other whenever the bus went around a bend (which was a lot…these are the Alps!). Everybody was in a panic because they were afraid that they wouldn’t make it back before the rest of the lifts closed too.
Goulash in a bread bowl, at Champoussin (Switzerland)
Anyway, it worked out in the end and we had a very nice lunch at Le Blattin. This is a mountain hut high above Châtel that epitomized “cozy”. I would love to share some pictures of it, but my camera got soaked in the previous day’s rain and wasn’t working. Click here to see a picture that somebody else took.
Near Champoussin, Switzerland
In fact, I couldn’t take any pictures until the very end of the day. As the terrain and “vibe” was similar, I’m including some more pictures from Portes du Soleil Day 4 instead.
Near the Swiss border at Avoriaz (France), some skiers contemplate their next move
I continued skiing until 5:15 p.m. on the last day, and then caught a bus back to Morzine from the hamlet of Ardent. As the day slipped away, I passed the usual milestones: the last mountain lunch, the last lift, the last piste, the last turn…until I finally had to pop out of my bindings and admit that the skiing portion of my holiday was over.
Just inside the Swiss border, near Pointe des Mossettes
The Portes du Soleil region is massive. I didn’t get to the areas that were not lift-connected, and I didn’t really get to Mont-Chery, the slopes north and east of Châtel, the slopes north of Morgins, the slopes south of Avoriaz, or some of the slopes above Champery. That might look like a lot, but it pales in comparison to what we did actually see.
Les Lindarets, France, the “Village des Chèvres”
Overall, Portes du Soleil gets a passing grade, with bonus marks for the extended lift hours and the unique international aspect of the slopes. If I return here some day, I think I will base myself in one of the Swiss villages and focus on the Châtel and Swiss slopes. They were less busy and also felt more “authentic”, especially on the Swiss side. There was little or no purpose-built mass development, as we saw in Avoriaz (France). It was mayhem passing through the Avoriaz slopes during the late afternoon “rush hour”!
While the skiing part of my trip is now complete, I still have a brief stay in Geneva coming up. Stay tuned!
Our fourth and fifth days of skiing in Morzine could not have been more different. Day 4 was our second attempt to ski from France to Switzerland. Unlike our first attempt, we did not lose any gear along the way…and the weather was brilliant. At the border on Pointe des Mossettes, we could actually see a sign welcoming us to Switzerland. What a difference two days can make!
Admiring the scenery between Pointe des Mossettes and Morgins, Switzerland
We then took a long meandering piste, traversing both exposed Alpine slopes and cozy cliffside forests, all the way down to the Swiss village of Morgins. With a vertical drop of nearly 1000 m, but a very gentle slope, the piste seemed to go on forever. We didn’t mind: the mountains seemed much more rugged and awe-inspiring on the Swiss side of the border.
I took this photo at the end of the piste in Morgins, Switzerland
The slopes at Morgins, Champoussin, and Les Crosets were also virtually deserted. It was almost perfect: fresh snow, temperatures right around 0’C, blazing sun…we were happy to stay for lunch in Champoussin and plan our next move.
The “Dents du Midi” rise above Champoussin, Switzerland
We decided to take a closer look at the “Swiss Wall” (see photo at the very top of this post). This is a notorious piste, probably the steepest and most difficult marked piste in Europe (if not the world). Heavily mogulled, it also has a slope of 90% in places. It didn’t look too bad when I faced it, but when I looked down on it from the chair lift…that old survival gene kicked in. This would be a test of nerves, not elegance. Ultimately, I didn’t think 3:30 p.m., after a heavy goulash lunch, was the best time to attempt the most difficult piste I’ve ever seen. After taking a few pictures, we retreated from the Swiss Wall and re-entered France. We returned to Morzine quite tired but very happy with our international ski safari.
The Swiss Wall, seen from below
The 5th day was another story. It rained for 24 hours straight. And not just a light drizzle: most of that 24-hour period could be fairly described as “pouring”. I took no pictures, because it would have been pointless. We did go skiing, trying to escape the incessant rain in Morzine. While the rain did indeed turn to snow at about 1700 m elevation, it was accompanied by howling winds and whiteout conditions. And then the lifts started closing. We took a rare mid-morning break, and an extended lunch, in an attempt to dry out a bit.
Just above Morgins, Switzerland
The day ended with my mitts literally disintegrating in my bathroom sink. Everything was drenched, and I have no idea what will dry out enough to be usable tomorrow. My mitts were so structurally compromised that I went out and bought new ones just before the shops closed. Not my proudest consumer moment, but I really had no choice if I wanted to participate in the final day of skiing.
Approaching Les Crosets, Switzerland
For obvious reasons, all of today’s pictures are from the much more photogenic 4th day of skiing in France and Switzerland.
I just completed two of the strangest days of skiing I’ve ever had. They are forever linked by a massive blizzard…the 4th one I’ve experienced in a six-day period.
