Unexcused Absences

It is with some trepidation that I write of our visit two months ago to Les 3 Vallees in France. We’ve just spent the past three ski seasons at Beaver Creek, including the amazing winter of 2010 – 2011; however, this past March near Albertville in the Alps was, without a doubt, the absolute finest skiing of our lives.

Locals say that 2013 has brought more snow to the Alps than most folks have seen in living memory. It’s been 50 years since this much snow fell here, covering the slopes with over 6 feet of base.

Les 3 Vallees is large — the largest ski area on earth in fact. At 40,000 skiable acres, it dwarfs Vail (whose total area is a bit over 5,000 acres). Compare the size of Les 3 Vallees – which is roughly 13.5 miles in width and 7,000 feet of vertical drop – with our home ski area at Beaver Creek. If you made Vail’s Blue Sky Basin three times the height, and could ski to Edwards through Beaver Creek, you’d start to get an idea the scale of Les 3 Vallees. Compare that to our home in Virginia, and it’s as if you could ascend from Arlington a mile and a quarter and ski over to Reston — for lunch. In other words, it’s vast.

After a lovely first day on the slopes (complete with delicious European lunch fare at Le Bouc Blanc in Corchevel) the snow started falling quickly and furiously. Nearly a foot had fallen outside our Meribel Mottaret condo overnight. Our plans for tree skiing in Corchevel the next day quickly changed as we were forced off the Pas du Lac gondola at the mid station – the upper mountain was closed for avalanche work. Shrugging, we exited the gondola – and plunged into foot-deep powder. The next run, we dared to venture off-piste and quickly found ourselves in over-knee powder. Over and over, we turned off the groomed runs to plunge through the light, fluffy snow. Once the ski patrol dropped bombs and cleared the upper mountain of dangerous snow, the higher lifts opened. As the lower mountain’s power tracked out, the upper mountains offered us fresh power – again.

The same evening, snow fell once again. While the snowfall in our village seemed about 4 inches, the next day on the hill it was clear that another foot of light powder had fallen – on top of the previous day’s dump. We headed to Mont Valon, where a vertical drop of 2600 feet of off-piste powder awaited us. The turns were bottomless — powder often reached our waists. Under a blue-bird sky, we skied the mountain again and again, finding fresh lines each time. Here’s a short video segment of some sweet powder skiing (I’m in the orange jacket, and Kent’s in red).

And this is why I hesitate to even talk about this series of amazing ski days. After three years in Colorado, we never, ever, had powder hit out waists. We never experienced truly bottomless turns under an azure sky. In Les 3 Vallees, we took fall-line runs that descended 4500 vertical feet, flowing down the valleys for miles. We found fresh powder lines on face after face. We were incredibly fortunate to receive an invitation to the Alps from the Minister of Leisure, and even more fortunate to visit during the week that welcomed almost 3 feet of new snow on top of a 6+ foot base.

After the five days of amazing skiing, including two big powder days, a sudden snow shower hit Thursday evening. Friday morning, although temperatures had warmed, we once again hit creamy, untracked power (albeit heavier than the previous three snowfalls), descending thousands of feet off-piste in untracked snow. Our last day, we made the grand tour of about 60% of the area. We skied through three valleys – speared by by 10,000 foot peaks – and crossed rocky ridges to vast, treeless valleys with ski runs snaking down. We skied a single run from the top of the Val Thorens glacier down over 6 miles and 4500 vertical feet (not even to the end of the run) to the valley below.

Our week in Les 3 Vallees luckily coincided with the best conditions seen in 50 years, allowing us to enjoy three days of amazing power skiing, daily European lunches and runs that went forever. Although I do not use these words lightly, it was truly an epic ski vacation.

Our first trip to France in 2013 came sooner than expected. We have plans to return to our boat Après Ski in mid May, but Ted, the Minister of Leisure, suggested we take a ski trip to the Alps, and it would certainly be rude to turn him down, so mid March found us on a plane to Paris.

We arrived a couple days early to take care of some business in Paris and to visit our friend Dana, who because of her work schedule was only in town for an afternoon. Faced with a free day, we hopped the TGV east for about 45 minutes to the historic city of Reims, one of the major hubs of the Champagne region, to do some reconnaissance for June when we’ll be back in Champagne aboard Après Ski. Reims had received a foot of snow the day before, most abnormal for this city. And I bring that up because it seems that this year we have brought the snow with us wherever we went.

