Sunday, January 13, 2013

Snowboarding on a Glacier

So our ski trip to Garmisch was incredible! We stayed at a chalet, that was a 10 minute walk from the mountain, a supermarket right around the corner, and had heated floors!!  Only one of those were correct though.. the heated floors. It took 20 minutes to walk to the lift, about 10-15 to get to the Aldi, but the floors were still heated.. and the chalet was gorgeous! Even though the walks were longer than expected, it was soo awesome!

We were a bit worried at first, because when we got to Garmisch, there was barely any snow and the conditions of the slopes we saw from the bottom of the mountain looked really bad.. Well we went to get our rentals that night, and talked to the guy in the shop, who was probably the nicest guy I have ever experienced at a ski resort in my entire life.. he was so happy and friendly! He told us to go to the glacier area on the top of the mountain because it would have much better conditions. So we did! He told us that we had to take the train to the top, which would take about an hour.

A little story about that next morning though.. we walked from our chalet to the rental place to pick up our equipment the next morning, then we went to where we get on the train to take us up the mountain! 

We waited about 20 minutes for the Train outside, so when it finally came, it was really warm inside because we had been used to the cold.. no, it wasn't warm.. it was boiling hot!  So since we would be on it for about an hour, we figured we would shed some layers for awhile until we got close to the top. We took off our jackets, sweatshirts, scarves, gloves, helmets, I even took my boots. We got to the first stop along the way, when all of a sudden they translated what they had said in German, "this Train terminates here." All we could think was, shit!  The other train we had to connect to was already on the other platform. So we basically ran; we grabbed all of our things, looked like quite the piece of work running to the other train barely having a hold on our boards, skis, poles, and boots, half dressed in all our snow gear, and just laughing our asses off.. but we made it just in the nic of time!

After riding up the mountain with beautiful views all around us, there was a tunnel to the top for about 25 minutes. When we arrived, we walked from the tunnel to the slopes, and I couldn't believe the view. We were surrounded by sun, blue skies, views of mountains for miles, and absolutely no trees in site.. we were on a glacier! And this is where we would be skiing for the next few days:)

The conditions were absolutely perfect. Sometimes I would just look up and think to myself.. there is now way I am seeing this right now.. let alone snowboarding right in the middle of it all. And that's when I caught an edge and fell. Just kidding, I didn't fall until I was stopped at the bottom of the run. And then I had one actual fall fall on the slope.. I don't know how that happened though.. caught a back edge? Then had a good tumble and slide. Needless to say the next morning I woke up with a really really sore neck.
The next day we went back, but the conditions were shit. Visibility was really bad, which is tough to board on when you don't really know your way around.. we were skiing in a cloud!  It was still a good day though.

That night Dave taught us how to play a card game called asshole, it was soo fun!  So much fun that when we forgot a deck of cards at the chalet when we left the next day.. Jan bought a deck at the train station, so we could play on the train.

I had to say goodbye to everyone today.. it kinda sucked, but was still a fun day.

One last thing, boarding on a glacier is awesome, everyone needs to do it.

<3








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