SNOW Magazine High Season 2016

WAR & SKIING: THE BR AVE MEN OF THE 10TH MOUNTAIN DIVISION

MAGICAL MEGÈVE MASERATIS ON SNOW HELI-SKI VIRGINS

LET’S GET BUSY WINTER’S GROOVIEST FASHION

HIGH SEASON 2016 EIGHT DOLLARS

bogner.com

tonisailer.com

www.sportalm.at

HIGH SEASON 2016

CONTENTS 106 THE MOD SQUAD

Hot hipster looks. 1960s silhouettes.

Kaleidoscope patterns. 2016 ski fashion: Sock it to me, baby!

118 WAR & SKIING They loved the mountains. They yearned to ski. They were the brave men of the 10th Mountain Division.

126 MEGÈVE MOMENTS

It sparkled on the scene of 1963’s Charade with Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn. More than 50 years later, France’s magical Megève continues to shine.

ON THE COVER Vanusa wears a Postcard onesie and a Kask helmet. Alma’s jacket and pants are both Toni Sailer. Goggles by Vuarnet, base layer by Newland, beanie by Dale of Norway.

THIS PAGE Vanusa in a one-piece ski suit and helmet by Goldbergh, booties by Pedro.

Photos: Daniela Federici Stylist: Shifteh Shahbazian See The Mod Squad Page 106.

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HIGH SEASON 2016

100

42

84

92

BEAUTY 46 When it comes to winter beauty, we’ve got you covered.

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WELLNESS 50

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A Shaolin monk lands in Innsbruck, bringing balance to skiers.

SNOW FLURRIES 27 Color-blocked ski fashion is back, Porsche designs gondolas, Christie’s hosts a ski poster sale, and Denver refines the art of a layover.

BOTTLE 52 This ski season’s spirit of choice: craft-distilled vodka.

APRÈS 56

SNOW CULTURE 70

HELI 88

Feeling chilly?

Warm yourself up with a WhistlePig Vermontoddy.

Wrap yourself in the comfort of a private Vail mountain club.

Proof that it’s never too late to try heli-skiing.

SNOW DRIVES 58

BOUTIQUE 74

Mastering Aspen’s mountain roads in a Maserati Ghibli.

Expecting the unexpected at Cole Sport of Park City.

Snow Tip: White is the color of winter. Plus, we’ll make you feel like a natural woman.

SKI TOWN SECRETS 62

SNOW KIDS 80

A fresh look at the new Park City.

Hiding out in Aspen’s Buttermilk.

A hideaway in Verbier reveals Sir Richard Branson’s virgin snow style.

GEAR 44, 48

SNOW SUITES 66

PERFECT PLACES 84

LAST RUN 144

Drones and apps: tech that’s taking over snow country.

Courchevel 1650’s coveted Hotel Manali.

Spain’s Sierra Nevada is a place of sun and snow.

A college graduation ceremony on snow.

SNOWCIETIES 36 Argentina’s slopes of Bariloche do battle with the pretty peaks of Queenstown, New Zealand.

SNOW KING 92

SNOW STYLE 40

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Mammoth Mountain’s Dave McCoy turns 100.

SNOW HOMES 100

P : M AT T H O B B S L : C I T Y O F A S P E N

There is something uniquely powerful about the mountains. Find your place here. Discover adventure rooted in the majestic and the unknown.

Visit Aspen Snowmass to renew your spirit and live in the moment.

See more at aspensnowmass.com/mindbodyspirit.

S E T YO U R S P I R I T F R E E

T H E J O U R N E Y* *

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PUBLISHER Barbara Sanders

CREATIVE DIRECTOR Anne-Marie Boissonnault annemarie@thesnowmag.com EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Lori Knowles lori@thesnowmag.com

ART DIRECTOR Laura Doherty SPECIAL EVENT DIRECTOR Joan Valentine WORLD CUP ALPINE EDITOR Michael Mastarciyan COPY EDITOR Shelley Preston DIGITAL DIRECTOR Julius Yoder SNOW STYLIST Shifteh Shahbazian STYLING ASSISTANTS Kim Mann, Katharine ReQua.

FRESH SNOW DAILY

CONTRIBUTORS Megan Barber, Leah Bourne, Daniela Federici, Jen Laskey, Michael Mastarciyan, Audrey Mead, Hilary Nangle, Gerald Sanders, Dean Seguin, Jonathan Selkowitz, Peggy Shinn, David Shribman, Rob Story, Emily Voorhees, Jenn Weede, Leslie Woit.

ADVERTISING SALES SALES DIRECTOR Barbara Sanders (970) 948-1840 barb@thesnowmag.com SALES MANAGER Debbie Topp (905) 770-5959 debbiejtopp@hotmail.com AD SALES REPRESENTATIVE Jenny MacArthur (970) 309-0282 jennyjmac@comcast.net

INSIDER ACCESS TO TOP BRANDS The latest trends in ski wear and après-ski fashion The best destinations in the ski world The top hotels and chalets Best heli-ski destinations Glamourous events and happenings in the most exclusive resorts

thesnowmag.com

BRAND PUBLISHER www.yqbmedia.com PRESIDENT AND EDITOR Anne-Marie Boissonnault EDITORIAL DIRECTOR Dominique Laflamme CONTENT MANAGER Jennifer Campbell CREATIVE WRITER AND COPY EDITOR Caroline Décoste ART DIRECTOR Andrée-Anne Hamel GRAPHIC DESIGNERS Laura Doherty, Audrey Geoffroy-Plante, Stéphanie Langlois.

SALES AND BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT Amélie Côte MARKETING STRATEGIST Stéphanie V. Robichaud PRODUCTION MANAGER Kathleen Forcier COMMUNITY MANAGER Julie Gagnon

This product is from sustainably managed forests and controlled sources.