Our arrival at Beaver Creek in mid January snapped a two-month snow drought. And when we flew back to Virginia in early March, we brought with us the “Snow-quester” storm. We even brought snow to Dallas, Texas, when we changed planes on that flight. Now here we were in northern France, where it rarely snows, and they’re digging out from under a foot of it. And the weather forecasts for the 3 Valleys ski area, our destination in the French Alps Saturday, were hinting at significant snow Sunday through Tuesday morning. Thanks to Ted, we arrived Saturday afternoon to prime conditions for a week of skiing in Meribel-Mottaret, in the heart of the 3 Valleys. We awoke Sunday morning to snow showers and packed powder conditions, so we quickly suited up and were on an early chair to begin our ski week. During our tour of Courchevel, one of the three valleys, the snow showers intensified, and by quitting time it was starting to pile up. At bedtime Sunday we could see that a good 4-6 inches had already come down.

And then Monday morning happened. We looked outside in awed silence; everything was buried in white, and it was still dumping snow. The storm easily produced a foot or more overnight. Eager with anticipation (I believe Heather said I was “vibrating”), we were out and ready to go for the lift opening. The interesting thing about Monday was that because so much snow had come down, the mid and upper sections of the mountain remained closed (avalanche danger), so we found some fantastic powder runs on the lower slopes. Once the mid-mountain chairs opened around 10:30, we had another round of fresh powder runs. And when the upper mountain opened an hour later, we got a third go at fresh tracks.

Now for non-skiers reading this, you may wonder what all the fuss is about. Here’s the thing; people ski their entire lives waiting for the chance to ski deep untracked powder on a big mountain. At a place like Vail or Beaver Creek, with two- to three-thousand vertical feet and relatively crowded slopes, you may only have one or two runs a season (if even that) of completely untracked, deep powder. The 3 Valleys are eight times the size of Vail, and boast a six-thousand foot vertical drop, so there’s space for everyone. And in three hours we had enjoyed three separate sessions of pristine, deep, untracked powder.

We skipped lunch to continue our quest for powder, and finally dragged ourselves back into the condo at about 1:30, exhausted (powder skiing is a workout). The snowfall continued off-and-on that afternoon, but by dinnertime it was dumping again. In this case, “early to bed and early to rise makes Kent a happy powder skier,” so we made it an early evening and woke at 7am with anticipation.

Tuesday did not disappoint. Incredibly, there was a second foot of new powder up on the mountain, and the weather was bright and clear. Because Monday had been stormy with poor visibility, the off-piste terrain remained untouched since Sunday afternoon. Near the start of our first run we headed left off the main track and found ourselves thigh-deep in untouched champagne powder. To paraphrase our friend Elizabeth from Vail, “you must be kidding me!!!” This was unlike any skiing we’ve ever done in our lives; there were quite literally tens of thousands of acres of untouched pillowy softness just waiting to be tracked up.

We were again treated to a staged opening of the mountain, so after over an hour of lower-altitude powder skiing bliss we got access to the untracked fields on the slopes of Mont Vallon, a 10,000 foot peak with 2,600 feet of steep (but not insane) powder fields set at the end of the Meribel Valley. Five runs and 13,000 vertical feet later, we were once again trop fatigué pour continuer (too pooped to participate). Life had been exceptionally good to us the past two days.

And as if Monday and Tuesday weren’t enough, Wednesday we discovered that the Chanrossa peak in Courchevel had remained closed due to avalanche danger since Sunday, so we got a third day of over knee-deep powder, at least for a couple runs before it got tracked up. We had our friend Todd with us in hopes of doing a grand 3 Valleys tour, but it was not to be. By about 1pm the snow had returned, taking with it any semblance of visibility on the upper mountains, so we stayed close to home and skied the lower mountains. That evening we had the second-best fondue ever, at a restaurant called La Fromagerie - appropriately, “the cheese factory” – in Meribel village (our favorite fondue ever was back in 2005 at the Chalets de l’Arc, a short walk from the upper village in Les Arcs, also in the French Alps).

