“Because young men discover role models in unusual places, I wanted Robert to meet the overworked and underpaid guides who dedicate their lives to leading clients to high, icy summits and around the unseen crevasses.”

“Then, sliding one foot in front of the other, we climb toward the distant Adler pass.”

“Call it luck, or not my time, Lehrer saved my life.”

“Beyond the history, resorts, runs and vistas, each day reveal new truths about my son.”

For Winter Excursions

For My Switzerland

It is March 30, early spring in the high Alps that divide Switzerland from Italy. On this clear, cold afternoon on the Gornergletscher, I cannot take my eyes off the ski poles. Tossed off a three hundred foot cliff by skiers clinging to a thin cable that hangs above a treacherous boot path above Zermatt Switzerland, they form colorful jackstraws on the ravine’s white ice. Robert, my 18-year-old son, friend Mark Jones and I are struggling to hold our balance on treacherously slick verglas. On this, the last major obstacle to the ancient herding village, the truth is, if you slip, you die.

Robert was born in Sun Valley, Idaho and started skiing when he was three years old. Outfitted with tiny skis and restrained by straps attached to his Racer Chaser vest he screamed “Faster Daddy, Go faster!!! “ Fifteen years later he is equally fearless…a fact that concerns me when I think about the skier who died today on the Gornergletscher. It happens on these cascading rivers of ice. Tempted by the glacier’s open snowfields, the German drifted away from a small group who were traversing through the glacier’s web of crevasses. He did not stray far. Witnesses reported he was twenty feet away, linking turns on a gentle, sunlit slope when the powder suddenly collapsed into an enormous blue cavern.

It took less than three seconds for him to plummet the hundred feet to a glacial crack. Unfortunately, the bone crushing compression did not kill him. He was conscious when Swiss guides rappelled down to him. Shock and deep hypothermia, however, spared him the agony of rescue.

It occurs to me that Robert has entered that dangerous time of life when young men believe they are immortal. Five foot eleven inches tall and powerfully built, Robert is an All American Nordic skier who just competed at Junior Olympics. A senior at Wood River High School, Robert’s past four years have been filled with racing on the Sun Valley Nordic team, soccer and studies.

Watching him take a grip on the fixed cable, I wonder if his acceptance to The United States Air Force Academy is waiting back in Ketchum. Robert wants to fly jets. If he is accepted…. and there is a chance he will be… I will lose him first to four years at the Academy then a career in the Air Force.

For those reasons, I wanted us to circumnavigate the Monte Rosa from Saas Fee to Zermatt, Switzerland, then to Cervina, Gressoney and finally Alagna Italy. I want to overnight in alpine huts and skin across high ridges to isolated valleys. I want to create memories of untracked bowls, faces and valleys, of vistas and the people who inhabit the small alpine villages–Frachey, St. Jacques, Alagna and half dozen others that surround the Monte Rosa’s 15,199 feet summit.

Because we needed a third skier who knew Saas Fee, Zermatt and Alagna, I called Mark Jones. A man of enormous charisma and no small alpine skills who could be depended to stick if the going got tough, I met Jones while chronicling his 220,000 World vertical foot attempt on Argentierre’s Grinds Montet Tram.

Easter break started on April 3; the same day Robert and I boarded a Swiss flight from Los Angeles to Zurich where we caught the train to Saas Fee. Perched on a glaciated ledge beneath the 14,907 Dom, the 14,730-foot Taschhorn and 13,208 foot Allalinhorn, Saas Fee is a tiny village shimmering beneath a high altitude sun. In late March the streets are filled with skiers who limp on blistered feet and bear the dark burns of high altitude sun as they followed the Haute Route from Chamonix or ski toured between the Margherita, Monte Rosa and Brittaniahutte above Saas Fee.

Robert wants to ski the blue glacial wall that erupts above the village. While routes exist through the tortured seracs, we cannot afford the time. Instead we explore Saas Fee’s 100 kilometers of pistes and 22 lifts. Boarding the “Metro Alpin,” Saas Fee’s underground railway, we are catapulted 1640 vertical feet through the Allain’s granite north face where, exiting at 11,480 feet, we are surrounded by the Allain, Taschhorn and Dom’s summits.

