sharm

Located on the southern tip of Egypt's Sinai peninsula, Sharm el Sheikh overlooks the Straits of Tiran in the Red Sea. It's well known for it's diving and snorkelling and is home to a number of hotels and resorts.  From Europe, at this time of year, there aren't as many choices for hot weather destinations without committing to long haul flights and time changes.  The Sinai, however, fits the bill with 5 hours flying time from Geneva (through Cairo) and daily temperatures in the high 20s.  I was almost desperate to go. I needed a break from the sometimes frantic pace of skiing and a winter of the dizzying cycle of packing and unpacking all the equipment.  I needed to feel true heat and hear the birds sing.  I wanted to see these trees...

I thought I had my work really cut out for me as we already had plans to go to Lech, Austria after Kitzbühel and then back to Saanen for more spring skiing.   However, the I-can't-go-on-a-holiday-without-lots-of-activities-to-do angels were on my side.  As soon as Jeff discovered there was a kiteboarding school in Sharm, run by a couple of Aussies and appropriately called "Kite Junkies", he was in.

The resort was beautiful and the service amazing.  For 6 days, the kinds of  difficult choices we had to make were whether to sit by the pool or on the beach and what kind of omelette to have for breakfast!  

view to the Red Sea and the island of Tiran in the background

The kids had a blast swimming, snorkelling and they all did some scuba diving.  They each did an introductory dive, one-on-one with a dive master and then the boys were able to go on and do a "discover scuba diving" 4-hour course where they did some theory, a pool dive and a sea dive to 12m.

esmee on the descent

graydy + eli after their dive

Jeff took the boys for three full mornings to Kite Junkies where they learned how to kite board.  They loved it and did really well.  Two of the three days were windy enough for Jeff to get out on his own.  He was in heaven...

the scene at Kite Junkies beach

eli 

graydon

As for me, I did not dive or kite board.  I swam with my kids, but mostly sat on my ass by the pool.  I spent some quality time with the likes of Raymond Carver + Ernest Hemingway, among others...   

It was a wonderful break, a true holiday where parents and kids alike were happily at ease.  It was not a cultural adventure, there were no tourist excursions, just pure fun + relaxation in the sun.  It's embarrassing to admit, but I'm not even entirely sure where the Pyramids are.  We'll save them for our next trip....

kitz

We spent the first part of the 3 week school holiday visiting the Duras family in Kitzbühel, Austria.  Kitzbühel is most famous in the skiing world for The Hahnenkamm, the most terrifying and demanding men's downhill race on the World Cup circuit.  Our hotel was at the base of the Hahnenkamm Gondola, so even though the race takes place in January, it loomed large in our minds the entire time we were in Kitz.

Graydon in the start of the famous Hahnenkamm

The course itself is called the Strief (german for streak) and having now skied it myself (slowly and carefully, with lots of turns), I can assure you that all the hype about this run is true.  It has it all - huge jumps, narrow passages, hairpin turns and really steep pitches.  As Jeff said - you're on the gas from the moment you leave the start and you can't let up until you cross the finish line.  There's no room for error and nowhere to relax, even for a second.  Just ask Todd Brooker or Brian Stemmle, 2 Canadians who have had spectacular crashes on The Strief.





Imagine our pleasure on the first morning as we climbed into the gondola, only to discover a large sticker on the window with Didier Cuche's name, a Swiss flag and a list of all his wins at Kitzbühel.  It only took a few seconds before we realized that each gondola cabin is named after Hahnenkamm winners, so it became a race to see who could read the names on the cabins first as we passed each one.  Big Canadian cheers when we passed Steve Podborski (1981+1982), Ken Read (1980) and Todd Brooker (1983) - a 4 year reign of the Crazy Canucks!  On our last day, Esmée and I waited at the bottom to get a picture of her beside Craigleith's own Steve Podborski.

