24March, Day 73, Snowboarding Andermatt

It’s been another good week. I filed my third patent on Monday, had dinner with the Ambassador Tuesday, played soccer with some colleagues on Wednesday, enjoyed an Aperitivo with the girl from the train and her roommates on Thursday, caught up on sleep Friday to go snowboarding Saturday. I had hoped to go to a party on Saturday night, but I could not find anyone else who wanted to go out, and did not have the motivation to cowboy up and stay out until the 5:30AM train could bring me home. Maybe I just have to bite the bullet and go to a few student parties taking a cab home until I make a friend in Milan who likes to go out and has a couch where I can sleep until the trains start running in the morning. I imagine that I may be able to rent a car for only a little more than the price of a cab, but I don’t think I would be able to find my way home without getting lost unless it came with a navigator.

Rubbing elbows with some of Milan’s aristocracy reminded me that I should to keep pushing (harder) do great things and that I could benefit by surrounding myself with (more) capable people. There remains much to be done, but I take some consolation that the project of this most recent patent may have significant potential. At least one VC seems to agree…

Soccer was fun. I don’t have a whole lot more to say about it except that I’m surprised that this is the first time I’ve been invited to play in Italy.

The aperitivo was good. I enjoyed eating Indian food instead of Italian, and the company of other Americans. Afterwards we walked around the duomo and went for a gelato before saying goodnight.

I had a great day snowboarding in Switzerland with Paddy. There was fresh snow, sunshine, and almost no lines to ride the lifts and cable cars. Andermatt reminds me of Arapahoe basin Colorado in that it’s high and wide open without trees. They even have the avalanche warnings. The top of the mountain (Gemsstock at 2963m) is a crested pinnacle about 10 or 20 yards wide where both sides plunge off into steep slopes. From here the view opened broadly to the Swiss Alps partially blanketed in clouds.

Andermatt has a lot of off-trail skiing where we were able to ride powder about a foot deep. It took me a little getting used-to, but it was awesome once I got it. Snowboarding powder feels a lot like more wakeboarding because more weight shifts to the back foot, and the board can slide laterally though the snow without the edges biting just like a wakeboard can side-slip a little through water. By the afternoon I felt like I was planing the snowboard over the powder. Bombing down a black run seemed like the board only sank a couple inches instead of half way up to my knees like it did when I went slower. I think I may be hooked on snowboarding. Maybe even converted from skiing –Although skiing today would’ve also been phenomenal!

Despite the great times I’ve had in the Alps, I maintain the opinion that the USA has better mountains. I have yet to find a resort that can beat the views you find at lake Tahoe or the slopes of Colorado. Another observation: of the 4 mountains I’ve been to in the Alps, I have yet to find a single run peppered with moguls. I’m not real big on skiing the bumps, but I can appreciate the variety and added challenge they bring. Maybe they’ve been packing the snow more than usual to try to conserve it since it has been a very warm year. I even saw an exhibit on a glacier conservation project here. For the past few warm summers they’ve been covering their little glacier with a huge sheet to shade it from the sun to keep it from melting so fast. I think it’s a good idea when you look at the accelerated melting of our glaciers over the past few years but we need to make sure to focus efforts on “curing the disease in addition to treating the symptoms.”