When in Switzerland, do as the Swiss do

With the advent of rain, we headed for the hills to get some altitude. Why ride in rain, when you can ski in fresh snow with strong winds at 5000 feet? This was some serious skate-skiing resistance training.

So, we rented a little nissan car, headed up to Montreux for some breakfast and then kept on driving past Aigle (huge castle here worth taking a better look at next time) and then drove up to Les Mosses, which is one of the thousand villages up in the Alps which offer skiing (alpin and nordique).

Yes, it was snowing like crazy, but we strapped on our skiis and hit the trails. Of course it was probably better we didn't have a camera because we may have just gotten it wet and destroyed it another way. :) However, thanks to the internet, I was able to borrow some pictures of Les Mosses.

In the breaks of the snow fall, we could see a vast expanse of snow, trails, mountains and skiiers of all kinds. Looking back it all went by too fast, however when the snow was pelting my face, the time was going by too slowly.

My biggest impression was that yes there were people out here, but there were no crowds. There was no stress, no waiting, no line-ups! I guess there are so many places to enjoy the snow that there is no need to crowd one resort. It felt like this was part of my daily routine and I wasn't a tourist here. Ok...that is my serene moment..

After we were on the trails for about 4 hours, we hit the one uncrowded chalet, had soup and a plate of deli meats and cheese (cold cuts) and headed for an exploratory drive. Yup, we drove another 1.5 hours in and out of the Alps until we hit Gastaad. Another beautiful ski-resort village surrounded by mountains, hills, houses, resorts, shops, restaurants, auberges, and gondolas up to the mountains. Again thanks to zee internet you can share in what we saw. So, we had some crepes and hot coco, and then took a shorter route down from the mountains and back to Lausanne.

A long day, but a spectacular adventure!