Uhlfelder News

February 7, 2008.  We met the Edgerly family (minus one daughter) tonight for dinner.  They are here from Aspen, visiting with their daughter attending college for a year here and perfecting her Spanish and learning Catalan, the language of the region here.  It was really fun for me to see Stuart, about the nicest guy I know.  The best (strangest) part is we’re all on the same flight to Geneva and going to Chamonix for the same week!  Also David told me several of his class-mates would also be in Chamonix.  It should be darn crowded.

February 8, 2008.  Not much went on today of import — we packed.  I was waiting for the boys at the bus stop and watched Spanish police pull over motorcycles.  There was clearly nothing random about it — these were the ones that were ridden by kids.  Papers, etc… were examined.  I think they were looking for stolen motorcycles and drugs.  I watched for a while waiting for the kids’ bus, but no one was lead away in handcuffs.  One thing was clear, they were profiling.  No constitutional worries here about randomizing and not profiling just stop those most likely to be criminals. 

I’ve been reading the papers and there is an election here for President too, and it’s coming up in March.  Meanwhile the US election battle gets just as much press and everyone knows what is going on there.  I doubt there are many people who know there is even an election coming in Spain, much less the candidates names. 

February 9, 2008.  We got up and made our way to the airport, and waited in the long line for check-in with easyjet, a cheap dot-com airline.  Everything is handled by subcontractors including check in, baggage handling, gate operations, and probably flights too.  In fact, as we were checking in Anne noticed one of our bags got to the conveyor belt before getting tagged.  I was running parallel to the conveyor belt, trying to help the woman who was checking us in identify it, and then noticed she had given up.  She assured us that she would find the bag and get it on our flight.  Guess what.

You thought it would make it.  No way.  This of course caused an hour delay at the Geneva airport reporting the bag.  Then there was tons of traffic to Chamonix.  We got a private transfer – eight of us on a 42 seat city bus – we had plenty of room. 

Anywho, we got to Chamonix one bag short, Anne and I had to organize ski rentals for everyone and now David needed new ski clothes.  All before the stores closed.  Somehow, we got everything done and had a nice buffet dinner at the hotel.  Amazing.

Then Anne and I got on the phone (via Internet) and while doing that (no, the bag isn’t here yet), I got a call on my cell phone from someone at the airport in Barcelona about a bag without a tag.  Jose Maria was nice enough to call the cell number on the luggage tag, and hopefully the bag will arrive tomorrow.

As for Chamonix.  It looks great and really reminds me of Europe.  It’s a narrow and deep valley, and with unbelievable mountains surrounding it and a vertical rise of 10,000 feet plus.  The vistas are amazing.  I also arranged a guide tomorrow and managed to get the ski school organized for Dan’s kids.  Not as easy as Aspen, but it should work out.  Tomorrow Bruno will guide the six of us around and we’ll see what the skiing is like.  Bruno really wants to show me some of the good skiing. 

February 10, 2008.  After some amazing hassles getting our free tickets, we met with Bruno, our guide who Dan characterized “out of central casting”.  Bruno had us modify the tickets they gave us so we could ski everywhere.  Anyway, off we went.  Basically, I would say that Chamonix is about the best skiing I’ve ever experienced.  Living in Aspen this year would likely match it, but I’m here.

Basically, it’s a skier’s paradise.  Once you’ve come here, you’re going to be very spoiled.  Here are some photos from today’s and yesterday’s exploits, which included Dan and Amy and the four Uhlfelders with our guide Bruno.  David’s bag made it late at night.

February 11, 2008.  Bruno, our guide, met us this morning at the hotel with climbing harnesses and avalanche beepers.  This was, I suspect, a surprise for all of us.  Long story short, we ended up on the Argentiere Glacier after taking two crowded trams with about 60 people in them, then walking down about six or seven flights of super slippery steps with skis to the slopes/glacier.  Bruno was adamant about everyone skiing exactly in his tracks, which seemed smart since there are holes, also known as crevasses.

It was another day of breathtaking vistas and medium to challenging skiing, mainly as a result of the volume.  The kids held up really well, the adults were mixed with Dan having the hardest time although doing well given the intimidating nature of the endeavor.  After some discussion, we decided to ski the Vallee Blanche tomorrow, which is a very long ski down a glacier that everyone must do when visiting Chamonix.

February 12, 2008.  Today the family, with Bruno guiding, took us down the Vallee Blanche.  It was two 15 minute tram rides followed by 15 kilometers of skiing on a glacier.  Just getting from the tram to where the skiing started was probably the hardest part since you had to walk down a sheet of ice carrying your skis (and I carried one pair of the boys’ skis, Bruno the other and Anne’s skis) roped in to Bruno just to make sure the kids were okay.

Once we got to the skiing, it actually was not very hard, although there were some harder options.  If would be imprudent to do this without a guide; really taking your life into your hands.  And, in fact, by not hiring a guide you miss out on the best skiing for your ability.  The place is vast and I took a bunch of photos, but you have to see it to believe it.  In any case, some 2 plus hours later we got to a place where we had to walk up about 300 meters to a gondola which took us to the train to get back to Chamonix.  We had a leisurely lunch and dropped the kids off with Anne (enough!).  Then Bruno and I went back and did three trips to the Argentiere Glacier and skied all parts of it.  Who knows how many vertical feet was skied, but a lot and quickly.

February 13, 2008.  Off we went to Courmeyer, Italy, through the 12 kilometer-long Tunel de Mont Blanc.  In less than 20 minutes (and 42 Euros!) you are in Italy next to a really large and fantastic ski area.  I made one run on the off-piste down a narrow drop between some rocks with guide Bruno, then decided the entire family could ski a VERY long run from the top to the bottom off-piste.  About two hours and many falls by both boys and Anne, we were eating at a small restaurant in a town near Courmeyer.  All so very Europe.  Photos are here.

Off to dinner we went, to the Vista on the seventh floor of another hotel in our hotel’s group.  It was cook your own meat at the table with lots of choices including kangaroo.