15 days of Skiing, lots of driving, and even a day of walking

I’m sitting in the Milan Malpensa Airport writing this blog – we’ve just returned the car and are waiting for our overnight Flixbus that will take us to Germany, and I finally have some time to write and sort out pictures.

But I’ll start from the beginning. After we got our bindings mounted, we headed up to our first ski field, Alpe Cermis. It was huge! Compared to the New Zealand ski fields I had skied on so far, it felt absolutely endless, with some very long runs. We would later realize it was actually a fairly small European field.

My skies were a blissful relief to ski after the ones I had learned on in New Zealand, which had felt like logs strapped to my feet. These new ones are so light I can actually pick up my feet to turn when I need to, which means I have more control and it is easier to stop if I need to, which means I can go faster without feeling terrified. By the end of the first day, I had skied my first black run, and there had been no tears that day.

That night we stayed at the world’s friendliest truck stop, which was free to camp at and even had free showers! Every day we had three main questions to answer: (1) where would we ski, (2) where would we shower at the end of the day, and (3) where would we sleep (legally or not). We ran a fine balance between legality and cost: there were places we could sleep for free, but often the legality was questionable, and campsites were often quite expensive for what they offered. We did our best not to sleep in places where camping was expressly forbidden, and to ask locals where we could. Ultimately the car was kind of a superpower though – no one looks at a car parked overnight somewhere and thinks “wow I bet there are people sleeping in that car”, and so they won’t question it even if it is technically illegal to sleep there.

We spent the next 3 days skiing at 2 other ski fields that were part of Dolomiti Superski; Kronplatz and 3 Zinnen. For the most part we had very nice weather, although we had a couple hours of what I started calling “undimensional skiing”, which is where the sun is behind a thick layer of clouds such that the light is evenly distributed and casts no shadows, which means that the snow looks a uniform shade of white, and the sky also looks white, and as a result you can’t really tell how steep the slope is or whether there are any bumps in the snow coming up. You kind of just have to react to anything that happens under your skis as it happens, without much ability to plan ahead. This is, of course, quite disorienting, and can make you feel a bit motion sick – motion sickness results from the visual inputs not matching what the inner ear is experiencing, which is, of course, exactly what’s happening when you’re skiing and everything is a uniform shade of white (or actually yellowish orange, through the ski goggles).

After the Dolomites, we drove to Ischgl, a ski resort that straddles the Switzerland-Austria border. Now, because of our lack of International Driving Permit, we could not drive in Austria without a German translation of our driver’s licenses. We could however, drive in Switzerland with driver’s licenses in English, and going to the Swiss side of Ischgl only involved driving through Austria a little bit.

In the last Italian town before the Austrian border, we got pulled over as a routine traffic stop. After some kerfuffle over what documents they actually wanted to see, we managed to produce all the right documents (including a translation of the driver’s license – thank goodness I went through the hassle of having that done), and were on our way. I had done all the driving so far, and this was exactly why. Travis did nearly all the driving in Switzerland.

The Swiss side of Ischgl is a small village named Samnaun, which for the longest time was only accessible from Austria and was therefore granted duty free status by the Swiss government and has remained that way, even though it can now be accessed from the Swiss side as well. The town has decided that being duty free is it’s biggest selling point and to try to convince tourists that not having to pay taxes on things makes them cheaper – I’m convinced that duty free just means they jack up the prices on things and pretend like they’re cheaper. Everything in that town was horrendously expensive.

We had planned to stay there two nights but at 66 Swiss francs per night we decided that camping there one night was well and truly enough. We still skied there both days. The field was huge, and the mountains were huge – they made the Dolomites look puny in comparison. The field was so huge in fact that I found it quite difficult to keep track of what was where. The snow was also quite bumpy in places, and so I didn’t enjoy the skiing as much, and on the second day got quite exhausted and had to go sit in the cafe while Travis did some skiing by himself.

That evening we drove halfway to St. Moritz, another town with several ski fields that the Ikon pass gave us access to. (A quick note that we were only skiing at places we had access to with our passes, which we’d paid for back in April. Although the passes were expensive – just under $1000USD each, by this point in the trip we’d probably already paid them off, or would soon, because day passes at European fields ranged from €50-€100 depending on the field.) The next two days were spent skiing at the fields there – on the smaller side, but quite nice. It happened to be the weekend while we were there though, and the fields were significantly busier than they had been – we’d been spoiled with weekday skiing so far, which meant fields almost to ourselves.

