As we stay put for winter (or at least should be), I began to compile a list of 50 places, things or experiences that have enriched my ski life. I shared 20 of them in my previous column, and the remainder are below.
Let’s start where we left off:
21. Outside the funky ski town of Glacier, Wash., Mount Baker offers a throwback ski-area with the highest-ever recorded snowfall for a season: 29 metres in 1998–99.
22. Check into Hotel Taube in Schruns, Austria, a gateway to the historic Montafon ski region where Ernest Hemingway spent two memorable winters in the 1920s.
23. Relive your hippie roots in the B.C. Kootenay towns of Rossland, Nelson, and Fernie. Your head might not sprout dreadlocks, but you’ll see why these form a so-called Powder Triangle.
24. To see what a simple bootpack in the Alps can deliver, hike up to Maroiköpfle in Stuben, Austria. Descend to Langen and take a train back to St. Anton or taxi to Stuben. Mind blown.
25. Ski under the Les Suches cable car at La Thuile, Italy—steep and deep trees with spaces you can drive a truck through. Then lunch at the bottom in underground Pizzeria Dahu.
26. Ride Switzerland’s Glacier Express, a seven-hour luxury train journey in an all-glass car from Zermatt to St. Moritz. But make it a multi-day ride, stopping to ski along the way.
27. In Aspen, have a drink at historic Hotel Jerome, a heritage building and bar where celebrities like Jack Nicholson and rabble-rousers like Hunter S. Thompson kept a stool.
28. Have a wiener schnitzel at Weisses Rössl in Innsbruck. It’s both historic and excellent.
29. Have lunch at Maison Vieille on the hill in Courmayeur, Italy, where the party and mayhem never stops—and host Giacomo Calosi is at the centre of it.
30. Ski a couloir. It’s good for your soul, skiing, and geological knowledge. Most aren’t as steep as they look, but bring someone experienced anyway.
31. Ride the Aguille du Midi Tram in Chamonix, a heart-stopping experience even when the cable isn’t dragging on the snow below as British vacationers quietly sob beside you.
32. If you can deal with occasionally obnoxious sledhead tourism, Revelstoke, B.C., also has the best mix of resort, cat, heli and backcountry lodge skiing in Canada, and development of Revelstoke Mountain Resort has pulled the town up by its cultural bootstraps.
33. Eat at Cloud 9 Alpine Bistro at Aspen Highlands, Colo., proof Americans can do Europe—mostly by letting Europeans run American mountain restaurants.
34. Ride the rotating tram system up Punta Helbronner in Courmayeur, Italy. They used to be old, funky and scary, and though they’re now new, funky and scary, the views to Monte Bianco are worth it.
35. Hotel Portillo in the Chilean high Andes is a uniquely isolated cruise ship in the sky. Even if all you do is Instagram a photo of Inca Lake, the trip will be worth it.
36. Try night-skiing. Many in the Northern Hemisphere grew up with after-school skiing being all they knew. Scandinavia and Canada have hundreds of well-groomed night pistes, and Japan is amazing for night-skiing powder.
37. From Grindelwald, Switzerland, take the Jungfraubahn up through the interior of the Eiger to its summit, where you debark to an overlook of Europe’s largest glacier—the Aletsch.
38. A springtime ski-touring boat trip in Norway, Svalbard or Iceland is a once-in-a-ski-lifetime experience—even without the inevitable whales.
39. For a homegrown “wow” ride, the Peak 2 Peak Gondola between Whistler and Blackcomb mountains; the world’s longest, highest connecting lift spans 4.3 kilometres at 400 metres off the deck.
40. Take someone skiing who has never skied before. It might kill you, but could give them a whole new life.
41. Race The Inferno in Mürren, Switzerland, world’s longest-running (since 1929), certifiably mad, citizen downhill race.
42. Try cat-skiing—the “poor man’s heli”—at any of 25 operations in B.C., where the gold-standard has been set.
43. Explore ski-touring beyond the lifts. The gear has never been better, lighter or easier to use—but the silence and majesty of the backcountry is still the same.
44. Catch the mid-January Nozawa Fire Festival in Nozawa Onsen, Japan, the most insane winter event that this country of insane events serves up.
45. Do a hut-to-hut high traverse; the Chamonix-to-Zermatt Haute Route is the classic, but also crowded. The Urner Haute Route between Engelberg and Andermatt, or the Ötztal and other Austrian classics have better quality skiing.
46. Take an avalanche course; you can question the wisdom of my other choices, but not this one.
47. Ski with a certified mountain guide to gain knowledge about safety, mountain travel, the best snow and… let’s face it, everything you’ve been doing wrong all these years.
48. Ski under the midnight sun. Sweden, Norway, Svalbard, Finland, and Iceland all offer ski experiences above the Arctic Circle, and Stefan and Pia Palm’s Heliski Guides Sweden know the vårvinter ski-touring and flying scene in these places best.
49. Night skiing is great, but what about fully lit early morning skiing during winter’s dark months? Check out this fresh-groomed, top-drawer experience in Åre, Sweden.
50. European World Cup ski races are the best way to understand what skiing means to a national sensibility. The Hahnenkamm Downhill in Kitzbühel, Austria, reigns supreme as a test-piece for both racing and rowdiness.
Part 1 of this story, which was published Jan. 14.
Leslie Anthony is a Whistler-based author, editor, biologist and bon vivant who has never met a mountain he didn’t like. n