PUBLISHER’S NOTE

SALUD, EL NIÑO! L

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Barbara Sanders wearing Colmar in snowy Portillo.

changing to the point that when my long-time ski instructor — Dave’s daughter-in-law, Beverly McCoy — asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I said: “I want to be a ski instructor just like you!” That was at the age of 10 and here I am, still teaching skiing part time! Seeing Dave on the mountain, unassuming as ever in his white T-shirt, was always a highlight. My son Micah and I had the pleasure of hanging with Dave, Roma, daughter Penny, and grandson David Barrett in Bishop this summer just before Dave’s 100th birthday. He was sharp and sassy. We fished out photos from the old days when I worked there — it is a visit I will cherish.

Lastly, in this edition our editor-in-chief, Lori Knowles, shares her virgin heli-ski journey with us on page 88. Her experience with TLH Heliskiing in back-of-beyond British Columbia reminds us that it’s never too late for your first time.

So let’s enjoy this El Niño season and Let it Snow!

BARBARA SANDERS, PUBLISHER BARB@THESNOWMAG.COM

P H OTO : J O N AT H A N S E L KO W I T Z

et’s raise our glasses to El Niño. Just as this winter was due to make its November debut, El Niño made every skier’s dream come true. Before we knew it, California got snow, Squaw Valley opened, and my Instagram feed became white and snowy. As I write this, the numbers just keep getting better. The Climate Prediction Center says there’s a 95 percent chance that El Niño will persist throughout winter 2016 and will have record-breaking precipitation potential.

One of the coolest things we get to do at SNOW each year is shoot fashion with super star photographer Daniela Federici. The inspiration for the shoot begins at the ISPO and SIA trade shows in January when new designs are on display; it becomes art when Daniela’s talent and creativity bring it all to form. Our team — Shifteh Shahbazian, Joan Valentine, Kim Mann, and Katharine ReQua — worked long days executing Daniela’s vision. Check out our mod, Twiggy-inspired fashion feature on page 105.

Also in this edition, Leslie Woit goes deep inside Sir Richard Branson’s Verbier ski lodge (page 100). I had the great pleasure of re-meeting Sir Richard last spring. Our encounter involved me delivering a ski bag that missed Branson’s flight to Mammoth; he couldn’t have been nicer. Meeting his mum, Eve, was just as big of a treat. One day at age 78, she went skiing in the Atlas Mountains of Morocco. On her drive home she spotted a young boy improperly dressed for the cold, snowy day. She gave him a lift home and, upon hearing his story, became inspired to create the Eve Branson Foundation to teach skills to the locals so they could better support themselves and their loved ones.

Once again, SNOW’s own Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist David Shribman contributes, illuminating the courage and trials of the 10th Mountain Division during World War II. In War & Skiing (page 118), Shribman offers an entirely different perspective of what it means to slide on snow.

This edition’s story about Dave McCoy by Peggy Shinn (page 92) is meaningful in so many ways. Dave McCoy and Mammoth were my introduction to the mountains and the sport of skiing. It was life

Dear gravity, resistance is futile.

Four Seasons Resorts and Residences Jackson Hole, Vail and Whistler.

With legendary terrains and trails suited for any level of snow enthusiast, these mountains are ideal winter destinations. And with award-winning spas, hyper-local dining and soul-warming welcomes, the après ski scene is more than worth coming off the mountain for. Experience your choice of three mountain resorts with lift passes and much more.

For reservations, call your travel consultant or Four Seasons at (800) 819-5053 or visit fourseasons.com/mountainresorts

Jackson Hole | Vail | Whistler

CONTRIBUTORS

SNOW TALENT LESLIE WOIT

ROB STORY

WRITER

WRITER

WRITER

MEGÈVE MOMENTS

A MASERATI FOR THE MOUNTAINS

WAR & SKIING

PAGE 126

PAGE 58

PAGE 118

If I could drive a Maserati anywhere it would be... “… the Dolomite Mountains of Northern Italy. While the Dolomites are well north of Maserati’s birthplace, they still reward a wicked-responsive Italian Stallion of a sports car. Especially if it has all‑wheel drive. The ribbons of asphalt connecting Val Gardena and Cortina twist and shimmy like a snake with Parkinson’s. I’d love to slither a Ghibli through the cathedrals of rock that are the Dolomites, the most spectacular mountain range on the planet.”

— Rob Story is the author of two books, Telluride Storys (Lulu.com) and Outside Adventure Travel: Mountain Biking (WW Norton).

If I were in a room full of 10th Mountain Division veterans I would… “… concede that I knew how they could be trained to move into battle going downhill, but would ask them what their training told them about traveling uphill to move into battle.

I’d ask them whether, or when, in the course of the war skiing turned from being an avocation into a burden.

And speaking of avocations, I’d ask a select few when they realized they could transform their avocation into a vocation. Then I’d ask them if they wanted to take a run.”

— David Shribman is executive editor of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and winner of a Pulitzer Prize. His father, a World War II veteran, was taught to ski by New Hampshire veterans of the 10th Mountain Division.

If I had a million dollars in Megève I would... “…pass my favorite mink hat round for the other $9 million that might buy me a Henry Jacques Le Même-designed chalet. Under the patronage of Baroness Mimi Rothschild, Le Même made real his wood-framed vision of refined alpine elegance. I am tickled by the notion of sharing the tastes — if not the means — of a master architect and a fin de siècle grand dame.

Either way, my new deliciously furry M. Miller ski jacket is a step in the right direction.”

— Leslie Woit is a writer for various North American and U.K. publications, including Condé Nast Traveler, The Independent, and The Telegraph.

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DAVID SHRIBMAN

www.ChaosHats.com

SNOW FLURRIES Slim Aarons Fashion, The Cheese Trains of Switzerland, Glacial Jewelry, Après-Ski TV.

Russian Ski Artist: Anonymous Lithograph featured in The Ski Sale, Christie’s South Kensington, February 20, 2008. © Christie’s Images Limited 2008 See page 30 for details on Christie’s 2016 Ski Sale.

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SNOW FLURRIES

SWAROVSKI & GAULTIER: A LOVE STORY GONE, GLACIER It’s known as the Mer De Glace — a four-mile sea of ice, the largest glacier in France, that’s predicted to retreat up to 4,000 feet by the year 2040. In its debut collection, Garogosi has created jewelry representing the extreme fragility of such glaciers.