It was wonderful to see Matthew and Veronica and get to know their lovely daughters, Isabella and Valentina.  Veronica is Austrian and her family has a beautiful working dairy farm in the Kitz valley where they all gather for weekends and holidays.  Matthew is Canadian, but has been living and working in Czech running his family's farm since the early 1990s.  They met skiing in Kitz and now live in Tetin, just outside Prague.  

dinner with the duras clan

Spending time with Matthew, an old friend of both Jeff and I, and getting to know his family better was tremendously good for our souls.  Amid the constant reminiscing about the good 'ole days of tree planting and ski racing, there were many, many laughs and lots of exploring on the ski hills together.  Plans are already underway for an excursion to the Czech Republic in July...

esmée, isabella + valentina

delicious lunches on the mountain

amazing views

old school double chair with swing out bars and foot rests

NZ 13, we will miss you

This past week has been incredibly difficult.  Last Saturday, 10 March, we all went to Grindelwald to watch the last World Cup Ski Cross race of the season.  Our friend from Craigleith, Nik Zoricic, was racing and we wanted to cheer him and his Canadian teammates on.  Jeff coached Nik when he was a young ski racer, about the age of our boys now.  He worked with Nik's Dad, Bebe, on and off at Craigleith over the years.  We were all excited to see Nik on the World Cup stage and to be there to support him so far away from home.


It was an astonishingly beautiful day.  A perfect bluebird, just above freezing.  For skiers, it was the kind of day that just doesn't get any better.  We arrived in time to see a few of the final training runs and after the Canadians came down, there was Nik, standing in the finish area wearing bib # 13.


We had a brief visit and wished him luck.  He was relaxed and happy and told us how much he was enjoying being in the Alps. He marvelled at the beauty of the mountains around us and at being able to race on the doorstep of Switzerland's notorious Eiger.  His eyes shone bright and his smile stretched from ear to ear, as it always has.


We were looking forward to having a few beers after the race, meeting the team and having dinner together.  Our kids had their sharpies, ready to collect signatures, but we held off asking because the guys were getting ready for their race and we didn't want to be bothersome fans.  We could do all that after the race.  I didn't take any pictures either.     


Nik was in the fourth heat of the race with teammate Chris Del Bosco, a German and a French racer.  We were in the finish area, jumping up and down in the stands, screaming our heads off as we watched the four racers on the big screen and then finally, as they came over the last jump.  Nik was in third, came off the final jump too far to his right and slammed into the safety netting.  In an instant, it was all over.  He slid into the finish area, unconscious.  


Silence.  Everyone was stunned.  We simply couldn't believe our eyes. 


Over the next forty-five minutes, we watched as a medical crew worked on Nik 100m away from where we stood, now shivering in the warm spring air.  Helicopters came and went, landing directly in front of us in the finish corral.  Sponsor banners blowing up into the sky each time.  Faces all around us grew increasingly solemn and pale.  With each minute that passed, Jeff and I knew that Nik was in real trouble. 


Our kids kept asking us if he was going to be ok.  "Will he be able to ski again?", "When are they going to take him to the hospital?".  Their questions and tears punctuating the quiet of the stands.  They were looking to Jeff and I, searching our ashen faces, to find a sign that everything would be alright.  As parents, we tried to soothe their fears, but the unspoken truth was that we were both terrified.  


As soon as Nik was taken away by helicopter, we left.  It was only once we were in our car, on our way back to Saanen, that our worst fears were confirmed.  Nik had died from 'severe neurotrauma'. 


We pulled over and in voices barely above a whisper, gave the news to our children.  I think that in their own beautiful and innocent ways, they had truly believed that Nik was going to be ok.  They sat inconsolable in the back seat, tears streaming down their goggle-tanned faces.   


We drove straight to our local mountain and went up in the gondola.  We took out our sharpies and paid tribute to Nik on our helmets - NZ 13, we will miss you.  At the top, consoled by the mountain peaks around us, we huddled together and said a few prayers for Nik and his family before we skied down.  We wanted to finish Nik's run for him.


We have gone from being unbearably close to the tragedy of Nik's crash and death, to feeling so far from home.  We are missing our family and our friends.  We are missing the comfort that we share in being together in times of crisis and catastrophe.  We are grateful for our friends here and their wonderful support of our family as we try to heal.  We are thinking about Nik's family, Bebe, Silvia and Kat, and his wide group of friends as they move forward with their lives.  


