Thursday, March 6, 2008

Andermatt Ski Trip

On Sunday afternoon Allie, Sam, Carla, Matteo and I checked out a van and drove to Andermatt to go skiing. The drive was about 2 hours and we were all slightly hung over from an evening at the IP the night before. However, there was an energy in the van with music coming from Allie's speakers and the knowledge that we were going to have a beautiful day of skiing.

As we entered the Gottard tunnel which is 17 km long we all held our breath that there would be sun on the other side, when we saw natural light again. Luck was on our side because there was sun and it was about 40 degrees that day. We all definitely over dressed.



This was my first time going on a ski trip besides my trip to Cran. Its the alps and I always pictured all the mountains to be as big as Cran with as many chairs and slopes. Just like it is in the States. That is definitely not the case. Andermatt is very small. There is on Gondola up to the top to the slopes from a very small quaint town, where we rented all of our equipment. Once we were up at the runs we had the choice of about three chairs and one more gondola that took 20 minutes to wait for and another 20 to ride. However, even with all of the waiting for chairs and runs it was beautiful. The snow was great and the sun was shining down on us.



At first we started skiing as a whole pack, with a variety of abilities. There was a lot of waiting around and sitting in the snow playing while the others were coming. At times Sam and I became slightly childish building snow men and stomping on them and laying on the snow so that it looked like we had collided into each other. It did pass the time away.





When we finally did split up Allie, Sam and I decided to try the T-bar. This wasn't a brilliant choice. I hate T-bars they scare me and about half way up the ride we found out that Allie doesn't know how to ride one. It was like watching slow motion. I was behind Allie when she slowly began to lean to her left. We were on a very narrow path and to the left was a huge drop off over a ledge. As she fell I saw the worst, she tumbled over the edge causing one ski to pop off and stick straight up in the snow. Then she continued to tumble ski over head until she stopped because her other ski that was still attached went perpendicular into the mountain. At this point the T-bar stopped and Allie yells up "Did they stop because of me?" I don't think they did but it allowed Sam and I to get a full view of the situation and yell words of wisdom to Allie, like you are going to have to walk up, pop off your skis and we will find you eventually, as the T-bar started up again and we watched her struggle over our shoulder. We were nice however and skied down to where she would come out and delayered due to the heat and waited for her to join us.



At this point we were ready for some lunch and met back up with Carla and Matteo at a restaurant over looking the mountains. I sat and sunned myself for about an hour, finally getting some color in my face. We also dined on traditional sausage in onion sauce and rosti, very tasty hash browns.

After lunch we only got a few more runs in, taking Carla and Matteo on the T-bar to show them the sight of our the fateful fall only to have Carla do the exact same thing. Matteo however was much nicer and did not go all the way to the top of the bar but rather stopped at the next peak to wait for her to climb over the ledge again. Her ascent was a little easier because she had a snowboard and just less equipment to relocated and navigate.




We skied till 4 and caught the last gondola down. It was a great day!

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