Artisans have taken casts from the surface of the Mer De Glace to create a limited collection of rings, necklaces, bracelets, and cuffs. By preserving these “momentary fingerprints” into jewelry, Garogosi says: “We are forever locking the extreme forces of the natural world.”

K

nown as the enfant terrible of Paris catwalks, haute couture’s Jean Paul Gaultier takes yet a different path, designing eccentric crystal art installations for Austria’s

Swarovski. Gaultier’s winter 2016 exhibits in Vienna and at Kristallwelten near the ski slopes of Innsbruck offer us a glimpse of his crystal‑meets-haute-couture creations.

Some mannequins are draped in elaborate designs; others are displayed under the glare of neon, dressed in nothing but tattoos and crystal. “It’s nothing less than a love story with Swarovski,” says Gaultier. “I feel like we already have children together and there are new ones to come.”

WWW.KRISTALLWELTEN.COM

APRÈS-SKI TV It’s luxury at its peak. TV’s Bravo jet sets to Whistler, British Columbia this season for its new docu-series Après Ski. In a flurry of fabulous festivities off-slope and on, Canadian hospitality mogul Joey Gibbons attempts to launch a travel concierge business. Scenes of heli-skiing, steamy hot springs, and tippling on the sky-high Peak 2 Peak gondola ensue — apparently “no request is too outrageous.” But hey, this is reality television we’re talking about. When the chairlifts go up and the shotskis go down, Gibbons’ dream team of sexy staffers — including freeskier Lynsey Dyer — butt heads and break hearts. It’s reality ski TV at its testiest.

WWW.BRAVOTV.COM/APRES-SKI

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P H OTO S : © S WA R OV S K I K R I S TA L LW E LT E N ( S WA R OV S K I & G A U LT I E R) , TAV I P H OTO (A P R È S -S K I T V )

WWW.GAROGOSI.COM

www.mountainforce.com

SNOW FLURRIES

A WALK OF ART From a simple glass block titled Exuberance by Dan Dailey to Scott Stearman and Victor Issa’s iconic 10th Mountain Division Memorial in bronze, Vail is full of art in public places. Wednesday Art Walks — guided by art lovers who ski — take place every winter Wednesday morning in Vail Village.

WWW.ARTINVAIL.COM

THE ART OF LAYOVERS

— LESLIE WOIT

Switzerland raises the bar on posh ski lifts with a new sphere-shaped, eight-person gondola in Lenzerheide created by Porsche Design Studios. Over in snowboardbeloved Laax, fabled and famous for designing brands that include Ferrari and Maserati, the new Pininfarina-designed 10-person gondola lifts skiers smoothly, sexily and swiftly high above 10,000 feet. Laax already boasts the world’s first Porsche Design Studios chairlift. Since 2012, Porsche’s contoured and solar-heated seats have rotated 45 degrees to deliver maximum mountain scenery with minimum neck strain. — LW

WWW.CHRISTIES.COM

WWW.MYSWITZERLAND.COM

— LORI KNOWLES WWW.THEARTHOTEL.COM

HANGING HISTORY

Anonymous Ski In Jasper National Park, Silkscreen

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FLASHY RIDES

Paddles at the ready this January for the annual Ski Sale at the famous London auction house, Christie’s. A rainbow of international ski and winter sports posters go under the hammer, the majority dating from the turn of the 20th century to the 1950s.

Estimates of the 150-200 lots range from $1,200 to $120,000.

According to Christie’s, keen bidders are known to telephone from the slopes to bid for their bit of must-have retro chic. Going once!

The Ski Sale, January 21, 2016, Christie’s London, South Kensington

P H OTO S : LO R I K N O W L E S (A R T I N VA I L ) , C O U R T E S Y O F T H E A R T H OT E L ( T H E A R T O F L AYOV E R S ) , C O U R T E S Y O F C H R I S T I E ’ S ( H A N G I N G H I S TO R Y ) , C O U R T E S Y O F M Y S W I T Z E R L A N D ( F L A S H Y R I D E S )

L

ayovers at Denver International Airport (DIA) take on added grace when paired with a stay at the city’s new ART Hotel, luxe accommodations mixed with a modern and contemporary art collection. In-house curator Dianne Vanderlip has assembled pieces from Claes Oldenberg, Tracey Emin, John Baldessari, Sol LeWitt and more — each floor’s décor inspired by a different artist.

The experience is multisensory, with avant-garde video art in the elevator, and a large-scale light installation by Leo Villareal providing a sound-and-light filled stay in downtown Denver.

Banff Lake Louise Tourism / Paul Zizka Photography

Dave Riley

Adam Locke

Josh Robertson

Book your exclusive Sunshine Mountain Lodge vacation now and experience Canada’s first heated lift— Teepee Town LX. Located at 7,200 feet, the Sunshine Mountain Lodge provides 360 degree panoramic Canadian Rocky Mountain views and over 8,000 acres of Canada’s Best Snow. Sunshine Village Ski & Snowboard Resort is a place where perfect snowy days transform into breathtaking starry nights and a luxuryinspired setting creates the space where you and your family can truly get away from it all.

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SNOW FLURRIES

AFFORDABLE FRENCH CHIC

V

intage joins contemporary, alpine intersects urban, affordable meets chic. From France’s fabled Maisons et Hôtels Sibuet comes the launch of a new line of ski hotels called Terminal Neige that promise to be easy on the eye as well as on the pocket book. The first to open is in the heart of car-free Flaine — a three-star, design-forward boite of beauty called Hôtel Le Totem. Think: street art and polished concrete softened by chestnut furnishings, warm woolen bedding, traditional French breakfasts, and on the walls: Native American motifs. All for a room rate for two under $250? Mais oui! — LESLIE WOIT

A LITTLE WINE WITH CHEESE, YOUR PLEASE! LAKE LIFE HELIAll aboard the Train du Fromage, a single-day Swiss rail Whistler, British Columbia SKIING excursion between Montreux is well-endowed with

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PISTE PLEASURE

WWW.SWISSTRAVEL

spectacular views, but few are quite as peaceful as the one from the terraces of the spa and over-sized suites in Nita Lake Lodge. Scenes surrounding Whistler’s only lakeside property lull guests into a state of stillness — hard to believe it’s only 1500 feet from Creekside lifts and in the midst of lively local hangout Cure Lounge.