Life is so fragile.  On a magnificent sunny day in the Swiss Alps, Nik was there, standing with us and skiing with his teammates.  He was doing what he loved to do and then, he was gone.   

Nik Zoricic  19 February, 1983 - 10 March, 2012

the family tree

Moving to a new place is not without its challenges.  There are the most obvious language and cultural differences.  There are new people, strangers who may or may not be interested in becoming friends with newly arrived Canadians.  We have been lucky to meet some extraordinary people and begin to develop some really good friendships here.  But still, when you come from a wonderfully close and supportive community of family and friends, like we do, starting fresh can be an overwhelming and sometimes, lonely endeavour.

We did not, however, start quite from scratch.  We choose to come to Saanen largely because of the JFK School and the Lovell family (Alison Lovell is married to my brother Ryan).  Forty one years ago, Bill and Sandy Lovell (Ali's parents) came to teach at a tiny school here in Saanen.  After one year, they were asked to take over the school and have been here ever since.  They raised their two children here (Ali and her brother, Bryce) and did a fabulous job growing the JFK International School into what it is today.  They sold the school this past summer, but Bill + Sandy and Bryce + his wife Vickie and their kids continue to live here in Saanen.   That means that we have the good fortune of having family close by.

The other day, I ran into Sandy in the grocery store and found myself quizzing her on all the different kinds of mountain cheese.  When the kids had to find sponsors for a charity ski race, we knew where to go.  We've celebrated Canadian Thanksgiving and Christmas together.  There have been a couple of times where our kids have been in the local (swiss german) paper and they've called to let us know or dropped off a copy.   Our kids are enchanted by their "Swiss cousins", Ava and Sadie and love to run into them around town or get together for dinner.    Most importantly, I know they're all nearby, just in case...

Thankfully, for this temporary transplant, the family tree is as wide as it is tall and always, always expanding....

A few of my fave photos as of late....

a perfect day ski touring

graydy gets a haircut

this morning on the chalberhoni - videmanette lift

fondue party

A fondue party on top of a mountain is a pretty regular winter event here in the Swiss Alps.

Last weekend, we were invited to the local Saanen Skiclub annual fondue party on top of the Eggli.  There was much debate in our household about whether we would go.  I was a little nervous (ok, a lot nervous) because I do not know a single other parent of any of the local kids nor do I speak their language.  And if that's not enough to scare me off, Jeff is Canada so I'm picturing myself in a restaurant full of family and friends, standing alone.  Ahhh!  The boys were also anxious - while they have been training with the local kids, and have made a couple of friends, I wouldn't say that they've really bonded with the group.  We are not from here, do not speak quite enough Swiss German and they go to the international school, not the local one.

As we were deliberating about whether or not to go, this simple, but oh-so-powerful image arrived in my inbox....

That was it.  We were going and in search of magic no less!  

I wasn't totally sure of the format or etiquette as this was our first real fondue party.  I asked around - "we wear our ski suits, right?", "do we bring poles or not", "do we need to bring our own torches?".  As part of my research, I wanted to ensure that one of the coaches, Stefan, whom I know a little was going with his son Rhys.  Stefan speaks several languages, including Swiss German.  He has been living here for a long time so he was the perfect guy to latch onto as we tried to move from our safe circle into the other one!  Once I confirmed that they would be there and as fate would have it, with 2 Canadian guests, it was game on.

We took the last lift up at 16:30, arrived at the restaurant, I had a glass (maybe two) of gluhwein and we all took part in a couple of ski boot dual slaloms races.  It was freezing (-15) and when we were finally called into the restaurant, the setting sun was projecting its alpenglow on the peaks all around us.  

