If you look for diversity and you consider it a value, if you like discovering those details which make the world interesting and varied, well, probably, the Alps are a place you ought to visit. But you need to be slow: you need to move without rush, open to encounters. Otherwise the Alps are nothing but a pain in the neck geographically speaking, something that should be crossed through a long tunnel to facilitate traffic.
Skiing is an excellent idea, for example. Skiing in a weird way though: a day on the slopes is fun, but it hugely limits the type and quantity of encounters you can have. You need to shuffle the cards. You need to move a bit on skis, on skins, and a bit (when it is unavoidable) with public transport. There: a way of going slowly which allows you to truly see the Alps’ entire diversity during winter.
AARON DUROGATI - ARNAUD COTTET - ERIC GIRARDINI
WHY NOT?
There was a time in which snow was fundamental, here. It was a dream: if there was no snow, everything was missing.
It is during March in 2018 that Arnaud comes across these thoughts. Arnaud Cottet: skier, explorer and Swiss photographer with a thing for diversity, but also judge of freestyle skiing at the XXIII Winter Olympic Games in Pyeongchan, South Korea. If you have a mental horizon of this kind and the best part of your winter has been spent in a box on the side of a slope, judging how others ski, well, it is inevitable that you have the urge to do something yours, afterwards. Something to feel the double pleasure of snow and discovery, even on the Alps, why not.
The starting point is San Martino di Castrozza: one of the most iconic areas of the Dolomites and the Alps, mountains carved out by steep and deep couloirs dominated by speed and contrast. Among other things, in the area, Arnaud has many friends with whom to share the pleasure of skiing and the start of this journey. The destination instead is home: Rocher de Nayin the Alpes Vaudoises, the slopes on which Arnaud has grown up on, just above Lake Geneva. Along the road everything is valid: when and where it is not possible to ski, public transport is an excellent way to move in amidst human beings in the Alps, observing them with the curious eye of the anthropologist.
Arnaud is not on his own: a friend and colleague accompanies him, Nikola Sanz. It’s not bad being in two, for such an unusual trip. Obviously, it means being safer, but not only: it means having someone to chat with, someone to share thoughts with, emotions and impressions.
The two set off on the fifteenth of March, aiming towards north, towards Marmolada, and then towards Pordoi and Val Gardena. Four intense and beautiful days, spent contemplating the beauty of the Dolomites from every corner, from every possible point of view. Austria follows, the Stubai Alps and its glacier, imposing and graceful and then off again, aiming towards West, towards the Grison Alps. And it is at this point that Nikola starts to have a few problems with his back: he is using a splitboard, not the ideal means of transport for long crossings with a heavy back pack. It is best to stop: Arnaud continues on his own.
It would take nine or more hours by car, without many breaks, from San Martino to Geneva. Choosing to travel the way Arnaud travels instead is a whole different story: it takes 21 days not any less. 21 days of cold, fatigue and solitude, but also evenings spent in company in front of a warm stove in a tiny place, of descents in soft and sharp powder snow of some remote place in which nobody goes, of unexpected and expected encounters. Of friends who have chosen to share a bit of the road with him, in the south of Austria of in the Oberland Bernese, at the feet of the Eiger along the Altesch glacier, in the National Park of the Grison Alps or in the heart of the Dolomites. But also (and especially) those completely unexpected ones: at Grimsel pass, for example, where in the whiteout swept away by the wind some sign in the snow made human presence possible to sense: a small group of builders stuck in the hotel they were working on by the terrible weather conditions.
Somewhere warm, a tasty meal, a glass of wine and friendly people with whom to share tales with, spending the whole night telling and listening. Nothing else to say: the humans of the Alps have the true ability to welcome and to amaze even the strangest of travellers travelers.
HUMANS OF THE ALPS
The Alps are unique, and not only if considered as terrain for exploring, for adventure, for activities. The Alps are a unique area above all for the diversity in which they give abode to. At all levels: in terms of its geology, botany, zoology, anthropology, ethnography, even linguistically. Quite a small region after all, more or less the size of Tennessee, but nonetheless manages to be abode to thirty thousand animal species, fifteen thousand plant species, plus a dozen of different human cultures, which from Slovenia to France enrich the endless rituals, languages, artistic traditions and various things.
If you look for diversity and you consider it a value, if you like discovering those details which make the world interesting and varied, well, probably, the Alps are a place you ought to visit. But you need to be slow: you need to move without rush, open to encounters. Otherwise the Alps are nothing but a pain in the neck geographically speaking, something that should be crossed through a long tunnel to facilitate traffic.
Skiing is an excellent idea, for example. Skiing in a weird way though: a day on the slopes is fun, but it hugely limits the type and quantity of encounters you can have. You need to shuffle the cards. You need to move a bit on skis, on skins, and a bit (when it is unavoidable) with public transport. There: a way of going slowly which allows you to truly see the Alps’ entire diversity during winter.
It is during March in 2018 that Arnaud comes across these thoughts. Arnaud Cottet: skier, explorer and Swiss photographer with a thing for diversity, but also judge of freestyle skiing at the XXIII Winter Olympic Games in Pyeongchan, South Korea. If you have a mental horizon of this kind and the best part of your winter has been spent in a box on the side of a slope, judging how others ski, well, it is inevitable that you have the urge to do something yours, afterwards. Something to feel the double pleasure of snow and discovery, even on the Alps, why not.
The starting point is San Martino di Castrozza: one of the most iconic areas of the Dolomites and the Alps, mountains carved out by steep and deep couloirs dominated by speed and contrast. Among other things, in the area, Arnaud has many friends with whom to share the pleasure of skiing and the start of this journey. The destination instead is home: Rocher de Nay, the slopes on which Arnaud has grown up on, just above Lake Geneva. Along the road everything is valid: when and where it is not possible to ski, public transport is an excellent way to move in amidst human beings in the Alps, observing them with the curious eye of the anthropologist.
Arnaud is not on his own: a friend and colleague accompanies him, Nikola Sanz. It’s not bad being in two, for such an unusual trip. Obviously, it means being safer, but not only: it means having someone to chat with, someone to share thoughts with, emotions and impressions.
The two set off on the fifteenth of March, aiming towards north, towards Marmolada, and then towards Pordoi and Val Gardena. Four intense and beautiful days, spent contemplating the beauty of the Dolomites from every corner, from every possible point of view. Austria follows, the Stubai Alps and its glacier, imposing and graceful and then off again, aiming towards West, towards the Grison Alps. And it is at this point that Nikola starts to have a few problems with his back: he is using a splitboard, not the ideal means of transport for long crossings with a heavy back pack. It is best to stop: Arnaud continues on his own.
It would take nine or more hours by car, without many breaks, from San Martino to Geneva. Choosing to travel the way Arnaud travels instead is a whole different story: it takes 21 days not any less. 21 days of cold, fatigue and solitude, but also evenings spent in company in front of a warm stove in a tiny bivouac, of descents in soft and sharp powder snow of some remote place in which nobody goes, of unexpected and expected encounters. Of friends who have chosen to share a bit of the road with him, in the south of Austria of in the Oberland Bernese, at the feet of the Eiger, in the National Park of the Grison Alps or in the heart of the Dolomites. But also (and especially) those completely unexpected ones: at Grimsel pass, for example, where in the whiteout swept away by the wind some sign in the snow made human presence possible to sense: a small group of builders stuck in the hotel they were working on by the terrible weather conditions.
Somewhere warm, a tasty meal, a glass of wine and friendly people with whom to share tales with, spending the whole night telling and listening. Nothing else to say: the humans of the Alps have the true ability to welcome and to amaze even the strangest of travellers.