Things that are Great.

There are some things in life that are great. Muhammed Ali was great at boxing. Great. Burt Bacharat was great at singing in the 1970s. Great. Mario Andretti, an Italian, was a great race car driver. I think that his success was not due to any special skill he developed on his own, but rather to an innnate ability of all Italians to do things very fast in cars. This, for an individual Italian, is great. The ability to get from point A to point B in the fastest manner possible, while absolutely thrilling any passengers, is great. For groups of Italians, all in cars or on scooters, or the occasional foreigner who happen to throw themselves into the fray, this is maybe not so great. Being 'thrilled' on a second-to-second basis is nerve-wracking. Unless you're a Chihuahua, and then you're life is one thrill after another, until you die of a heart attack. Because you never see old Chihuahuas. Just nervous ones. The topic of thrills is not really the point of this blog, though, but greatness. Which brings me handily to my point; the things that are great about Italian skiing.

1) Trails, or 'pistes', are groomed, or 'battered', every night. Coming from America, this is not so different, or amazing. The difference seems to be that in America, going off the trail usually results in a collision with a tree, unless you meant to do it. In Italy, the grooming ends wherever the cat driver felt like making it end. There are no trees, really. So, to an American skier, there’s really nothing to keep you on the piste. For an Italian, there seem to be a lot of things. The heaviness of one’s skis has been cited. The ‘danger’ inherent in going off-piste seems to be another, despite the total lack of crevasse or avalanche danger in the majority of the slopes. Perhaps the Italian feel that if they do go off-piste, they’re the ones that’ll get battered. In any case, this leads to one of the greatest things I have ever experience in my entire skiing life: fresh powder with no hiking, no face whipping branches, and no competitors for fresh tracks four days after a storm. What, you might say, this can’t be. Are you working for the mountain, doing PR? That answer would be no, as that is illegal with my visa. I’m just telling the truth. And the truth is beautiful.

2) Ski bunnies. Take the world’s most fashionable country. Put them on sunny slopes, where no one, even the guys wearing them, need down coats. Add ready access to black and white stretch pants. More bunnies that you could shake a stick at. Does it matter that none of them can ski well? That given a powder day, they would complain that they’re jackets were getting wet and that their tan was fading? No. This does not matter. More fresh tracks for the Americani, who, by the way, should have guides. Even to ski the woods under the chairlift.

3) Sweating while riding the lift. Yep, that’s right. As an East Coaster, I’ve been taught over the years to dress for the conditions and that usually means t-shirt, long-underwear, light coat, and a shell coat. And I’m usually still cold. This year at Stowe, so cold that I would ride in the gondola every run to stay warm, even though the skiing under the gondy is pretty boring. Here, I sweat. All the time. I can feel my feet all day, which isn’t actually as nice as you’d think. My goggles fog. I actually considered buying the Captain Uber-Dork model with the fan inside the lenses to eliminate the problem. It takes some getting used to, but I’m trying hard. It’s especially hard when we stop for lunch at one of the approximately eighteen on-mountain restaurants (and by on-mountain, I don’t mean at the bottom, I mean mid-slope), and you have to de-layer to t-shirt and ski pants in order to comfortably sit outside and drink a beer, eat some tartiflette (look it up Google and drool), and watch the clouds roll over the Aiguille Noire de Peuterey. If there are any clouds.

4) Euro-Spin. I know that it sounds like a horrible stationary bike based exercise for Euros, but it’s actually the Italian equivalent of Costco, minus the shitty, preservative stuffed American food. Granted, Italians don’t regard it as the highest quality and the expiration dates are often past-due, but the food is good and stocking the house for five or six days at time costs less than 50 Euros. We are currently trying to gain sponsorship from them, as being sponsored by a ski company is great and all for ski equipment, but you can’t eat skis. And you can definitely eat everything at Euro-Spin.

There are many more things that are great about Italian skiing. I could go on for a long time about them. But the message that you should take away from this is simple: Italian skiing sucks. Stay out West. Remain faithful to the ice bumps of the East. There’s nothing to ski here, folks. Nothing to ski here. The food is awful and the skiers are way too rabid, ski everything off in a matter of hours. Can’t wait to get back to the States.