vrijdag 14 februari 2020

Day 20: Lost the wife

As it snowed all night, I couldn't wait to see Gressoney the next morning with fresh snow on the trees, as that happens to be one of my favourite things. I was also convinced that today would finally be a day of perfect snow conditions. So I woke up early and my stiff body jumped (well, that was in my head, in practice, it must have looked slightly less agile) to the window to open the curtains better, to see the trees with snow.  I looked full of excitement to discover there wasn't a single snowflake left on any of the trees. It looked, however, as if it was snowing a lot, but it turned out to be a super-strong wind that was blowing snow from the hotel and other places around. I could have cried, not because there was no snow in the trees, but because every single day there seems to be a new climate test to endure. 

So we dressed as if we were going to climb Mount Everest and went skiing. After about 15 minutes, the wind went down, the sun came out and it got warmer, and warmer, and warmer... Up to the point that it seemed summer.  Slightly confused about these changes in temperature and weird weather conditions, we ended up skiing like this: 



The slopes in Gressoney Saint Jean are at the foot of the Monte Rosa, which highest peak, 'Punta Dufour' (4634 m) is the second-highest in Europe. I always wanted to see the Monte Rosa, because I assumed it was pink like the dolomites (Rosa means Pink in Italian). It turns out, it is not pink...  Little I knew, that that was very stupid to think. So why is it called the Pink Mountain..  It turns out that this majestic mountain takes its name from the French-Provencal term 'rouja' and that means 'glacier'. That name is not very old, as in early writings Monte Rosa was called 'Monboso' a name give by Leonardo da Vinci. 



So we are in Gressoney and strangely, we noticed some words in German around here. Considering we are near France, and nowhere near Germany or Austria, we thought that was curious. Then we discovered that actually, Gressoney was the land of a people of Germanic origin that was called the 'Walser'. They came from Switzerland and settled on the Italian side of the Monte Rosa between the 11th and 13th centuries. They were a trading folk and Gressoney was also called The Valley of Merchants. 

Moving on to more recent history, last night we were guests at Hotel Alpenrose, which is owned by Mister Franco Bieler, a world champion downhill skier in the 70's and his wife. Mister Bieler and his wife care about sustainability and animal welfare and don't use any meat from intensive farming in their hotel. It's amazing to see how many people in Italy welcome this initiative and support us. 




When we arrived yesterday evening, we were told that we didn't need to pay for the ski pass today, as the Cross Country Skischool wanted to offer it to us, and they also wanted to meet Mirko! 



They were a fun bunch of people, and at the end of the day, the owner, Stefano saw me skiing from a bar next to the slope and called me in for a beer. Normally, I would have never refused... However, I had lost my wife... and it was getting dark..  Maybe I need to explain this a bit better... as it was really warm today, the snow melted (which is not great when you are skiing). As soon as the sun disappears, the melted snow (water), freezes up again and converts the slope into an icerink. So while descending, Eleonora (who is wiser one of the two), didn't want to risk breaking a leg and decided to do a longer piece through a little forest, avoiding the ice. I instead, refuse to do any meter uphill if it is not absolutely necessary, so I preferred the icerink. I don't know what happened, but I lost my wife, who was without phone. I now had three options: 1. Ski home, assuming that at some point Eleonora would arrive, 2. Forget the wife and join Stefano in the bar, or 3. Go back, all the way up and look for wife. It was a difficult choice, but as it would be dark soon, and the idea of going through a divorce, in the event Eleonora would turn up alive didn't inspire me. So I decided to go back all the way and look for her. This must have taken me a full hour, after which Eleonora called me, to let me know she had arrived in the hotel.

A big thank you to Marianne from the Tourist Consortium of Gressoney, to Stefano and all the colleagues from the Scuola Sci Fondo Gressoney and a big thank you to The Bieler Family for the good care in Hotel Alpenrose.




Do you also want to support the pigs? We hope to raise 10 euros for every kilometer for a documentary that House of Animals will make about pigs. All costs for this trip are financed by ourselves and in some cases sponsored by companies and hotels. If you also want to support us, know that 100% of your donation goes to House of Animals.

You can support us via Tikkie or via ideal/paypal/creditcard



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