New in 2016: An ice bar and a fondue hut with more fine views of the glacier-fed Nita Lake. Nice.

Forget ham sandwiches.

A slopeside lunch goes gourmet with the help of a Backcountry Picnic from Cured. Salamis and cheeses are hand-selected by the Colorado-based charcuterie and packed to withstand extreme temperatures, then delivered to your hotel or ski home on the eve of your adventure. “We always head into the mountains with great meats and cheeses,” says Cured’s Will Frischkorn, an avid skier and former pro cyclist. “We want to show other skiers that the eating portion of the adventure can be pure pleasure.” Ordered online, each picnic comes with two salamis, two chunks of cheese, two apples, two house-baked treats, and a tub of Marcona almonds.

SYSTEM.COM/CHEESETRAIN

WWW.NITALAKELODGE.COM

WWW.CUREDBOULDER.COM

For heli-skiing paired with wine tasting, head to the Southern Hemisphere this summer.

Argentina’s Vines Resort and Spa is offering heli-skiing the Andes by day courtesy of Powder South Heli Ski Guides, followed by luxe villa stays by night on a private Mendoza vineyard in the Uco Wine Valley. Says Rodrigo Mujica, director of Powder South: “The Vines Resort & Spa is the most stunning and luxurious heli-ski lodge on the planet!”

and Château-d’Oex that’s all about cheese. Operated by the Montreux-Bernese Oberland Railway from December to April, this snow train seats passengers in a comfortable panoramic railcar as it passes through the Lake Geneva region, serving local wine paired with a selection of Swiss cheese. A fondue lunch and cheese-making demonstration follows at Château-d’Oex’s Le Chalet Bio.

WWW.VINESRESORT ANDSPA.COM

P H OTO S : T E R M I N A L N E I G E – TOT E M / C . A R N A L & D R ( T E R M I N A L N E I G E ) , C O U R T E S Y O F T H E V I N E S R E S O R T A N D S PA ( V I N E S R E S O R T ) , G O L D E N PA S S (C H E E S E T R A I N ) , C O U R T E S Y O F N I TA L A K E LO D G E ( L A K E L I F E ) , D O U G L A S B R O W N /C U R E D (C U R E D B O U L D E R)

WWW.TERMINAL-NEIGE.COM

Feel The Difference

SNOW FLURRIES

BLOCK PARTY

BOLD BLOCK COLORS OF THE 1960s ARE BACK

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hink of the golden age of ski fashion and Slim Aarons’ famous images of 1960s Verbier and Aspen may come to mind — gorgeous jet setters in mod, color-block coats making their way down the slopes. Fittingly, one of the biggest ski fashion trends of this season harkens right back to that golden age: color blocking.

Luxury winter offerings from the likes of Valentino to Moncler are sending the message that it’s time once again to dress bold on the slopes — peppering their collections with geometric motifs, and transforming familiar shapes like boxy shell jackets and quilted snow boots into something sophisticated with just the right jolt of fun by incorporating the trend.

Leading the charge is Fendi, which this season showed color-block jackets and pants in graphic white and black, plus jewel tones like purple and fuchsia, taking cues from its similarly styled

FENDI

Slim Aarons’ Snowmass Gathering, 1968. Available on 1stdibs.com, $3,300.

ready-to-wear offerings. That Fendi’s ski collection incorporates Gore-Tex and jackets with fitted snow-skirts means, besides scoring high on style points, these pieces will work well for even the most serious of skiers.

Proving that color blocking is not a one-note trend, Austrian brand Sportalm showed a luxurious side, offering up quilted jackets with raccoon colors, and Bogner headed straight to the 1970s for inspiration with its retro jackets complete with color-block sleeves. Cult ski brand

PERFECT MOMENT

Perfect Moment is having an Americana moment with its red, white, and blue après-ski sweaters.

“We all want to be more active in our lives, and I think a sporty look can be very sexy and, when done right, stylish, too,” says Perfect Moment’s Creative Director Helen Lee while reflecting on why this trend is primed to take over this winter’s slopes.

Keep in mind, an entire fashion overhaul isn’t at all necessary — color-block accessories will update even the most neutral ski basics. Stay warm in Valentino’s muted cashmere color-block scarves, jump into Moncler Grenoble’s chevron snow boots before and after hitting the slopes, and finish off your look with a hand-knit, tri-color beanie by London-based designer Natasha Zinko — a little bit of this bold trend will go a long way. — LEAH BOURNE

SPORTALM

MONCLER

BOGNER TONI SAILER VALENTINO

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NATASHA ZINKO

www.colesport.com DEER VALLEY 435-649-4601 PARK CITY 435-649-4806 bogner.com

SNOW FLURRIES

SNOWCIETIES HOLA OR KIA ORA? NO HAY PROBLEMA OR NO WORRIES? LEARN THE LOCAL LINGO NOW TO PREP FOR YOUR SUMMER SKI VACATION.

Bariloche, Argentina

VS

Argentine Beauty: Valeria Mazza

Argentine Bird: The Condor

What to Wear: Mountain Hardwear

Queenstown, New Zealand Queenstown Royals: Kate & William

Kiwi Lodgings: Eichardt’s Private Hotel

What to Wear: Picnic Lunch Canada Thief: The Goose Cheeky Kea

Hot Spot: Samsara Ski: Völkl Mantra

Ski: Dynastar Powertrack

Vintage Ski Race: Carrera de la historia

Sip: Campari Orange Boots: Sorel

Culture: Michael Hill International Violin Competition

Sip: No.5 Belle Rouge

Gumboots: Red Band

Snow Ride: Toyota SW4 36

Snow Ride: Range Rover Sport

#INLOVEWITHSWITZERLAND since he landed there.