Ludicrous snowfall in Les Lindarets, France
On Monday, our goal was to ski to (and in) Switzerland. This involved several lifts and pistes, passing through the high alpine resort of Avoriaz, before finally disembarking from the Mossette chairlift above the Swiss village of Les Crosets. It seemed simple enough, and it didn’t take too much more than an hour.
Several hours later, the blizzard continues on the pistes near Les Lindarets, France
Alas, we had some challenges. One skier’s backpack somehow became unzipped while on the Mossette lift, and he lost both his spare jacket and his spare gloves in the desolate border region far below. After getting off the lift, we immediately returned to France from Switzerland. A simple plan to meet again (after a search for the missing items) went laughably wrong, as the Mossette lift was then closed due to sudden high winds and blizzard-like conditions. We had to take 3 lifts to get back to where we once were, and the visibility was rapidly deteriorating.
Top of the slopes on “La Rosta”
Never mind the appealing novelty of skiing in Switzerland for a few hours…we couldn’t see anything above the treeline, and we ran the risk that the rest of the cross-border lifts would also close and leave us stranded. We were forced to retreat to lower altitudes, away from the Swiss border, and close to the French village of Ardent. The pistes were drowning in wet snow. I actually love those kinds of conditions, but it is very hard work to slice through such voluminous and soggy snow. We had lunch in a very picturesque hamlet above Ardent called Les Lindarets, also known as the “Village des Chèvres” (“village of goats”). We had to ski down the main “street” to select an appropriate restaurant.
Me and my friend, the skiing “Milka” cow
After lunch (see photo of Les Lindarets above), there must have been an additional foot of snow. It was impossible to figure out where our skis where, as so much snow had fallen on them. It was pouring snow, forming outrageous patterns on our helmets and jackets. With temperatures hovering around 0’C, the snow soon turned to water on our ski outfits. I’ve never been so wet after skiing in such an intense blizzard.
Another view of the “Milka” cow, at the “La Rosta” peak near Les Gets, France
The next day, we awoke to an obscene amount of new snow. While some pistes were groomed, many weren’t. So we encountered dramatic off-piste conditions, except that we were still mostly skiing on-piste. Skiing through such deep snow can be exhausting. You can’t just slide or coast: you need to constantly keep your ski tips up to avoid face-planting, and you essentially need to “jump” from turn to turn to avoid getting stuck (or, again, doing a face-plant). It’s great fun, but you cannot let your guard down for even a second. And many of the pistes above Les Gets are very long.
We had lunch at this mountain restaurant, just above Les Gets
As noon approached, we had our most challenging runs of the day. The Myrtilles piste on Pointe de la Turche was ungroomed and had about 3-4 feet of new, loose snow on top of it. It also was rated as a black piste…in a country where very, very few pistes attract the black (meaning “very difficult”) rating. It was steep and unpredictable, even without 3-4 feet of new, loose snow on top of the existing base. See the “cover” photo at the top of this post for a photo taken near the top. Looking at it now, I can’t believe we went down twice. Once again: we were completely exhausted, but with a sense of real accomplishment.
And this is what I had for lunch: Tartiflette (cheese, potatoes, cream, bacon)
After such a draining experience, it came as no surprise that a skiing purple cow was waiting for us at the top of the neighbouring La Rosta peak. I posed for a photo (during which cow repeatedly and loudly mooed), and was rewarded with a handful of “Milka” chocolates. Apparently, Milka’s mascot is a purple cow. And this cow skis, albeit not that well. It has a very big head, which may impact “her” skiing ability. Still, I am impressed that a cow can ski at all. I then got my daily alpine cheese fix with a delicious “tartiflette” for lunch.
Our hotel in Morzine, France
The last skiing shock of the day came at the absurdly late hour of 5:29 p.m., when we were able to board the local gondola and ski one final time down to Morzine. I’ve never been on such a late daytime lift…and we had started the day before 9:00 a.m. We had the piste to ourselves: we could watch the sun begin to set while we were still on the slopes.
I don’t think anything can surprise me now. But we still have three more days of skiing…who knows what still lies ahead?
While I enjoyed the tranquility of Les Diablerets, it was time to move on to Morzine, France. It’s not far: maybe only 60 km if you could walk. But you can’t. And, in the winter, most of the mountain passes are closed to traffic. As a result, our train and shuttle bus journey took nearly 6 hours (with an hour stopover in Geneva).
Rösti with goat cheese, at the Auberge de la Poste in Les Diablerets, Switzerland
There are worse ways to spend half a day. We began with a very scenic ride on the quaint mountain railroad between Les Diablerets and Aigle. We then followed the entire north shore of Lake Geneva, with its great views of the French Alps, to get to Geneva itself. Finally, we circled back on the south side of Lake Geneva and turned onto the claustrophobic narrow valley that leads to Morzine.
