Skiing In Switzerland

I spent the first two months of 2009 living in Switzerland and traveling around on both my bicycle and the Swiss trains. In February my friend Rich came to visit me.

Rich is a guy I met from Craigslist a couple years ago. I was flying from Burbank, California to Salt Lake City, Utah and needed a ride from the airport to my home in Park City. There is a shuttle at the airport that offers this service, but I thought I’d try my luck and see if I could find anyone who was heading in that direction and who wouldn’t mind picking up an extra passenger for the trip.

As it turns out, Rich answered my posting and he was there at the airport just as I stepped off the plane. (Craigslist is truly amazing! Check it out at www.craigslist.org if you are unfamiliar with the site)

Rich is just a couple years older than I am, but we really hit it off. We were both living in Park City at the time (Rich has since moved back to the east coast of the United States) and we both loved the outdoors.

While in Park City, Rich and I went on a number of hikes together and we also spent a lot of time on the ski slopes.

Rich is a big skier and at the time I first met Rich, I was a complete beginner. But he was patient with me and over the years my skiing has improved… at least a little.

It’s been a year or two since I last went skiing with Rich, so when he flew out from the States and met me in Zurich to go skiing for a couple days in the Swiss Alps, I was excited to show him my new skills.

Being based in Luzern, we visited Mt. Titlis ski resort in Engleberg, Switzerland. The lift ticket was cheap (about $50 for the day), but the ski rentals were terribly expensive (a whopping $60!).

Below is some video from our adventures on the hill. Don’t laugh at my skiing abilities (or lack thereof). I’m still learning!

While in Engleberg, we skied all day, went inside a glacier, had a drink inside an igloo hotel and ate some of the best ice cream I have ever had! The best part of the day, however, was seeing Rich recognize how much my skiing had improved since I saw him last. It was fun to surprise him!

In the morning we had the whole mountain to ourselves. The benefits of waking at 5 AM.

Rich didn’t do a very good job of hiding behind his cutout.

There were quite a few people down at the resort, but the higher up the mountain you went, the fewer people there were. So up we went!

We tried to take this photo a number of times, but the snow was so thick that
Rich wasn’t ever able to make it all the way over to me. We tried at least!

At the top of Mt. Titlis is a glacier that you can actually go inside of. Inside the glacier we met some Asian tourists who told us it was cool to make “peace” signs while taking our photos. So that’s what you see me doing in the video above. I would never do that on my own. haha!

There was some great weather and some incredible powder while we were there.

After a long day of skiing, we went inside and ate some of the best ice cream I have ever had.
It was the cone actually that made it so good. Yum!

Photos From The Streets Of Zurich, Switzerland

Zurich’s blue trolley Buildings along the riverfront Trees in the Lindenhof Park Tourists in the Lindenhof Park St. Peter’s...