That day we ski the dozens of groomed pistes above Saas Fee then, as the lifts are closing catch the Egginerjoch T-bar to a mile long traverse to the Brittaniahutte.

Carpenters, stonemasons and porters who packed every timber, bed and utensil up the precipitous trail from Saas Fee, anchored the original Brittaniahutte to a rocky outcrop. The Brittaniahutte’s ancient wooden planking, scarred wooden doors and worn woolen blankets were replaced in 1996 with stone floors and down comforters. While the renovation is cleaner, it lacks the originals stains, smells and polished wooden floors that spoke of history and the success and failure of past expeditions.

Because young men discover role models in unusual places, I wanted Robert to meet the over worked, underpaid and guides who dedicate their lives to leading clients to high, icy summits and around the unseen crevasses.

The combination of Operation Iraqi Freedom and an expensive Euro has frightened most American’s off the Route and that night we shared a table with Serge, a businessman from Lyon, who after offering his hand, confessed that he and his two friends were taking a long weekend to ski from Saas Fee across the Adler Pass to the Monte Rosa Hut. Robert’s three years of high school French allowed him to serve as interpreter. He tells me, “If the weather holds, Serge and his friends will try for the Margherita Hut on the Monte Rosa’s shoulder then ski into Zermatt.”

Our luck sours in the night. At two a.m., I hear Robert getting violently ill in the toilet down the hall. When he returns to his bed, I ask him if he thinks it was something he ate, or the flu.

“Neither! I’m ok,” he whispers in dismissal. Because he has no quit in him, I wonder whether we should continue or stop. He is sick twice more that night but in the predawn dark, is able to force down a slice of bread and tea. He insists his nausea was caused by something he ate at dinner and when the first rays of the rising sun touched us, he follows Mark and I outside where we fix skins to our skis. Then, sliding one foot in front of the other, we climb toward the distant Adler pass.

It is past ten when we clear the last steep pitch and drop our packs on the windswept snow. To the west, the Monte Rosa’s ice covered summit rises against the blue Italian sky. We might have skied the west face of the Adler Pass but the sheer pitch is often covered with verglas. On this clear, cold morning a slip could be fatal and hurrying to beat the valley’s building heat we fit our crampons and down climb the steep face where we then step into our skis and carve long sweeping arcs down the Adler glacier. Three thousand feet below on the Findel glacier, the snow is rotten and with our skis sinking through to underlying ice, we board the Zuggspits cog railway which clattered down to Zermatt.

The first written reference to Zermatt dates from 1280. For six centuries before Edward Whymper climbed the Hornli Ridge, Zermatt subsisted on cattle and goat herding. Isolated by avalanches that swept the path to the valley below there was little contact with the outside world. Villagers believed that a ruined city guarded the Matterhorn’s summit. When Whymper laughed at their fears they cautioned him to look closely and he would see jinns and effreets—witches and gargoyles that claimed the high faces. Whymper should have heeded their warnings for following his successful attempt on the summit, Douglas Hadow, one of Whymper’s climbing party slipped, dragging Charles Hudson, Lord Francis Douglas and Chamonix guide Michel Croz to their deaths. At the last instant, the rope broke and only Whymper and the Elder Peter Taugwalder survived.

One hundred and fifty years after Edward Whymper summited, it is difficult to ignore the Matterhorn. Shaped like a Neolithic stone dagger, it erupts 14,678 feet into the blue Swiss sky. As recognizable as our own Statue of Liberty, on a typical year roughly 5000, climbers will attempt the summit. Of that number perhaps one third will succeed. Legends insist that, over the past century, Zermatt’s guides have led a man in a wheel chair, a monkey and a Guernsey cow to the summit.

Shortly after I reached the summit in August of 1985, I stepped on a slick rock and fell. One minute I was crossing the last gentle traverse above the Hornli Hut, the next I was dangling three hundred feet above a scree slope from guide Ricard Lehrer’s rope. How he caught me is a mystery. Call it luck, or not my time, Lehrer saved my life.