Stefan + Sherry and Grant, fellow Canadians

Eli, Rhys and I enjoying our fondue

The fondue was delicious, of course, and the company wonderful.  I even met a local guy (Thomas) who lives here in the winter and runs a fishing lodge outside of Whitehorse in the summer.  In that small world, somehow never surprising way, he knows my cousin Braden who lived in the Yukon.  His wife, Corin, came bounding over to our table, demanding to know which one of us was Braden's cousin.  She was thrilled to meet me, full of praise for Braden who had kept her sane during her first summers in the Canadian North.  They had all first met over 10 years ago at Ryan and Ali's wedding here in Saanen.  Corin's father was the priest who married them and the wedding reception had been in the very restaurant in which we were all now sitting, enjoying our fondue dinner.  New friends made in the crossroads, what's not to love about that?

Warmed by all that melted cheese and more than a few schnapps, we armed ourselves with torches and headlamps (for those in the know) and made our way out into the cold night.

The torches were sword-like with long cardboard handles wrapped in a waxy, oily cloth that lit quickly when dipped into the communal flame.  Many of the kids couldn't resist fencing with each other while bits of flaming torch sprayed around them.  Once everyone was lit, the group assembled at the top of the hill. It was a truly beautiful site, standing there with all these people bundled up against the cold, holding their glowing torches, eager for the excitement of the descent.

Headed towards the twinkling lights of Saanen, we snaked across and down the hill in a long line until we safely reached the bottom.  Our first fondue party was a total success and whether it was your thirtieth or your first, there was more than just a little magic in the air.

the neighbourhood goes to punk

As a family, we have been intrigued, ok maybe obsessed, with this van since we arrived in September.  

We see it everywhere - at the barn down the road, driving past our chalet, at the grocery store, outside the bakery, and most hilariously, in the parking lot of the youth community centre.  It's hard to miss because it is so striking and inappropriate and funny.  It has become familial practice to half sing, half shout out "the fucks" whenever we see it. Charming.  

At first sight, the kids pointed and giggled.  I tried to justify the shocking use of language by reminding them that people here speak german and swiss-german.  Perhaps, I said, it means something else.  "Nice try" they howled, "fuck is the same in every language".  Maybe there is a colloquialism that we are missing?

I have tried to find out more, but googling "the fucks" leads to some REALLY inappropriate results, ones that I choose to believe don't have anything to do with our local red van.  What I have uncovered so far is that The Fucks are a punk rock band based here in Saanen.  They have been making music since 2003 and released their first CD in 2010.  Not much to go on, so the fascination endures.....

on tour

ski touring - skitouren (german) - randonnée (french)

Last week, we tried a new sport - ski touring!  It requires different equipment (of course) so we've been spending lots of time at our new favourite ski store / gas station (a one stop shop) renting touring boots and skis, trying different widths and lengths in an attempt to figure it all out.  Touring is like winter hiking, but even better because you get to make your own fresh ski tracks on the way down.  Skis and bindings are lighter in weight than their downhill cousins which takes some getting used to and the whole idea of layering your clothing is essential to being comfortable - not too warm, but not too cold.

At the bottom, you put the skins on your skis which makes them stick to the snow for the ascent.  You also put your boots on "walk" which gives them lots of flex and they are surprisingly comfortable.  The bindings allow your heel to be clipped in for skiing down or free for skinning up, there is even a "high heel" option for steep climbs!

It's truly amazing.  The pace is perfect - there is time to notice things like how the feeling of the snow changes between north and south facing slopes.  You can really see the shapes of the terrain and trees and take in the colour of the sky.  Our guide even noticed a few Steinbock way above us on a rock face, or so he claimed, I didn't have my glasses on!  Some of our fellow skiers like to listen to music on the way up, but I like to hear the crunching of the snow under my skis, enjoy the peace of the quiet and pay attention to the cadence of my breath (or lack of it sometimes).



For me, touring is not just about skiing, but about the whole experience of spending time on the snow, "climbing" the mountain, being in the presence of impossibly beautiful views.  It makes me feel connected to the landscape, like I'm really a part of our surroundings in a way that more traditional downhill skiing lacks.

Another incredible way of exploring the mountains....

heading up behind Rougemont

almost at the summit of Rodomont Derriere

lunch in the sun at 1900m, Rodomont Derriere