The snow continued overnight – counter to the forecast – and by Thursday morning there was yet another 8-10 inches of fresh snow in the mountains on top of the tracked – but still soft – snows from the previous few days. So we got a fourth day in a row of seriously deep powder. Nothing left to say but wow (although in another item of note Thursday, we took a single four-mile-long, 4,000 foot vertical drop ski run from the top of the Trois Marches lift all the way to St-Martin-de-Belleville for a gourmet lunch at La Voute).

Friday dawned the kind of day the Alps are famous for; painfully blue skies and bright sunshine and white mountains in all directions. Our mission for the day was to ski as far as possible to a section we’d never been to at the far side of Val Thorens. We caught first chair from Mottaret and took a pretty direct route, only pausing to smell the powder a couple times, and it was still fully noon by the time we made it to the 10,600 foot Pointe du Bouchet, summit of the 3 Valleys. It was a long ways away; imagine skiing from the White House in Washington to Rockville, Maryland.

It bears repeating; skiers dream their entire lives of a few runs in deep powder, and here we had enjoyed dozens of runs over four days of untracked, deep, incredible powder. So Ted, the undisputed Minister of Leisure, we thank you from the bottom of our hearts. It was truly a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

We have been quite negligent in keeping this website up-to-date over the past couple months. Rest assured that we are still among the living, and while we had a fantastic (if short) ski season at Beaver Creek, there wasn’t much in our lives that was newsworthy. The basic daily schedule of wake up, catch the 8:06am bus to our locker room in Race City, jump on the lift at 8:32am (two minutes after opening) and quit in time for a late lunch back at the condo just didn’t seem worth writing about.

There were some highlights, though. The season started slow, snow-wise, but once we showed up in mid-January the weather turned and the conditions continued to improve for the next six weeks. We reconnected with old friends including Greg and Susan, Elizabeth and Michael, Audre and Dimitri, plus our colleagues in the Race Department, among others, and also met some new ones including a Frenchman named Guy who has lived in Las Vegas for the past 40 years or so and comes to the Beav for several weeks each season.

We also put in some days working at the new Epic Mix Racing hill, which is a fun way to race your friends and compare your times to Lindsey Vonn. And speaking of Ms. Vonn, as you may know she got hurt badly ski racing in Austria and was flown back to Vail on Tiger Woods’ jet (another developing story), to be operated on by Dr. Bill Sterett, the surgeon who put my shoulder back together around this time last season. So now I’m one degree of separation from the best ski racer in the world, and I guess that also makes me only two degrees separated from Mr. Woods, once again the best golfer in the world (as of his win last weekend at the Arnold Palmer Invitational).

Our favorite day of the season is hands-down the invite we got from Elizabeth to stay at her place and then ski Vail on an early February powder day. The forecast was for a solid six-to-eight inches, but when we awoke the next mooring the report was only 3, so we took our time and lingered over breakfast. Mistake. We weren’t that late to the hill, maybe 45 minutes after opening, but as we made our way up the Golden Peak and then Highline lifts, we could see what looked like much more than 3 inches on the ground. And the snow continued to fall heavily.

At the top of Two Elk, we turned down into China Bowl and holy cow, the snow was over our boot-tops! Halfway down Elizabeth stopped and turned to us and said, “Are you kidding me?!?!?” It was a non-holiday Thursday, and there was no one around – the locals wouldn’t bother calling in sick for only 3 inches. So there we were lapping the Orient Express chair, skiing field after field of fresh shin-deep powder that extended to almost knee-deep in places. And one other bonus, at lunch I spied Sean, our crew chief from the Talon Crew, making his way through the crowd wearing the exact same parka as I was, the 2010 edition of the Birds of Prey volunteer jacket. I maneuvered my way over so I was blocking his path, and when he looked up I offered the universal Talon Crew greeting, “nice jacket.” He was up for the day from Grand Junction to ski with Gina, another volunteer from our group, so we had a nice lunch catching up on things. A really memorable day.