While Zermatt has grown to encompass outlying chalets, a central core composed of old barns, weathered farmhouses and a lack of cars echo a simpler century. You can still stay at the Hotel Monte Rosa where Whymper overnighted before his ill-fated eighth attempt on the Matterhorn. What has changed is Zermatt’s skiing. With 250 miles of pistes, serviced by seventy lifts, the area is immense. We quickly realized we could not hope to ski Zermatt in a day. At a minimum it takes three days to explore the interconnected pistes below the Rothorn, Gornergrat and Kleine Matterhorn areas.

Catching Kelle and Balmbrunnen runs down to mid mountain Furi, we boarded the tram to Trockner Steg and eventually the Kleine Matterhorn. Using a variety of trams, chairs, gondolas and T-Bars that day we chased the ripening snow across Zermatt’s groomed runs and off piste faces.

It was late afternoon when we unloaded from the enormous Kleine Matterhorn tram. Cervina, Italy sat to the south, down a broad, intermediate run that snaked between the Matterhorn on the west and the Breithorn to the east. While Zermatt shelters beneath vast, north facing glaciers, Cervina basks in the sun. The differences, however, are more than simple points of the compass. While Zermatt was still locked in winter, Cervina smells of pine and pasta, the sounds of rushing water and lyric, spoken Italian.

The sun was casting shadows across the snow when Robert turned downhill and shrank to an orange spot, moving rapidly through slower skiers. The next time I saw him, he was waiting for us in Cervina, standing next to the piste with his skis on his shoulder.

The sun was setting behind the Matterhorn when Jones led us to the Hostellerie des Guides. Set on Cervina’s Via Jean Antoine Carrel, the downstairs bar is filled with artifacts and a photographic history from Italian climbing expeditions. Perhaps the most famous is Antoine Carrel, who, for reasons of national pride insisted on attacking the Matterhorn from Italy—coincidentally at the same time Whymper was climbing out of Zermatt.

Upon reaching the summit Whymper and Michel Croz sighted Carell far below on the Italian Ridge. When Whymper’s repeated calls failed to gain Carell’s attention he used his climbing stick to pry away a boulder. The resulting rock avalanche forced the Italians to turn and flee. Minutes before they fell to their deaths, Whymper’s party had laughed at Carell’s chaotic retreat.

Beyond the history, resorts, runs and vistas, each day reveal new truths about my son. I knew he would love the skiing, but the guides, huts, villages and people who inhabit them also fascinate him. He still must experience the food and that night we make reservations at the Copapan, a basement restaurant that serves haute Italian cuisine. Headwaiter Goivanno Barizari suggests the Pigeon and Polenta, and then brings a fine Italian red wine.

“Tutto superbo,” Giovanno, promises and indeed it is an excellent dinner, graced by molto gentile service, and antiqua Cervina ambiance.

From Cervina to Gressoney La Trinite we must cross the Colle Cime Bianche. Fog fills the valley and ducking under the boundary rope we follow frozen ski tracks. When the fog lifts we study the 10,935 foot Monte Roisetta and heavy glaciers cascading off 12,798 foot Gobba Di Rollin. Surrounded by snow filled pastures ancient stone herders huts speak of past centuries and of lives lived and lost to avalanches, falls from rock cliffs and old age. The hollows and chutes close out onto an icy track through the forest that terminates within sight of St. Jacques.

“We’ll walk from here,” Mark advises us and strapping our skis to our packs we follow a muddy path downhill into St. Jacques where centuries old wood and stone farm houses crowd the narrow road. Frescoes of saints grace St Jacques’ church while curious locals study us as we pass. “What have you liked best?”

Robert, as a rule, does not easily suffer small talk and happens next marks an epiphany. “The skiing and villages, the food…” he admits then studying the ancient church, confesses. “And I like St. Jacques.”

It takes forty minutes to hike to Frachey where we board the Frachey-Ciarcerio double chair to Champoluc’s ski area. Mixing intermediate pistes and expert lines that cascade down sheer, half pipe shaped gullies, we catch the Bettaforce chair to the Colle Bettaforca where grapple rattles off our parkas. A storm is gathering from the south as we arrive at Stafal near the head of the Valle di Gressoney.

