Adam's Haus

The pictures say it all....gorgeous day, lots of sunshine, and the mountains, what more can you ask for?  Many hours spent above 4000m meant my stomach and head were not so happy, but i'm slowly getting used to it.

It's been a dream of mine all winter...every time I drive to the  Valais, I see the epic north face of the Dents du Midi staring at me, welcoming me to this mountain paradise.  Two weeks ago I got the opportunity to ski down it!

After an early start from Lausanne, we reached our starting point of ~1500m, and started our hike up (it's always fun walking on grass in your ski boots...) around 1700m we found some snow, and started skinning our way up to 2300m, the base of the couloir. 

That's when the fun started...a tight couloir with an average slope of 43deg, we trecked up the next 700m with crampons and our skis on our back.  Always keeping an eye out for falling rocks...they were flying past us like bullets! 

After a few (exhausting) hours, we reached the Col de la Dent Jaune 3004m, and had a gorgeous view towards the south.  A quick lunch, and we were ready for what we came here to do...THE DESCENT!  i'll let the pics tell the rest of the story....see them here.

Given that I'm lazy and don't feel like writting my life story, I've neglected to write about my last couple weeks, so here's sum-up:

March 17: Les Crossets

It was a gorgeous Saturday at the end of the ski season, so I  went for a leasurely day of spring skiing at Les Crossets.  Since the snow was pretty bad, we spent most of our time on the patio of the summit chalet drinking wine...Check out the pics

March 18: Geneva Auto Show

Everyone that likes cars knows the Geneva Auto Show....I went to check out the new cars coming out, including the new Benz C series, the M3 Concept, the Audi S5, and all the lovely concept cars on display...Check out the pics

March 21: Ovronnaz

Winter came back with a vengeance, with an entire week of constant snow-fall, so I had to take a wednesday off and go skiing some crazy powder.  Probably one of the best ski days of my life...knee deep, all day, I've never eaten so much snow cause it kept flying into my face!  Check out the pics

Here's a little video of Ovronnaz...

Every year my lab organizes a ski trip somewhere in Switzerland for a weekend, to do some 'team building' (definition: drink beer and ski with people that you work with).  Since I have exams I was not able to spend the whole week, but I did make it over to the lovely touristy ski town of Zermatt on Sunday night, and skied on Monday.

Being a proper weekend, Sunday night was spent at the bars until  ~3am.  On our way back to the hostel, we somehow thought it would be faster to use my skis instead of walk...this is tricky however when you've only got one ski and no ski boots!  After a huge snow-ball fight we managed to get to bed before the sun came up.

After almost no sleep, I was up at 7:30am, ready for a solid day on the slopes.  I would never do this to go to work, but for skiing it's a pleasure :D.  The last few weeks have been very dry and warm, but it snowed all weekend, and we were surprised by an amazing day of powder on Monday!  There was so much of it we didn't know where to ski first....

Pictures are in the Zermatt photo gallery.

The last few weeks I've been pretty busy with exams, so I haven't had time to do anything special, except of course for taking a few days to go skiing!  Last weekend I was in Super Saint Bernard with Sylvie, and Monday I went to Zermatt to join my collegues on our Lab Ski Trip.  Needless to say the evening before we had a few brews, to get us ready for the next day...that'll be described in the next post.

New pics:

I've added Markus' pics to the Cabane des Aiguilles Rouges album (ski touring from 2 weeks ago)

Skiing at Super Saint Berndard, on the Italian border

It's been 3 weeks since I've been working like a dog and haven't been in the hills...I finally finished my last major projects for the term, so it's time to study for exams...actually, forget exams, I'm off to the Alps!

Friday Tim (scotsman buddy) and I decided to hit the slopes of Nendaz and Verbier, since it was a sunny day and some snow actually fell in the last few days.  During dinner the night before we conviced Manu (my roommate) to skip work and come with us.  The day was gorgeous, but definately too warm for February!  We did quite a bit of hiking since the slopes were pretty skied out, and had a bit of lunch on a peak and did some suntanning.... SEE THE PICS

The next day Tim. Markus (austrian dude) and Krister (yank dude) went for a nice little ski tour, since the snow just wasn't good enough to justify buying a lift pass.  We did a nice 1000m climb from La Gouille to the Cabane des Aiguilles Rouges.  At the cabin we met some belgians who didn't know how to open the flue, so the entire cabin was filled with smoke...damn belgians.  On the way down we did a nice 50m descent through a steep deep-powder chute...and then were stuck with 950m of bad descent through hard sun-crusted snow!  SEE THE PICS

Two weeks ago I went skiing with my ol' buddy Karsten, who now lives in Zurich and dropped by for the weekend.  We originally went to Verbier, but since all the fresh snow was already skiied out we made our way over to the next valley, and spent most of the day in Nendaz.  It took us two hours, but we found powder!  All it takes is a bit of motivation....

In other news, it's the e nd of my first semester of my Masters, and that means i've been bustin my butt to finish all my projects, and therefore no skiing .  On a bright note, as of Thursday I'm (mostly) a free man, so let it snow!

Skiing pics from Nendaz:  In the gallery!