I have been learning italian. I love it. the more I learn, the more I want to learn and find gaps and a desire to know more. I was thinking of making a biking trip through northern italy and somewhere in europe this summer. Minka and Jarmo might be living there over the summer, so it’d be a great excuse to bum around in italy for a bit this summer.

all the doors still open in the wrong directions, thought I’ve learned by now that if my instinct is to push, always do the opposite. the women still are absolutely gross in the bathroom. as always. I never get over the skiing culture. my skis are about 2 ft taller than everyone else around me. I see folks here and there with dynafits on some itty bitty skis that just look uncomfortable in any snow other than packed groomers.

the mountains are unreal. I don’t think I can ever get tired of staring down into the valleys and the strange couloirs and rock formations. on purpose, I no longer bring the skins with me. I struggle with this decision daily, but I know I made the right decision. for one, the snow is more often marginal than great and second, the italians have a strongly held position that you absolutely cannot throw around a ski that’s even 98 under foot in a couloir or on ice. but my aura’s rock anything and their barely a challenge considering what I ski (and throw around) daily. I like a ski that I have to huck around. most importantly tho, any day I take off to go skiing by myself is a day away from spending it with my family. and now skiing few occasional weeks in italy, I’ve come to realize that honetsly, the snow I get to ski in montana, actually is much better quality than the crap they get in italy most of the time. it’s awesome when it snows, but that’s not always in the books. seeing that I get to choose to ski any damn day I want, there’s no sense in trying to do it in italy. besodes on a pow day, no one skis the side country anyways. more for me.

this time around I finally got to ski the sella ronda, around gruppo sella. not sure how long it is, the quide books suggest 5-6 hours. so I timed myself and sat down at the restaurant with my family at 12:30 for lunch where they were all shocked to see me so early. my total time was 2 hours 32 minutes. I think it could be easily skied under two hours if I hadn’t gotten lost in a network of chairlifts that were confusing as all hell and got on top of an entirely different mountain until I realized my mistake … 4 chairlifts later.

skiing the lifts in italy is a visit to serious gaperville everyday. can’t be helped, gaper gaps every where. no one manages to get on the chair lift. they all go through the gates and then stop in the middle to wait for their friends. and as usual, get a little annoyed when you pass all the doubles to fill the empty space on a quad. skiing there is like a constant expectation that you have be prepared to direct traffic, help someone or guide them through the process. they stuggle carrying their skis, it all looks so difficult. the real challenge comes in dodging bullets on the ski hill. they all just move around like idiots, are completely unpredictable and take the widest berth. I mostly observe all this with mixed emotions of some affection and slight irritation. we’ve all been there, but it sure is annoying to navigate around.

this time around my brought my teles. my thighs hurt. baptism by fire, I got to turn em on a lot of ice and very variable choppy, punchy, grabby snow. but by the end of this week, I feel pretty comfortable on them. thought when I skied sella ronda on the last ski day, I think I did 4 tele turns all together. speed demon. those things go fast.