Buzz Aldrin, astronaut Apollo 11

Breithorn, Valais

Book now at MySwitzerland.com and prepare to fall in love!

Skiing at the foot of the Matterhorn, Zermatt, Valais

Valais, a winter wonderland .

The Valais is the snowiest region in the Alps, offering more fun on the slopes than just about anywhere else. The most varied ski areas in the Alps and a fabulous panorama with 45 peaks over 13,000 feet await winter visitors. Its location high up in the Alps ensures perfect conditions well into the spring. The fresh mountain air, the breathtaking landscape and a wide range of activities make for perfect winter holidays in this sunny Alpine canton in the south-west of Switzerland.

Virtually all of the Valais’ resorts are situated higher than 5,000 feet above sea level, nine even almost at 10,000 feet – this guarantees plenty of snow.

Besides these activities, additional tasty pleasures shouldn’t be missed. Like the joys of Raclette and Fendant by an open fire – or delicious meals enjoyed in amicable and elegant ambiance. Valais - it’s only a matter of choice - because all that winter has to offer is discovered in the delightful canton Valais!

Ski Portes du Soleil – Champéry 1 – package – 2 countries – 196 lifts – 285 runs!

From $1,549 pp in double occupancy* Your package includes: ■

7 nights lodging at Hotel Suisse in Standard Double Room

■

Daily buffet breakfast

■

Swiss transfer ticket 2nd class (train transfers from/to Geneva or Zurich airports)

And here the sun shines far longer than anywhere else in Switzerland! Here, Mother Nature provides the fundamentals for all kinds of winter sports. Groomed ski and snow-boarding pistes, breath-taking downhill sled runs and snowywhite hiking paths are equally as enticing as relaxed bathing in the regions steaming thermal waters.

For information, please visit www.visitvalais.ch

■

Portes du Soleil 6 day lift tickets

AlpineAdventures.net/ski-switzerland

*Offer valid throughout winter season 2015-16.

Before the descent on Mt. Titlis

Engelberg-TITLIS. The charming town of Engelberg is Lucerne Region’s biggest winter sports destination. At Engelberg all roads end and you are surrounded by 10’000 feet high mountain peaks. A true winter wonderland!

Engelberg’s ski resort has everything for keen winter sports fans. Explore runs with more than 6’500 feet of vertical drop and ski the longest run with a total of 7.4 miles from Titlis right into town. Engelberg is world famous for its backcountry skiing and yet having slopes that suit every level of skier perfectly. Families also find children beginner areas, professional educated kids ski instructors and daily child care.

With over 900 years of history Engelberg has many stories to tell. On a guided tour through the Benedictine monastery and a visit to the folk’s museum of Engelberg you sure find out a lot about our past. To know more about the now, the 4’000 residents and a bunch of Scandinavian seasoneers welcome you for a well-deserved après ski.

Ski Engelberg-TITLIS From $699 pp based on 2 adults and 2 children under 16 yrs old* Your package includes: ■

7 nights lodging in One Bedroom Apartment (2 adults and 2 children) at Titlis Resort Engelberg

■

Swiss transfer ticket 2nd class (train transfers from/to Geneva or Zurich aiports)

Not a skier/snowboarder? No problem, go on a romantic horse carriage ride, take a relaxing snow shoe hike and enjoy a Swiss cheese Fondue in a charming alpine hut or explore our nature on cross country skis. Reach for the maximum fun and try out Europe’s only electronically powered snow mobiles and recharge your own batteries in one of our spas afterwards.

For information, please visit www.engelberg.ch

■

Engelberg 6 day lift tickets

■

Breakfast delivery service available

■

Cleaning costs and VAT taxes

AlpineAdventures.net/ski-switzerland *Offer valid for following dates: January 2-22 and March 28 – May 13.

SNOW STYLE

DAINESE

VUARNET

WHITE OUT

KRU ST.MORITZ

SNOW’S FAVORITE COLOR IS MAKING IT BIG THIS SEASON.

BY THE SNOW FASHION EDITORS

FUSALP

DESCENTE

SOS KASK

CAPRANEA KJUS

MOONBOOT

UVEX

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9:17AM The moment your idea of heaven finally comes down to earth.

The best ski days are a glimpse of paradise on earth. And there’s no place more heavenly than Whistler. As North America’s largest (and Whistler’s only true) ski-in ski-out luxury hotel, Fairmont Chateau Whistler is the ultimate Canadian ski experience. We continue to raise the standard with offerings like our Experience Guide, who personally leads Fairmont guests to Whistler’s most unforgettable moments. With today’s favourable currency exchange for travelers to Canada, there’s no better time to enjoy Whistler’s alpine beauty.

Sometimes, even the most heavenly moments have very down-to-earth motivations.

WHISTLER

NO.1

SKI RESORT IN NORTH AMERICA

FOR DETAILS PLEASE VISIT FAIRMONT.COM/WHISTLER OR CONTACT YOUR TRAVEL PROFESSIONAL

Gateway to your moment in over 20 countries. fairmont.com

SNOW STYLE

FRAUENSCHUH GORSUCH DUVETICA

NILS

MOUNTAIN FORCE

SKINS

BLANC NOIR

MOVER

ANDREW MARC

WOOL DALE OF NORWAY FENDI

PARAJUMPERS

ARPIN

NATURAL BEAUTY GO NATURAL WITH EARTH TONES, WOOL, FUR, SUEDE, AND BUTTER-SOFT SHEARLING

M.MILLER

BY THE SNOW FASHION EDITORS

AUTHIER

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THE YEAR OF THE DRONE CAMERA READY… ACTION! GET PREPPED FOR DRONES IN SKI COUNTRY

BY MEGAN BARBER

Don’t own a drone? You’re not alone. Until now, drones have been pricey, hard to fly, and the obsession of photographers, not skiers.

All of that is about to change. Today’s drones are smaller, easier to use, and poised to transform skiers into filmmakers. 2016 may well be the year of the drone. Are ski areas ready?

ON THE MARKET

This ski season’s best on-snow drones follow a skier autonomously, they’re easy to operate, and they produce high-quality video.

