Schifahren in der Schweiz

Joe got a chance to give his version of our trip to Switzerland, but I get to speak as well.

Limmat River

I went to Switzerland with my lab group a few days before Joe. This is a semi-annual workshop we do with another research group at the ETH (Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule), a very famous scientific university in Zürich. The meeting was quite nice, and we got to see how the ETH designs completely modular laboratories that can be reorganized in short order due to open ceilings with all the wiring and gas lines easily accessible. Cool! We were hosted overnight by members of the group. I stayed in a town called Pfäffikon outside of Zürich with an Argentinian postdoc and her Swiss husband. Joe joined me the second night, and we had real Raclette and got to hear some real Schweizerdeutsch (Swiss German) spoken by the kids and father. Almost completely incomprehensible to us, despite our long hours of studying Hochdeutsch (High German, or the Lingua Franca of German speakers).

Swiss doors through time

Some of us went on a tour of Zurich after our workshop. Zürich was beautiful, but unfortunately it was quite cold and it was a walking tour. We enjoyed it even though we were mostly all icicles at the end. Zürich sits at the edge of Lake Zürich, which flows out into the Limmat River through town. We saw some interesting things, like these two doors: one from medieval time and the other more modern. Another reason Medieval times must have been the absolute worst time to be alive.

The research group in Zürich had booked a large house in the town of Valbella for us to stay and ski at the resort of Lenzerheide. I was excited about this because Lenzerheide is in the Romansh-speaking part of Switzerland. Romansh is a derivitive of Latin, and only spoken by about 60,000 people. We didn't get to hear anyone speaking Romansh, but many of the signs and place names were in Romansh. "Voa" is Romansh for road or street, and our house (Haus Casoja) was near Voa Casoja.

Tucked skier crossing sign

Rothorn tunnel on roadcut

Despite the cold conditions that Joe described, I downhill-skied for two days. This gave me ample time to reflect on the differences and similarities between skiing in the US and skiing here in Europe. My first observation was that T-bars are much more frequently used here, and they often cross trails. In fact, many trails of different types (i.e. downhill, uphill, cross-country) cross each other and so there are special signs to warn you. It seemed quite cavalier to have a ground lift cross a trail to me, but conversely, the use of a restraining bar on the actual chair lifts (Sesselbahn) is required here, whereas many chairs in the US don't even have these bars. I was also astonished to take my first ride in what seemed to me a bus-sized gondola that held 60 skiers and riders standing. Even more astonishing to me is that it went to the top of a quite craggy peak that accessed steep couloir skiing. We opted for a milder trip down the back of the mountain, which wound around a roadcut that was protected by a sort of "tunnel" built onto the roadcut. One final difference is that there were very few telemarkers. This is a bit of a change after Colorado, but kind of nice in a way. My friend Aude, who was rocking her mini-skis, claimed we were both kind of retro or vintage for our unique styles of skiing. But with so many über-cool telemark skiiers in Colorado, it always felt like a bit of a cool competition. It was sort of a relief to just, well, SKI and not feel like anyone cared how you did it or how rad your turns were.

Joe below Rothorn (i.e. bus-gondola) peak

Swiss terrain

Apres-ski

Despite these new adventures in ski culture, some things were still the same. Although there was plenty of powder to be had, albeit slightly tracked, most skiers opted for the groomers. Fortunately, the members of my lab group were not opposed to hopping off the well-marked trail into happy powder land. Also fortunately, Lenzerheide is like Arapahoe Basin on crack, where most of it sits above treeline and the 10% of groomed trails punctuate vast tracts of "off-piste". Another similarity is that European skiers, who probably invented "Apres ski" by the way, love to pop into an on-slope hut or chalet for a hot drink or cup of soup. Happy trails until next time.