Saturday morning skiing

Around ten days ago, I received a text message from Roger Burnoud, an old buddy of mine in France; he wanted to go skiing with him the following Saturday. Since I know that all lifts are now closed in Haute-Savoie, I assumed we’d have to “skin” our way to some mountain top. I went online to book a cheap airline ticket, almost got a heart attack when I saw the price but purchased it anyway. Since I didn’t want to have my friend Roger stuck in traffic around Geneva I also reserved a rental car, and as I don’t have any ski touring gear, I called up my little cousin Annette Braize to get it from the rental shop she works at. I left my home at 8 am on Thursday to get to Salt Lake airport and after transiting through New York, boarded my flight to Switzerland. We were delayed more than four hours and didn’t land till noon on Friday. By the time I fought traffic and arrived at Roger’s place in Montriond, it was close to 4 pm and already “aperitif” time… We drank quite a bit while Roger was fixing a giant fondue, went right to sleep, but I woke up at 2 am and could not get back to my dreams; at 6 am we were stuffing our gear into the car and headed for Avoriaz. Overcast and threatening, the weather was less than ideal; we almost “died” while we skinned to the top of the “Hauts-Forts,” scared the heck out of ourselves skiing down the fabled “Nant d’Ankerne,” had a “momi” on Morzine’s main plaza before we enjoyed a celebratory lunch. That night we just had pizza, a few more biers and went straight to bed. I slept okay but unfortunately had to be ready at 8 am on Sunday to drive back to the airport. In the three flights that took me home, I was like a zombie and struggled driving after midnight from the airport to Park City. Twenty-one hours in an airplane, ten hours of sleep, five climbing, four driving, and a thirteen minute descent, this was another “priceless” ski weekend!