After I returned from my quick trip back to the USA at the end of January, it was time to get the old ski boots back on and come out of retirement (again). Since Flumserberg, we have both purchased our own ski boots (heaven), and we have braved the navigation of ricardo.ch, the Craigslist of Switzerland, to buy our own skis too. I am now the proud owner of a pair of free style skis (no idea what this designation is) with some sort of bone graphic printed on them, and Cass has a pair of skis that are nearly 15 years old. We are pros at this stuff. /s

The first Saturday of February, we took the train to Klosters to ski a half day. Cass had already been to Klosters while I was gone, so he promised that it was worth coming out of retirement to try. We left at around 10am and arrived at Klosters Platz around 12 noon-ish.

Pictured below, my train breakfast of apple strudel and Coke, the ski racks on the train, selfie, and the Rösti that I ate after the first run. Mit Speck und Käse, und (apparently) Tomato.

This is Klosters ski area. Well, one of them - there are several areas. From what I read, the Royal Family likes to ski here so much that there is a lift named for the Prince of Wales. We saw it, I did not take a picture of it. The Klosters Platz train station is up in the right-hand corner of the map (not well marked, but right by the Coop Supermarkt). The red dash line is the gondola up the mountain. There are some beginner slopes with magic carpet right where the giant gondola (that holds like 30 people all standing up) dumps you off by Restaurant Gotschnagrat. You take one magic carpet up (or you can walk up while carrying your skis when the magic carpet isn’t running), then ski down to the top of the Grubenalp lift. From there, you can ski down slope 40 or slope 41. They don’t have cute names for the ski slopes that we’ve been to so far, just numbers. Slope 40 and 41 actually meet up about halfway down. Cass and I skied together initially, but I quickly decided that I might like it more if he’s not always having to stop and wait for me, so we started splitting up and taking different slopes. That worked much better!

I took another break after a couple of runs, and Cass went over to check out the slopes another part of Klosters that is just off the left side of my map. I took some pictures of the mountain scenery, the lift, and that crazy sign at Joe’s bar. On that next to last pic, the reddish poles sticking up are the slope markers. At the very top of the pole, there will be a little blue arrow to indicate this is a blue slope (and red or black ones on those slopes). They’re very subtle, and if you don’t pay close attention, sometimes you’ll find yourself almost skiing down a red slope unintentionally.

When Cass got back from the other side, I decided I could ski some more. On one of these runs, I was on the part just past where 40 and 41 meet back up, and this guy comes crashing by me, skis flying, and I’m about to hit him. I’m sure he was probably having a hard time getting around me and I probably took an unexpected turn which threw him off, but all I could do to avoid running smack into him was to sit down. Which I did. And I quickly learned that an important German phrase to know in this case is “ALLES GUT!” which means everything’s okay. I kept saying “Alles gut!” and he kept saying some German stuff that sounded like “Sorry, my fault! Alles gut?” Me: “Alles gut!” (I assure you!)

I only had one more run in me after that.

Pro tip: if you can, spring for first class train tickets so you don’t have to worry about crowded train cars and ski gear on the way home.