The castle at Aigle, Switzerland (a.k.a. le château d’Aigle)
Our first impression of Morzine was not very good. The rain was pouring down and there were quite a few brown patches visible on the slopes immediately above the town. It looked like a lot of skiers were ending their day early. It sure didn’t look like a whole lot of fun. Especially when I had to do some laundry in a dimly lit and odd-smelling laundromat.
Morzine, France, as seen from the top of the Pointe de Nyon piste
Of course, rain at the lower elevations often means snow at the higher ones. And the relentless rain evolved into brilliant sunshine by the morning. There was even some fresh snow! The photo at the top of this post was taken at the start of our very first run (from the top of the Pleney lift).
Lake Geneva in the distance, as seen from the top of Chamossiere
Morzine is just one of the 13 villages that make up the “Portes du Soleil” ski region shared by Switzerland and France. You can ski across the border at a number of locations. It is one of the two largest ski regions in the world: there are about 200 lifts, and more than 650 km of pistes!
Essentially the same view, but photobombed by a Dutch skier
Our first day was devoted to the pistes near Morzine. My favourites were those on Chamossiere and Pointe de Nyon, where there was still a significant amount of loose snow. By the end of the day, the weather had changed to a blizzard…but, once again, that’s not a bad thing if it clears up by the morning.
Everybody has their cameras out at Chamossiere
With no lift lines to speak of (on a weekend!) and a huge range of skiing options, Morzine and the Portes du Soleil are steadily improving on that iffy first impression. Stay tuned to see the final verdict, as we venture further afield!
Skiing here is in 4 distinct areas. There is “Glacier 3000”, which is sits on a glacier at about 3000 m above sea level. One of the pistes is 8 km long. The other three areas are connected by lifts: Les Diablerets, VIllars, and Gryon. It’s fun to ski from one resort to the next…you just have to make sure you get back before the lifts close. It’s very expensive to return to your base, as these towns are very far apart by road or rail. The mountains are in the way!
A summer village nearly covered in snow, between Les Diablerets and Villars
On our first day, the good news was that there was an ongoing blizzard depositing huge amounts of snow on the pistes. The bad news was that there was an ongoing blizzard; the sun was absent, and visibility was hit and miss. The more exposed areas above the treeline had some icy patches, as the wind was blowing the snow away. As a result, we spent most of our time below the treeline, and enjoyed the skiing very much despite the occasionally challenging conditions.
Skiing at Villars (from Petit Chamossaire)
After lunch high above Gryon, we began following the route that would take us back to Villars and then Les Diablerets. Alas, the lift connection that brought us to the Gryon slopes had just closed due to high winds. We had to take a gondola down to Gryon itself, where hopefully we could catch a bus to Villars, and then ski back to Les Diablerets (via several lifts). However, so many people were stranded by the closed lift that we couldn’t take the bus.
Les Diablerets, seen from the slopes
We then walked to a train station, and took an alpine train to Villars. But it took so long that we would not make it back to Les Diablerets before the lifts closed. We were despondent and were facing the prospect of a 3 hour journey by bus and train (at our expense) back to Les Diablerets. And then we saw the “snow angel” (seriously…he wore a sign that said this).
Skiers on Grand Chamossaire
The Swiss are known for quality products and services. The “snow angel” told us that a bus had been arranged to take us (and 21 other stranded skiers) at no cost to us. And because it might take 45 minutes for the bus to arrive for us, the ski area bought us all drinks at a nearby pub! Given the prices in Switzerland, this was quite a generous offer! As we finished our drinks, the bus arrived, and we all enjoyed a stunningly dramatic drive from Villars to Les Diablerets…in just under an hour. We were even on time for dinner.
We can see Lake Geneva from Grand Chamossaire!
This was enough of a rollercoaster for one day, but the second day had nearly as much drama.
Another photo from the slopes above Villars
The sun was shining and it looked like a beautiful day for skiing. We caught the first bus from Les Diablerets to Col du Pillon – where the lifts to take us up to Glacier 3000 begin. Alas, there was more bad news. As they had received 150 cm (!!) of snow, the lifts were late and they could not prepare the pistes. You could only ski if you had an avalanche transceiver and other highly specialized alpine gear. So we had to return back to Les Diablerets,
We had lunch at this restaurant above Les Diablerets
We finally started our ski day about an hour later than we had hoped, and we were feeling kind of sorry for ourselves. But it turned out to be a spectacular day on the slopes. There was little wind, the sun was out, there was plenty of powder on the slopes…it really wasn’t necessary to ski off-piste.
It is green down below in Aigle, but very white above Villars
While it was very crowded in places, as the conditions had been poor for quite some time before we arrived here, we managed to avoid the queues by taking the “less glamorous” drag lifts (pomas, t-bars) rather than chairlifts, gondolas, and cable cars. This strategy worked in Lake Louise, and it seemed to work here as well.
Downtown Les Diablerets, after our day on the slopes ended
The photos in this post are all from our second day of skiing…there was too much blowing snow to take pictures on the first day! Coming up next: Skiing in France!