Located a few miles down valley, Gressoney Saint-Jean was founded in the 13th century by emigrants from Switzerland’s Valais region. Eight hundred years later, Gressoney’s island of Walser patois, local costumes and stone and wood architecture still echo of ancient Swiss origins. Except for a lone groomed piste that plummets from the ski area to the village, Gressoney is free of snow and we check into the Hotel Dufour where we enjoy an incredible meal and a deep sleep beneath thick down comforters.

We are on the move early the next morning. Catching the Gabiet-Salati gondola to the Passo Dei Salati, we traverse into the broad, Vallone d’Olen. Ripening across the immense bowl silky corn snow gradually softens until immediately above Alagna’s Piana Lunga gondola the bottom falls out and we are forced to traverse from kick turn to kick turn.

I want Robert to experience Alagna’s people, architecture and history but the snow has melted and we are forced to download the Piana Lunga. If it weren’t for this gondola that vaults 6766 feet to the Punta Indren, Alagna would have remained a quiet cluster of farmhouses, forgotten by the world beyond the Sesia Valley. A millennium has passed since the original Walser herders drove their terrified cattle across the Monte Rosa ‘s labyrinth of crevasses and cliffs. The Walsers survived because Alagna’s rocky pastures, thin soil and snow that lasted into summer spelled starvation for all but the hardiest. Isolated in this narrow box canyon, the Swiss Immigrants thrived on simple foods, stone houses and backbreaking labor.

When the snow lies heavy on the Val Sesia’s sheer faces, Alagna’s streets are filled with Swedes, Americans, Italians and French. But the season is over and the village has slowed to a pastoral pace. Robert, Mark and I climb to Pedemonte, a cluster of slate and stone farm houses that have been passed from father to son for sixteen generations. Modern Walsers are a small, sturdy people who grow hay in the summer, smoke meats in the fall, speak a strange mix of old German and dialectical Italian and take refuge in their stone and wood houses when heavy snows causes avalanches to rumble into the valley.

Catching the last gondola out of Alagna, we arrive at Punta Indren just as howling winds, blowing snow and fog block our way back to Gressoney. Using Mark’s compass and map, we ski down a ridge hoping to intercept the tributary valley to Gressoney.

At that moment the fog lifts.

We are boot top deep in rotten snow above a towering cliff. It’s clear we need to back off this exposed face but a misstep would be fatal. I watch Robert kick turn and carefully side step back across the sheer face then follow. In time we discover a broad moguled chute that leads to Lago Blu and Gressoney.

We have reserved a helicopter for one lift from the Passo Dei Salati above Gressoney to the Col de Lys on the Grenz Glacier. Hearing that this is Robert’s first ride in a helicopter Pilot Marco Sottile who flies for ETI 2000, circles the Margherita Hut.

Robert studies the cables that anchor the hut to the Monte Rosa’s knife-edge northern ridge, then says, “Too bad we can’t spend the night there!!”

The storm has dropped six inches of fresh snow on the Grenz and as Marco sets down in a cloud of blowing crystals he says, “The skiing, she will be beautiful. But you must mind the way for the holes.” It is fair warning. The sparkling powder both tempts us at the same time it hides glacial cracks. We ski past towering seracs, circumvent the yawning blue crevasses and link hundreds of turns during the 8000-foot descent to Zermatt.

Reaching the glacier’s icy toe, we negotiate the precipitous boot path and climb up to the broad groomed piste that marks the edge of ski area boundary. The finish in Zermatt’s busy center is anticlimactic. Robert has school on Monday and following a nusstort, a cup of strong Swiss coffee and a final photograph of the Matterhorn, we bid Mark goodbye and board the train for Zurich.

If I had hoped to spend uninterrupted time with my son–to engage him in small and big conversations, to follow him down ski runs in hopes of freezing him in his eighteenth year, the week circumnavigating the Monte Rose exceeded my wildest expectations. In coming years when Robert is away at the USAFA or stationed in a foreign land, these late winter days above Saas Fee, Zermatt, Cervina and Alagna will create memories that will span both time and distance.

That evening, the schnellzug is racing through the Swiss countryside; Bronzed by a week of high altitude sun, Robert’s face reflects the weariness of an alpinist returning from a long trek. Looking across the aisle that separates us simply says “Dad, thanks for bringing me along.”