I have the greatest wife in the world.
In addition to her all around greatness and fantasticness, for finishing my master’s Kell sent me on another ski trip to the Alps. Canadiac Sal Hammett flew and met me in Dublin for a few pre-trip pints then we flew to Geneva, transferred to Chamonix where we met up with another Canuck Mark “The Kid” Darrah.
Arrived in the am, dropped off the bags, abandoned Cal to sort out our lost skis, rented some skis, and got an afternoon of regaining my skis legs. Then the all important stop at the Argentiere market for cheese, meat, wine, and beer (and an orange).
Spent 3 days skiing Grand Montet (2 with rental skis until ours arrived) and hooked up the Paul, an American living in Montreal for 10 years who’s skied Grand Montet every season for the last 30 years. Needless to say he was a great guy to ski with and hopefully we can convince him to stray from GM for a trip to western Canada.
Enjoyed some socializing in the Dahu that night.
SNOW!!!
A classic apres spot.After skiing sweet powder in Cham (their first in a month), we loaded up the train with cheese, cured meats, and beer for the journey to Verbier, Switzerland.
Verbier is AMAZING, looked like great skiing in bounds but the touring off the back was too tempting to resist. (Hal tried to resist but The Kid bet him a beer that we wouldn’t have to boot pack out). Bluebird. Untracked. Heli-runs. Whoop-whoop! Finished off the day with a sauna at our chalet and a nice glass of wine…
Apres at the Pub Mont Fort. A European institution!
The Freeride World Tour Finals.Day 2 at Verbier, Sal took the day off and Darrah and I were out the back asap. We summited Monte Rosa then made our way to the top of another heli-run.
That night: RACLETTE!! Sweet roasted cheese covered everything. So. Much. Cheese.
Extremely satisfied after dominating the better part of a cheese wheel.Final day in Verbs, another bluebird, untracked day! Then on to Brig where we’d meet up with our guide and Laurent (aka Mad Max - you may remember him from such adventures as the SainteLyon Ultra or Tartiflette Indulgence a few years back)
So much stuff to lug around.
Holding the train in style.
Tour Day 1 included a 3 hour train journey to the top of the Junfraujoch, the highest train station in Europe, to get to the start of our skiing.
The Jungfraujoch is super posh as it's quite an expensive train ride; there's a jewelery kiosk at the upper platform where you can buy yourself a souvenir Tissot or Tag Heuer watch for a few grand! Cal opted for the buff and sunscreen.
Either I ate too much cheese or need to adjust my transceiver!
Mad Max aka The Professor aka Uphill Savage
Long slow slog to get to the final short few steps up to the hutte….
But they have draft beer!!
The food at the huttes was amazing.
Tour Day 2 was a climb up over the Grunhornlucke pass and an unconventional summit of the Wyssnollen 3600m(crampons on, skis on back, full-on climbing). 
The reward was a 700m decent of untouched, then delicious pints at The Best Spot on Earth - The Finsteraarhorn Hutte
Alpenmacaroni!
Mad Max with a big wave.
We would summit the peak in the middle the next day.
Tour Day 3 skied across and summited Grosses Wannenhorn 3910m. The final 20m to the summit was a narrow ridge (1m wide?) that dropped off to 200m icefall on either side. A fantastique objectif!
Mad Max was an uphill savage.
On the summit of the Grosses Wannenhorn
Delicious Rosti...
Delicious wine...
At the greatest spot on the planet.
Tour Day 4 up early, 6am depart, to give ourselves extra time for a long day. We were moving huttes, had a lot of elevation planned, and needed to get Mark to the train station by 4:30 plus the weather was supposed to be changing. 10 hours? No problem, will have lots of time to spare…
…until we had climbed 1200m to the apex of our day and couldn’t find the route down to the next glacier! So…time to backtrack past our 3 previous days, 2 previous huts and to find our way back up another glacier in a snowstorm. We were all pretty gassed and with boot top pow to trailbreak, we got a rotation system going to make it back up to the hutte at 3700m. Needless to say, The Kid misses his train (and flight the next day) and everybody-including the guide- were wrecked after a 12hr, 25km, +2400m day. Beers and calories were very well deserved!
Tour Day 5 was an easy 15m ski down to the Jungfraujoch where we needed to catch the train back to Brig (where Mad Max’s car, and all of our stuff was).
So how long does it take to get from the top of the Swiss Alps to Galway, Ireland? A solid 18 hours of skiing, trains, walking, lunch in the Brig platz, trains, airplane, bus, walking (all of this not having showered for 6 days – sorry people anywhere between Brig and Galway). Arrived home at 3am with just enough time to catch some shut-eye before a double shower and teaching at 9am.