Take the Lily camera ($599), a waterproof drone weighing-in less than a laptop, boasting enough battery for 20 minutes of filming, and configured simply so that it’s embarrassingly easy to operate. Just throw the drone into the air and start skiing — the drone follows a small circular tracker stuffed in your pocket.

The Airdog auto-follow drone ($1,295) uses a similar concept but features a larger range (1,000 feet) and employs the trendy use of a GoPro camera.

Both the Lily and the Airdog will face some serious competition when the king of action cameras enters the drone race. GoPro has confirmed it will launch its own drone in 2016 — a quadcopter that’s been hailed by GoPro CEO Nick Woodman as “the ultimate GoPro accessory.” Details and pricing weren’t available at press time, but if GoPro is half as successful with its drone as it as been with its helmet-mounted camera, its drone may fast become tech-savvy skiers’ go-to gadget.

FROM SEARCH AND RESCUE, TO AVALANCHE MITIGATION, TO SNOWMAKING, DRONES COULD HELP SKI AREAS SAVE LIVES AND CUT COSTS. 44

ARE SKI AREAS READY?

Even as drones go on-hill and high-tech, it’s unlikely you’ll use your own at a ski area anytime soon. Drones pose a plethora of hazards, from safety risks (imagine a drone falling out of the sky?), to privacy infringements (a celebrity skier’s worst nightmare). Currently, many ski areas explicitly ban drones — but that doesn’t mean that they don’t want to use them. From search and rescue, to avalanche mitigation, to snowmaking, drones could help ski areas save lives and cut costs.

They’re also a marketing department’s dream. Forget the on-mountain photographer, new this season some ski areas are employing drones to shoot film footage of you skiing your favorite bowl, or acing that double-black bump run — for a fee. A company called Cape Productions has partnered with resorts including Winter Park, Copper Mountain, and Fernie Alpine Resort.

Customers sign up, meet Cape on the mountain, and get filmed by its drones, then receive a professionally edited online video to share with family and friends.

Whether as a new tool for ski resorts or as the ultimate back­ country gadget, you can bet 2016 will be the year of the drone.

AIRDOG

LILY

CAPE PRODUCTIONS

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iSKI

A NEW CLASS OF ON-SLOPE APPS TRACK TURNS, TEMPS, AIRTIME, AND POWDER

BY MEGAN BARBER

Everyone is phone obsessed these days, whether in the office or skiing the back bowls of Vail. But forget checking your email and instead indulge in a new class of high-tech snow apps. From accurately predicting a top-10 powder day to creating 3D maps of your ski runs, here’s the downlow on what you need to download this winter.

In 2016, ski apps go way beyond the basics of tracking vertical. Apple Watch wearers will love Slopes, a $8 app that displays live stats like vertical drop, speed, and distance on your watch so your phone stays pocketed. At the end of the day, Slopes can also replay your runs on a 3D map and create a made-for-Facebook recap image sure to incite jealousy among friends.

But no matter how fancy your Apple Watch, ski-tracking apps can struggle with accuracy, cold temper­ atures, and battery power drain.

Enter Trace, a new-app-turned-actionsports-tracker that’s shockproof, weighs just 1.4 ounces (about the size of an Oreo cookie), and easily mounts on your skis. In conjunction with the free Trace Snow app, the tiny tracker ($200 with an optional $50 custom engraving) uses GPS to measure your data eight times more accurately than a traditional app, all with a 10-hour battery life and no phone drain. It even syncs to your GoPro footage, calculates how many calories you burned, and logs how much airtime you got off a jump.

For skiers who care more about tracking the snow than their stats, the expert meteorologists behind the free OpenSnow app provide local forecasts for places like Utah, Colorado, New England, and Tahoe.

Custom snow report alerts ensure that you’ll never miss a 14-inch day and powderhounds traveling abroad will love that this winter, Open Snow will feature forecasts for Japan and Europe. Weather geeks should also check out the $10 RadarScope app, which allows you to view NEXRAD weather radar, maps, and forecasts (read: blizzards) on all iOS and Android devices.

Off the mountain, skiers looking to connect will love the just-released GoSnow app. Like Tinder for the ski world, the app allows skiers to create a profile, plan trips, and discover who’s nearby to meet up for a run or a drink.

From skiers geeking out about the weather to hooking up at après, there’s an app for that.

Now get downloading and get out there.

TRACE SNOW

OPENSNOW

RADARSCOPE

48

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WELLNESS

PERFECT HARMONY AN INNSBRUCK MONK USES SHAOLIN MASSAGE TO RESTORE A SKIER’S BALANCE WORDS AND PHOTO

BY MICHAEL MASTARCIYAN

F

or the last 1,500 years, monks at the famed Shaolin Temple in the verdant mountains of China’s Henan Province have been practicing an assortment of arts meant to better the human mind, body, and soul. The birthplace of Chan Buddhism and the cradle of kung fu, this monastery’s monks are also trained in an ancient form of Chinese massage known as Shaolin.

Stemming from the Tui Na method of Chinese manipulative therapy — which archaeologists have dated as far back as 2,700 B.C. — the Shaolin method has been used by monks at the Shaolin Temple to cure medical conditions and alleviate chronic pain.

One of these monks, Shi Yan Xuan — a 34th-generation master in kung fu, tai chi, qigong and Shaolin massage — is now in residence at the Adlers Hotel, the newest, tallest, most futuristic hotel in Innsbruck, with a birds-eye view of Austria’s glistening alps and a sky-high spa overlooking Innsbruck’s snow-laden rooftops.

Master Xuan’s task at the Adlers: tending to skiers sore from riding the slopes of Kühtai, Igls, or Innsbruck’s wondrous Stubai Glacier.

So much more than humdrum muscle massage, the ultimate goal of an après-ski Shaolin massage is the reduction and prevention of stress. Master Xuan turns his razor-sharp focus on the regulation of his client’s internal and external systems, intent on bringing a skier’s mind and body back into harmony.

