Skiing: Laax

Nice and sore after good skiing in Laax. The group was Travis, Lindsey, Tommy, Jacqui, Richard, Evan, Shane, Adrienn and I. We got up and headed out early Saturday for our weekend on the hill. Laax hasn't been getting any real snow, so we weren't expecting stellar conditions. We walked to the hostel to drop off our stuff and learned that the hostel wasn't open yet. I didn't have anything of value, so I just left my stuff there, and we caught a bus back up to the bottom of the hill. Travis was borrowing my skis, so there was some concern he wouldn't be able to rent boots to fit them, but that worked out perfectly.

Tommy and Evan confused at a transfer

Travis tending to the skis

The snow didn't look too bad on the way up, but there was no fluffiness to it at all. Some European park competition was going on, so that would be pretty cool to check out. Some of the boarders were going pretty huge, and it was cool to see. We did one tree run, which had surprisingly good snow, and then one run down a T-bar section, where the snow was alright.

Looking down the chair

Evan's game face

Tracked up

We decided it would be best to head all the way up to the top of the glacier, and see if there was any good snow up there. Since there was a lot of flat ground on the way, the skiers lost the snowboarders, and had to wait at the bottom of the glacier for them.

Bottom of the glacier

Extreme skiers

After riding the glacier for a while, which consisted of a few mogul turns followed by a run in the half-pipe and then speeding back to the T-bar, we needed something new. I hadn't really been in a pipe on skis before, so it was good to try it out. Evan, Shane and I decided to hike a ridge to and ski the face opposite the glacier. The hike was pretty easy, just walking on slate in ski boots is annoying. After getting to the top, we rested for a bit, and then got ready to drop in.

Off-piste

Evan and Shane ready to hit some untracked snow

The run was really good, a great chance to try out my skis in some thicker snow. It was far from deep powder, but still a good run. There were some rocks near the bottom, but none of us hit them, so it was all good. We skied back down to the gondola, did some more runs in the pipe, then hiked up the ridge one more time. After some tips from Evan, I felt way more confident the second time around.

On the ridge

We skied down the rest of the mountain, catching a couple small areas with snow, but it was mostly icy and hard-packed on the way down. All in all, it was a pretty successful day, but we were still lusting for better snow.

Our peak in the distance

Once everyone had made it back to the hostel, which was now open, we all crashed for a couple hours, a ski-siesta if you will. We each had our own rooms, and the beds were so fluffy and comfortable, perfect for a ski lodge. The original plan was to have some dinner in town and then go out, but we opted for staying in instead. Tommy, Lindsey and I talked our way into dinner with the other group that was at the lodge. They charged us 20 CHF and we got quite a bit of food, some rice and meat sauce, ceasar salad and ice cream for dessert. Then we all got together to play cards and have some drinks. Everyone ended up drinking quite a bit, and I headed to bed around midnight to get some rest for Sunday.

Playing some cards

The next day we got out pretty late, around 10 o'clock. Shane, Evan and I wanted to check out some new areas, so we started by hitting the tree run from the day before. We found a nice wind lip before the trees and practised some spins. There were a few good pillows in the trees, but there was a rocky creek bed we had to avoid. After several runs in the trees, we decided to move on.

Lindsey getting antsy

Crap at the base

We started working our way over to an off-piste area with a cablecar going up, but it looked like a long time to transfer over, so we planned it to hit some good runs on the way. At the top of the first gondola we ran into Richard, who decided to join up. There were some big kickers heading into a valley that Shane and Evan wanted to hit, so we headed over to them. I didn't like the look of the landing, so I skipped it. Shane went off without a hitch, but on landing one of Evan's skis released, and sped all the way down the hill into a rock garden at the bottom. Evan had to hike down and retrieve his ski, so I took the opportunity to have a couple sandwiches for lunch. Richard headed down on his own, and once Evan was back, we headed on.

Evan hiking the rock garden

Balloons

Next we went along a rocky ridge, which turned out to have a pretty big cliff below, but we saw it and went around. We had a little cliff drop and then headed into a treed in area.

Cliff we luckily missed

Takin' a break

After the run in the trees, Evan decided to skip the cablecar because he couldn't initiate any more turns. Better safe than sorry. We had trouble finding our way to the lifts that carried us up to the cablecar. The lifts turned out to be strange, you had to take off your equipment to ride the chair. The problem is Evan and I have skis that are too wide to fit in the rack, so we had to hold them. At the top Evan headed down and Shane and I waited for the cablecar. It was there pretty quickly and took us up for our off-piste run. There were lots of rocks below, so we were worried about finding a good way down.

Shane and I at the top of the cable car

Once we started going it was pretty easy. The snow at the top was pretty hard, but it wasn't unridable. There where lots of rock pillows to hop off, and it was tons of fun. We dropped the roof of a bunker onto hard pack, which didn't feel too great, but then after that the snow got so much better. The powder was awesome, tons of pillows and lots of places to launch off. Then it got into a bit more trees, and then we came across a house in the middle of the run. It was too perfect to skip over. There were some people on the bench out front of the house, but after a few innocent questions I deduced it wasn't their house. I told them we were going to drop the roof, and to make sure they weren't in the way. The first video of me didn't work out, but the transition was super smooth. It was tons of fun.

People relaxing

The Jump (right-click, save as...)

After dropping the roof

We did the cablecar run again, then another run from the base of the cablecar, which allowed us to hit the house again. The back of my binding came off when I stepped in after filming Shane's second drop. I was pretty worried, since they're new bindings, but with a screwdriver we got it back on, and it seemed solid. The cablecar run and the run below it were definately the best part of the weekend, Shane and I had a blast in there. On the ski out we ended up having to hike through a bit of the town, then taking a gondola all the way back up a different side, just to get back to the bus stop.

After a good long day