Two visitors came to stay with us, our friend Suzanne in late January, and our friend David in early February. We took both to our new favorite restaurants in the valley; Dish, in Edwards, a tapas-style place with a great wine list; and Tocino, in Avon, a 2 minute walk from our room at the Seasons condo building. Tocino has a new owner as of about a year and a half ago, and he has really made a difference with delicious home-style Italian dishes, a nice wine list, and an easy repartee with his guests. He speaks half a dozen languages, so we can hit him with random phrases in Italian or French or German and he’s right on it with a snappy comeback.

I also experienced a new “trail” at the Beav this year, if that’s possible. Although I have skied every corner of the mountain on alpine gear, I had not yet explored the nordic area at the top of the Strawberry  Park lift, so with Suzanne in tow, Heather and I did a grand snowshoe tour of the trails. It’s a quiet and beautiful area a short lift ride from the base of Beaver Creek.

We finished up the season by teaching a bunch of lessons during the President’s Week holiday, and then flew home so I could turn around and fly to California to do some programming work for a friend’s company. So although our ski season at the Beav was quite short, it was still most sweet. Next year will be exciting because late November marks the first time the Women’s World Cup will compete on our hill, so next season’s Birds of Prey races will be double the fun (both women and men racing back-to-back weeks). We will definitely be reporting back to Beaver Creek in late fall, 2013, for our World Cup duties. Until then we’ve got three separate trips to France, so stay tuned!

While the literal translation is “force blue,” Europeans (and international soccer fans) will recognize the phrase as loosely meaning “strength to Italy.” Sometime in the mid 19th century an Italian sports team wore sky blue (azzurri) uniforms to honor their king, Vittorio Emanuele II; the color stuck and now all Italian national sports teams can be cheered on with the phrase “forza azzurri.”

It is relevant in our world because the Italians are absolutely killing it on the World Cup this winter. At the three races at Beaver Creek recently the Italians scored two firsts and a third place. The party continued the following week in Europe with Italians scoring two top-10 finishes in Downhill and three top-10′s in Super G, including second and third place. This is all the more interesting because Italy has not been a traditional ski racing powerhouse (Alberto Tomba notwithstanding). Historically the Italian ski team has used their opportunities on the World Cup circuit to wear fashionable ski clothing and meet female race fans.

But now they’re skiing with drive and focus. I particularly enjoy reading through the roster of the Italian ski team, with names like (I can’t possibly make this up); Werner Heel, Christof Innerhofer, Peter Fil, Manfred Moelgg, and my favorite, Siegmar Klotz. Apparently the border between Italy, Germany and Austria is a bit more porous than previously publicized.

The team does have members with standard-issue Italian names like Paolo Pangrazzi and Silvano Varettoni, but they typically show up in the bottom third of most race results. The Austrian ski team, meanwhile – traditionally the powerhouse, and with almost as many members as the rest of the countries combined – barely registers in the results these days. As of mid-December, the Austrians have only two racers in the overall top 10 standings; the Italians have three. Maybe the Austrians should spend more time talking on their cellphones, or perhaps eating gelato.

And speaking of small countries with incredible ski teams, how about Norway? Aksel Lund Svindal is number 1 in the overall standings, and teammate Kjetil Jansrud is 4th, yet the Norwegians have only 5 people on their entire ski team! The Austrians have that many people on salary just to carry their racer’s coats from the start line to the finish.

And we can’t talk ski racing without mentioning that our own Ted Ligety has won three of the four GS races so far this year. His smallest margin of victory was 1.76 seconds – this in a discipline that typically measures winning margins in tenths or hundredths of a second. Anyway, it’ll be a fun season of World Cup ski racing, so stay tuned…

For the next 10 days, we will both be working as volunteers for the Birds of Prey World Cup Ski Race.  We’ll join hundreds of other volunteers who come to Beaver Creek in Colorado each year to make this amazing race happen. These folks do work so difficult it would be impossible to find and hire personnel for this job. Why do we do it? To sum up an earlier blog post, we work in order to be part of an amazing community that contributes to the sport we so love. We’re proud of the astonishing amount of effort that we – and hundreds of others – will do in the days to come.

This is our fourth year working for the Talon Crew (as the volunteers are known). I also happen to be the official blogger for the Talon Crew  and will be posting stories from the trenches! You can check out all the behind-the-scenes action at TalonCrew.com.

Here is a link to the first Talon Crew Blog Post of 2012!