50

Shaolin massage master Shi Yan Xuan outside the Adlers Hotel, Innsbruck.

As Master Xuan demonstrates, achieving harmony isn’t always Zen-like. Clad in togs of brilliant orange, the monk zeros in with relish on a skier’s various acupressure points in order to clear energy pathways and to facilitate the flow of energy. His Shaolin massage is a mix of traction and martial arts — including kneading, rubbing, brushing, squeezing, pushing, and pulling the areas around a skier’s joints. Master Xuan’s technique can even be described as kung fu on the body.

Does it work? Absolutely. Despite his zestful manipulation of the body on the Adlers Spa massage table, this Jackie Chan of Shaolin monks somehow manages to restore a skier’s mind and body to harmony — a 1,500-year-old healing gift from the birthplace of Buddhism now available in the birthplace of modern alpine skiing.

WWW.DERADLER.COM

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BOTTLE

ALTITUDE ADJUSTERS SNOW COUNTRY’S CRAFT-DISTILLED VODKAS

V

BY JEN LASKEY

odka has long been a staple snow country spirit.

Russians, Poles, Scandinavians, and other devoted imbibers of the north have always taken their vodka seriously. But when the craft cocktail movement took off in America, vodka became the liquor that spirits enthusiasts 52

loved to hate. Now, a decade on, with an increasing number of craftdistilled vodkas, it’s once again re-emerging as a popular spirit.

Here are three award-winning vodkas worth mixing into your après-ski, but they’re so smooth and full of flavor, you may want to simply sip them instead.

EMBRACE THE NOBIS CULTURE NOBIS.CA

BOTTLE

SNOW LEOPARD VODKA

$30 (750 ML)

$35 (750 ML) $45 (1L)

A true farm-to-bottle distillery, Colorado’s Woody Creek grows its own potatoes, fermenting and batch-distilling a mash of Rio Grande spuds in custom Carl stills to make its signature 100-percent potato vodka, which recently won a Double Gold Medal at the 2015 San Francisco World Spirits Competition. “The craft-distilling movement is picking up,” says David Matthews of Basalt, CO, distillery manager for Woody Creek. “People appreciate the effort when something is local and made the right way, and if it’s a great vodka to boot, that’s a great thing.”

Notes: Creamy, buttery mouth-feel with notes of vanilla, ginger, citrus, and black pepper.

Suggested après: Woody Creek Mule (combine 2 ounces Woody Creek, 1 ounce fresh lime juice, 3 dashes Angostura bitters in copper mug; top with 3 ounces Fever-Tree ginger beer, stir, garnish with lime wedge).

Master distiller Joanna Dawidowicz of Poland’s Polmos Lublin Distillery, creates Snow Leopard from a spelt mash. “Spelt retains nutrients and flavor better than other grains during the production process,” explains global brand manager Sarah Knowles.

“The spelt grain gives our vodka a very distinctive flavor and mouth-feel.” Founder Stephen Sparrow donates 15 percent of profits to snow leopard conservation efforts.

Notes: Rich, creamy, and nutty with additional notes of vanilla, pepper, and anise.

Suggested après: Altitude Adjuster (1 ounce each Snow Leopard, Bols orange liqueur, Cocchi Americano vermouth, fresh lemon juice, and 1 bar spoon absinthe; shake, strain, garnish with orange zest).

AYLESBURY DUCK $30 (1L) Made from soft white wheat sourced from local farmers and distilled in Canada’s sharp-peaked and picturesque Rockies, Aylesbury Duck is produced by the 86 Co., a spirits company started by bartenders to create spirits that “play well in cocktails.”

“We chose the soft white wheat because it has a higher starch content,” says partner Jason Kosmas, “which gives it a richness that helps carry flavor.” The mash is fermented and continuously distilled in three copper-plated column stills from the 1940s.

In an effort to retain as much of the grain character as possible, the distillers use only particle filtration.

Notes: Silky mouth-feel with notes of citrus, marshmallow, anise, and white pepper.

Suggested après: Velvet Hammer (equal parts Aylesbury Duck, crème de cacao, and cream; shake, strain, garnish with nutmeg).

Flavorful Cokana $58 (750 ML)

Yes, even flavored vodkas are coming back into the fold. But when Leslie Campbell — a former ski racer and coach, now co-founder (with Debbie Chase) of Delicious Danger Spirits — set out to make flavored vodka, fruit wasn’t on her mind. Campbell honed-in on South American coca leaves. After doing a small test run in Argentina, she moved the production of Cokana, her 80-proof, 5x-distilled, potato‑based, coca leaf-flavored vodka to the U.S. “The coca leaf flavor in Cokana is unique,” says Campbell. “It’s like nothing you’ve ever tasted before.” Cokana will be released during the 2015 holiday season.

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P H OTO : P O L A R A S T U D I O (C O K A N A)

WOODY CREEK 100% POTATO VODKA

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APRÈS

WET YOUR WHISTLE WARMING UP WITH A WHISTLEPIG VERMONTODDY

E

VERMONTODDY 2 ounces WhistlePig 10-year rye Splash of fresh lemon juice 1 cup hot water Drizzle of local Vermont honey Lemon slice punched with 6 cloves Combine the WhistlePig 10-year rye, lemon juice, hot water and honey. Garnish with a slice of lemon punched with 6 cloves.

WWW.BENCHVT.COM

56

lla Fitzgerald may have crooned about “Moonlight in Vermont,” but for New England snow enthusiasts it’s all about the mountains.

The Green Mountain State is home to dozens of alpine and nordic resorts — and to the WhistlePig distillery, which recently won a Double Gold Medal at the 2015 San Francisco World Spirits Competition for its Old World Sauternes Finish Rye Whiskey.

And you thought Vermonters only made maple syrup!

At The Bench in Stowe you can warm your bones après-ski style, with a Vermontoddy featuring WhistlePig’s 10-year rye, a rich, full-bodied whiskey with notes of allspice, ginger, clove, nutmeg, rye spice, and mint with creamy butterscotch on the finish.

