SECRET SWITZERLAND: Liberty and skiing in Lenzerheide

Tyson Bolduc

Ah the Swiss. Switzerland! A beautiful place full of beautiful people. Polite to a fault are the Swiss. Much like the Mormons, but less nosey. Far less. The Swiss have built a reputation of staying out of people’s business. War? Conflict? They want none of it. Want to hide some money? Deposit it here, no questions asked, and more importantly, none answered.

They are a crafty breed, the Swiss. Strong, yet neutral, occupying a mountainous land strewn with obscure, secret languages. Even their version of German, one of four or five different languages spoken natively in this small country, is in their own code. Most Germans can’t even understand Swiss-German, and it’s merely a pilfering of their own tongue. Forget about cheese and chocolate and precision timepieces and public transportation: secrecy is the true trademark of the Swiss. Which brings us to Lenzerheide.

Yes, we are still in Lenzerheiden, following Liberty Ski's team through the Graubunden region. Only today we left the couloirs and peppery lines of the Rothorn to explore the other side of the road, the Statzerhorn. This was not by choice mind you. Or in a way it was, because if we could have actively chosen to wake up to a whiteout and more than a foot of light Alpine powder, we would have. No questions asked, none answered.

In case you didn’t get that, it dumped last night. Over a foot. We awoke to a pure blizzard. Puking. Nuking. Dieselin. Dumping. Pounding. Snowing really, really hard. Powder day. So we did what anyone visiting Lenzerheide would do. We slept in, sent some e-mails, and took our time. And we didn’t miss a thing. None of the upper lifts, even at Statzerhorn, opened. Nothing across the street opened all day.

Four lifts were open under the Statzerhorn, and one of those happened to be the Valbella t-bar, located just outside our apartment. We lapped that all morning, picking through tight trees with thin snow, and snagging three to four powder turns, following the lift line through the flats, and grabbing three or four more. It was like having our own personal t-bar. So it was a little low angle and kind of short. Where’s your private T? I thought so.

Weather reports for tomorrow call for clear skies, which should make for good skiing back at Rothorn. Ho, ho, ho, we’re gonna kill it, my friend. Just don’t tell the Swedes.