We slept at a pullout that had a max. 12 hours parking sign, and a sign with a tent on it with a red circle around it but no line through it, which we assumed meant it was ok to camp, only to later look up Swiss signs and realize that a red circle, even without a line through it, means that whatever is on the sign is forbidden. Whoopsie! No one kicked us out or fined us though, and we were there for 2 nights. One of those nights was also our coldest night. Usually nights had been hovering around freezing, maybe down to -2°C (28°F). That night, however, it got down to -9°C (16°F). The water in my waterbottle was frozen solid. The yogurt was frozen. My contacts in their case were frozen! Anywhere water spilled it froze. Our condensation inside the car was frozen. Living inside a fridge (sometimes freezer) has its benefits – we could buy perishable food and just keep it in the car without worrying about it going off. But -9°C was really a bit too far.

That evening, we decided we’d been cold for long enough. We splurged out a bit of money and went to the public sauna/spa. It was heavenly. There were saunas of three different temperatures, a steam room, a warm pool, an ice bath, hot and cold showers, cold water, and hot tea. Plus it was a nude area. We alternated between the different rooms for about 3 hours until our souls felt warm. Also, it was snowing which made for a cozy view – sitting inside a sauna naked watching the snow fall must really be a peak human experience.

The reality of the snow hit us rather quickly when we got outside and had to drive back to our campsite – a 15 minute drive that probably took almost twice that. The snow was mesmerizing as it pelted the windshield, and Travis navigated us back without the use of snow chains – the last 500 meters were definitely more slide than drive. A plus of the snow was that it was definitely warmer, hovering around freezing! Definitely beats -9°C. We cooked dinner out of the snow under a nearby bridge, definitely earning some looks from locals driving by. The next morning we were snowed in, and could not get out of the parking lot without putting on some chains first, which is great fun in the snow – wet and cold and dirty snow makes for wet and cold and dirty hands.

The next field on our itinerary was Zermatt, by the Matterhorn. It was an 8 hour drive away (less if we’d decided to go on toll roads, but we had committed to the cheap no-toll lifestyle), and we were also quite tired of sleeping in the car and being cold all the time, so Travis found a cheap hostel for a night back in Italy near Domodossola. It turned out to be in a town of 27 people located inside Italy’s largest national park (still not very big), and at the end of a very narrow and windy road. We arrived well after dark after a long day of driving and were greeted by a kind older man. It turned out we were the only people in the hostel at the moment, and that there was a fully stocked donation-based kitchen and a blazing fireplace.

We had planned to leave early the next morning, but the hostel was so lovely and it was so nice to sleep in a bed and be warm that we decided to stay a second night and spend the day doing a hike – revolutionary, walking up the hill instead of just sliding down! – we were in Italy’s largest national park after all, and it would be a shame not to explore it at least a little. So the next morning we walked up a large hill – a mountain actually, the Cima Sasso – and enjoyed a day of sunshine exercising our legs and our lungs. Embarrassingly, I was indeed sore the next day. Oh how quickly fitness leaves you.

After another nice warm night, we woke up early and got going before the crack of dawn (7:30am). We drove to Zermatt, or more accurately, we drove to Täsch; Zermatt is a car free town and you can only get there by (pricy) train. We took the train to Zermatt, and then another train up the mountain. On this train we got our first stunning views of the Matterhorn – it is indeed a most impressive mountain. Its sides come up more steeply than most mountains could dream of, and it is surrounded by other very impressive mountains that look quite ordinary in comparison however. (I would just like to note that this train cost 50CHF one way, but was included in our passes, which quite honestly felt like daylight robbery – I’m not sure what kind of deals Ikon has brokered to make this all possible).

We only did about 2 hours of skiing that day, but it was incredible just to be there. The next day we went over to the other side of the field, where first we took a 35 minute gondola and then another 10 minute cable car up to the top of the mountain – 3,883 meters above sea level – and skied down over 2000 meters. We only did 3 runs that day, with each run being almost an hour up and almost an hour down. It was incredible.

