Engadin Dreams

I felt like a husky puppy seeing snow for the first time. 0 degrees, frosted breath, felt like home.

The train to St Moritz passes through mountain tunnels, above achingly sentimental swiss towns, along the shoulders of snow-laden peaks, on top of stilt-like fieldstone viaducts. I'd never seen anything like it.

I now understand why alpine (lower case) is an adjective.

I climbed the hill behind my hotel- smiling at the mountains beneath the full moon. A frolicking dog bounded over and despite it speaking no English I taught it to give paw (lefty just like Miss Jerz). Its owner laughed and repeated the hand signals.

View from my Hotel Parking Lot

I've never tasted better tap water.

Chalet next to my hotel

A Swiss business contact kindly invited me on a cross-country ski tour along the famous Engadin marathon course. We went 20 miles- uphill (the german national team swooshed by),

downhill

flat (some 60 year olds swooshed by),

and up towards the valley's end (everyone swooshed by).

It took me an hour to get my technique back, and by the 3rd hour I was too exhausted to maintain it. My host had counted on us going 50% further than we did!

He also went to boarding school here.

Lucky bastard.

Mulled wine never tasted so good as in the st moritz roundabout. I watched the polo on ice for about 5 minutes

then headed back to my hotel (I had yoinked nutella and a croissant from the breakfast buffet). I wished I had a cigar.

La Baracca- the famous St Moritz watering hole- is next door to Hotel Nolda. They seated me with a lovely italian-swiss-irish family (father was former swiss over 60 squash champion). They graciously included me in their conversation (everyone over here guesses I am canadian btw) and it turned out the father was a former UBS board member. His wife gave me one of her CD's. It was a wonderful meal- understated and great food. Not at all like most swiss restaurants.

Sunday morning I set out to the valley's end and skiied across the frozen lakes. 30 degrees, sunny, and surrounded by mountains.

Maloja Lake

Beautiful Chalet

Craggy Mountains

Lovely Wooded Trail

Swiss Pond Hockey Championships!

I checked out and wandered through St Moritz-

ending up in the famous Palace Hotel, drinking hot chocolate on the back balcony, looking over the valley, immersed in the wonder of it.

Starting to like Switzerland

Gordon Brown (former British PM) sat adjacent on my flight to Zurich. He was off to the World Economic Forum at Davos.

My Godfather Ashton gave me two pieces of advice regarding business travel.
1. Never take the last flight out.
2. Give an airline a reason to care about you and always use that airline.

I broke both rules and it cost me as we were diverted into Geneva where I landed at 12:30 in the morning with no hotel room and meetings at 9am in Zug! I gave Gordon Brown directions to Davos (he thanked me surprisingly graciously) and caught a 5:30am train that got me to Zug just in time.

That afternoon I headed to Liechtenstein- past the beautiful Wallensee.

No- I didn't take this picture!

I was more struck by Zurich's old world charms than I'd been on previous visits.

I had lunch with a board member of a company we own a lot of shares in. A really wonderful meal- half business half classical music, photography, and life advice. A really special 2 hours I will always cherish.

And of course... my favorite sign (the border of Zurich's Red Light District)

Squash Tour!

Several of my Union Boat Club (Boston) squash teammates flew over to London for a "lads' weekend" of squash, late nights, and sport.

My Middlesex League teammates were kind enough to host us on Friday night. Schmitty outfitted us well with the latest in UBC gear.

somehow the Brits contrived a way to claim that we had won- and our prize was fitting!

The next day we took on the Oxford & Cambridge Club- magnificently hosted by Mr Oli Jefferies

Check out those sweet tour shirts!

The match was close...

Me at full stretch...

But we pulled it out 2-1...

Oli and team hosted us for dinner in the magnificent O&C dining room...

 and we surreptitiously snapped some pictures...

After that we headed out...

And actually met some redcoats!

they didn't begrudge us our "undefeated" tour.

Happy Lhosar! (Nepal Post #9)

After a relaxed morning in Chomrong we bounced down to Jinueh

and from there to the beautifully maintained hot springs. A lovely sylvan setting.

The water was about 85 degrees- perfect for relaxing tight muscles.

I could have stayed there for a long time... but instead we started walking...

and found a party!

Lhosar is the biggest festival of the year for the Gurung people (area where we were trekking). I was quickly be-decked

Hari danced

I may or may not have... but no evidence survives

From there we just kept walking... all the way back to our starting point. However many days up and 2 days down.

As dusk fell I turned back and saw Machupuchre bidding me a golden goodbye. Hard to believe I had left ABC less than 32 hours previous .

Going Down (ABC to Chomrong) (Nepal Post #8)

Today we dropped nearly 8,000 ft of altitude down the Modi Khola valley.

Going down is harder than going up, and you notice less.

Our last big climb of the trek was 1,800 ft from the river to Chomrong.

It was a full day- 7 hours all in. I earned my shower and beer.

I just looked back through my pictures from ABC and just can't believe I was there this morning. Here is one more.

For $3,000 you can chopper up to ABC and have tea. This Nepali family stayed for about 20 minutes.

Annapurna Sanctuary (Nepal Post #7)

I started writing an account of my 20 hours at Annapurna Sanctuary but that defeats the point. There was a 15 minute span where the angle of the mountains and the setting sun turned the sky lavender but my blackberry was inadequate to capture it. Other than that- it's all in the pictures.

look for the red helicopter in the middle of the picture

Range to the East of Machupuchre

Daybreak on Annapurna South

Hari and I did Pasquaney-style "pack push-ups"

Bhuddi and I did fake karate fighting.

Leaving ABC

Annapurna South to the left and Annapurna to the right