The End of the Road

Time did what time does - it marched on. It feels like we've been away for months, and yet it feels like we just got here. But here we are, at the end of the road.

We didn't realize when we booked our last nights in Saas Fee that we would get another crack at a bobsled run, but that's what it felt like! We drove to a parking lot at the edge of town and Serge, a driver from our hotel came in his electric vehicle to collect us and our gear and take us to the Waldhotel Fletschorn (as recommended by Mark, our food consultant). The village does not allow any gas-powered vehicles, so, it's either fussweg, or by electric car. The route is treacherous, to say the least. But the views from our room were fabulous.

We were back in the German part of Switzerland, so language became an issue again, but the menu is fixed, so we just sat back and let them bring us beautiful food and wine. For that, no translation is necessary. Markus Neff has been the chef here for the past 35 years and has become somewhat of a culinary celebrity, well known throughout the land. The story goes that he was brought in as a young chef just out of school to work for Irma Dutsch, the first female Michelin starred chef in Switzerland and first owner of the hotel.  From then on, she was to be found firmly seated at the bar sipping champagne and accepting all the compliments from the happy and well fed customers while Markus did all the work. He is now in his last season at Fletschorn and they are trying to figure out how to replace him.

Thursday was our last ski day. Apparently, Saas Fee is blessed with 300 days of sunshine per year.  Not today. The weather today was well south of bueno. A big storm was blowing along the valley, bringing more snow, which is good, but high winds and zero visibility, which is bad.

Nonetheless, we decided we needed to give it a go.  We found more interesting ways to get up a mountain.  I believe Switzerland is a country populated by tunnelling dwarves. Man, do they love their tunnels. At the top of the cable car, they have built the Metro Alpin, the highest underground train in the world. There is a tunnel, and a funicular runs skiers up the last 500 metres to the top of the Mittelallalin glacier at 3500m.

Unfortunately, all we could see when we emerged from said tunnel was cloud and blowing snow. We felt our way down and came out below the clouds along the edge of the glacier, just in time to hear a tremendous thunder and see an avalanche pour down the side of the glacier. Very cool.

Another beautiful dinner, and now we are packing up and contemplating our re-entry.

Fortunately we had a clear day for the longest drive of our trip especially since the Overlap pass towards Lichtenstein was closed by the recent blizzard and so we had to retrace our steps a bit on the 7 hour drive to Munich. The views along the way were sublime, although Stephen was too busy white - knuckling it on the treachy mountain road to be able to enjoy it.

Some stats for the trip as per Stephen: we have skied about 1000km and a  total vertical equivalent to skiing down Everest 10 times; our longest day we skied 62km,  longest run 18km in Quatre Vallee, biggest vertical drop 20000m from Les Grand Montets, fastest descent 76km/h, steepest slope 68%. We have been helped up hill by every means of lift, from kick- started self-serve poma lifts and T bars to high-tech heated chair lifts, trams and, as seen above, trains through tunnels. We have had brilliant blue skies, and dismal grey skies. We have heard dozens of languages, and spoken to people from dozens of countries. 

A month is a long time to be away. There have been many revelations. The first is that we still love to travel together! Phew! The second is that we are ready to return to real life, and work, and our home, and our family and friends. Hopefully, there will be many more adventures to savour. This has been a grand journey. Thanks for joining us!