We were sleeping in a random town about an hours drive away and going to the public swimming pool to shower in the evenings, so although it was inconvenient to have to drive so far, the only things we were paying for was the parking in Täsch and the train to Zermatt. It is probably the least money anyone has ever visited Zermatt for. On the second day we got a 6-way pass for the train, which was only a bit more expensive than a return ticket. We only ended up staying 3 days total though, and so only used 4 of the passes, but sold the passes on to another couple – a discount for them, but we actually made money, so truly a win-win.

On our last day we took the gondola and cable car to the top and then skied to Italy – the Breuil-Cervinia ski field is just on the other side. This day was my favorite day skiing – it was a gorgeously sunny day (we had stunning weather for the most part actually, just really lucky), and the field was very nice – just big enough to keep us busy all day but not so big I lost oversight of the field. The Snowboard World Championships were on, so during lunch we watched some snowboard racing which was very entertaining and impressive.

The next day we spent all morning driving except for a break to buy a ski bag – an expensive but necessary purchase, seeing as we would soon be bussing and training and flying with our skis. That morning we also discovered that our mattress, which is basically a big block of foam very similar to your kitchen sponge, was in fact acting as a sponge and had been steadily soaking up our exhaled condensation. Now, when pressed on, it would emit a patch of water onto the bed sheet, and was wet to the touch. We turned it upside down while we drove and pulled it out to dry in the sun during lunch, which thankfully seemed to be enough to dry it out. This is a good thing to know for the future, since we decided we wanted to bring the mattress with us to America – it’s very comfortable to sleep on and we’ll be doing lots more sleeping in the car.

After driving through a long tunnel that cost €38 to drive through one way we arrived back in Italy. Around 2 we arrived in Aosta and went skiing at Pila Snowland for 2 hours, which felt so silly but that’s the kind of stuff you can do with a pass like ours. That evening we went to a campsite near Courmayeur which had really lovely showers and a nice room to do dishes in (which we also cooked in). Travis was sick with a cold at this point, so we thought it was prudent to stay as warm as we could. We ended up staying there three nights, each time feeling more sheepish when we came back yet again.

The next day we skied at Courmayeur skifield, which was a lovely field. We called it a day pretty early. The next day we woke up early, parked up, packed our skis in the ski bag, and then took a 45 minute FlixBus to Chamonix in France through the tunnel (it only took that long because the French did passport control on everybody on the whole bus – it only took 25 minutes on the way back because the Italians didn’t care). On the French side we stored our ski bag, walked across town in our ski boots, and went to two adjoined skifields for which the gondola left right from town. The fields had just opened – there hadn’t been enough snow before – but the snow was already quite lumpy, with some sizeable ice chunks and rocks on the piste. By the end of the day I was pretty exhausted, and decided to refrain from doing a really hard run at the end of the day, and I’m glad I did – there’s no need to push my limits in dangerous ways.

We got back too late to shower at the local swimming pool, so back to the campsite we went. We also knew it was going to snow overnight and the next day, and snow it did. We drove to Aosta for the day and went to an archeology museum and then to the public pool which had another sauna – not quite as extravagant as the last, but still quite nice to be in. I ended up attracting the attention of three older Italian men with varying levels of English capabilities who were quite impressed when I told them we were sleeping in a car.

Our last day of skiing in Europe was spent at La Thuile, a pretty nice field that adjoins a French field on the other side. Only after skiing down to the French side did we learn that our pass was not valid for the French field. Whoopsie! Thank goodness they let us through the gates to take the lift back up. Much of La Thuile was still closed, so we ended our ski day fairly early and, after an early dinner, drove 1.5 hours towards Turin, where we would be deconstructing the car the next day.

In Turin we gave our blankets and other small items to a thrift store, took the platform to a wood recycling center (😥), and gave the car a DEEP clean. Sleeping in the car had really been bittersweet – it had saved us so much money and given us so much flexibility to go where we wanted to, but at the same time was quite challenging both mentally and physically. We had done so well with what minimal things we had, so it was sad to see them go, but also a huge relief. We were ready for the next chapter.