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By Dweep Chanana ⋅ March 20, 2006 ⋅  Email this post ⋅ Post a comment

Two weeks already since my last post! I should have learnt that time flies when you’re having fun - or are otherwise preoccupied.

Well, I did manage to find a place to stay and didn’t have to change my sex or sell my soul to get it. Of course, its not the lap of luxury, but it will do for the moment.

More interesting, the last several weeks of cold, unending winter in Europe have meant perfect skiing conditions. This past week was spent in Crans-Montana. The weekend before was spent with flu. And the weekend prior was all about skiing in Les Diablerets.

This was my first visit to swiss ski resorts and I can comfortably compare them to those on the French side - towards Chamonix. The later are closer to Geneva, immensely more popular, and more challenging. Which makes Crans-Montana and Les Diablerets perfect for an intermediate skier like me.

Crans-Montana in particular has massive and extensive ski slopes, efficient ski lifts, and no lines. There are almost no black slopes, but the reds are relaxing, well groomed, and never too crowded. In short, an excellent place to go and relax. The only downsides - bad public transport and a sprawling resort mean you need a car. And since it is south facing, on a sunny day the slopes start to get slushy by early afternoon (around 2pm).

Les Diablerets too is beautiful, though my time there was mostly accompanied by snow and clouds. The highlight, however, was a real live avalanche. This soon after I had asked a friend to join me off-piste (off the slopes), and had been told to stay on them to save my neck. Awesome!