Rye is typically thought of as a Southern spirit, but WhistlePig’s rye distillate

comes down from the north (Canada) and gets finished in former bourbon barrels on the WhistlePig farm. As of this year, WhistlePig will be harvesting rye they’ve grown on their Vermont farm, fermenting, distilling, and aging it in an effort to realize their dream of creating “America’s first grain-to-glass single-estate luxury rye whiskey.”

“In general, WhistlePig is a big drinker,” says Chris Mountz, general manager at The Bench. “It’s distinguishable and it sets this toddy apart from other toddies that rely on macro-produced ryes and whiskies.” The Bench’s Vermontoddy is made with fresh lemon juice, hot water, and local Vermont honey.

A fresh lemon slice punched with six cloves is dropped into the steaming cocktail as a flavorful garnish.

WWW.WHISTLEPIGWHISKEY.COM

WARM YOUR BONES APRÈS-SKI STYLE, WITH A VERMONTODDY.

P H OTO : C O U R T E S Y O F W H I S T L E P I G

BY JEN LASKEY

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SNOW DRIVES

A Maserati for the Mountains THE NEXT TIME SOMEONE ASKS YOU TO DRIVE A MASERATI IN SNOWMASS, SAY YES

T

he day’s light wanes with me paused before an unfamiliar crux near Aspen, fretting the initial pangs of panic. Palms sweat. Organs cramp. I question my preparedness, cast aspersions on my skills. What have I gotten myself into? What am I going to do?

The only option, really, is to drop in. I attack the crux, which in this case is not a wind-hammered cliff but a collection of elegantly gorgeous, imposingly stylish, and frequently Italian beautiful 58

people, experts in the gilded fields of fashion and luxury. Silk and cashmere scarves feather most their throats, causing my own naked neck to stand out like a pornographic tattoo.

I approach the beautiful people — nervously shaking hands, instantaneously forgetting names. I’m at the Aspen private club Casa Tua for a VIP party thrown by Maserati, the Italian manufacturer of $200,000-cars that drive 200 mph. Perhaps you’ve heard of it.

P H OTO : M O R G A N P E S Z KO/ M A S E R AT I

BY ROB STORY

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SNOW DRIVES

“O DIO MIO! HOW CAN YOU DRIVE THIS CAR WITHOUT DRIVING GLOVES?!?”

60

HIGH DRIVE In an AWD Maserati Ghibli, 70 mph feels like 40.

Sophia, editor of a Moroccan luxury magazine, buckles-up in the passenger seat and we’re off, revving up the Viceroy’s driveway with an exhilarating burst. Once past Highway 82’s countless roundabouts, I work the steering wheel’s paddle shifters and stomp the accelerator, rendering WoodyCreekBasaltElJebelCarbondale an uninterrupted blur. Then the fun starts: A turn onto nondescript macadam melts into the pure motoring joy that is Catherine Store Road — a serpentine through sageand juniper-decorated drainages that begs for an Italian stallion. In the Ghibli (named after an African desert wind), 70 mph feels like 40. By the time Sophia alerts to rockfall in the road — “Stones!” she screams, with Old World inflection — I’ve already swerved around. You can call me Steve McQueen.

Too soon we arrive at Maserati’s designated rest stop: Missouri Heights Schoolhouse, a clapboard structure built

in 1917 that’s now listed on the National Registry of Historic Places. Though VIPs from Japan, China, Lebanon, France, Italy, and Canada are also throttling Maseratis today, team Morocco/USA arrives first.

I brim with unexpurgated pride for a while... until a hand pats my shoulder, a hand belonging to an elegant, straight‑backed, white-haired Italian man whom I believe is named Gino, but gosh, there are lots of elegant and expressive Italian men around this day, who can possibly keep up?

Anyway, Gino pats me, smiles, and wails, with mock horror, “O Dio Mio! How can you drive this car without driving gloves?!?”

Together, we chuckle warmly at my hayseed ways. And that’s how things go the first and only time I’ve enjoyed the good fortune to drive a $70,000-car. With any luck, it won’t be the last.

WWW.MASERATI.US

P H OTO S : M O R G A N P E S Z KO/ M A S E R AT I

The last two seasons, Maserati has decamped to a few upper-edge Aspen hotels including the Viceroy Snowmass, to offer well-heeled citizens and visitors an irresistible test drive deal. Called “Welcome Winter,” the program is also offered at several exclusive resorts in Europe. The month-long Snowmass version concludes with said VIP wingding at Casa Tua, where I gulp rare steak and robust Brunello while laboring to understand the babel of foreign tongues.

I wake the next day at the Viceroy under Egyptian cotton linens with God-only-knows-what-number thread count; then pad down to a breakfast buffet that sates epicures and gluttons alike.

Several of us writers and photographers gather for a conference launching Maserati’s AWD models, Quattroporte and Ghibli. Jiannina Castro — the company’s raven-haired North America PR chief — announces with a musical accent, “The Quattroporte is the very first AWD for Maserati. It is Italian, so we want flair!”

No worries there: I’m tasked to test-drive a luridly royal blue Ghibli (MSRP: $70,000) appointed in fragrant leather and cherry wood. Its stereo cranks. There are seat warmers. The Ghibli boasts imperceptibly fast on-demand all-wheel drive. Its engine purrs while transitioning — according to a proprietary algorithm — from precise Sport mode to maximum traction I.C.E. (Increased Control Efficiency) mode.

Contact Valle Nevado toll-free at 800-669-0554 (U.S) / 888-301-3248 (Canada), or email reservas@vallenevado.com / www.vallenevado.com/en

SKI TOWN SECRETS

Park & Ride

ALL EYES ON THE NEW SCENE AT PARK CITY

BY DEAN SEGUIN

62

two-way Quicksilver marries two very different mountains for the benefit of Utah skiers. It also offers a new kind of ease to the après-loving skier, allowing riders to leave Park City’s bus shuttles behind and move between the two villages by lift and snow.

SKI

The Canyons is known for its wide-open intermediate terrain mixed with an abundance of glades and steeper faces.

Park City has oodles of gentler terrain, undulating groomers, and nine pretty bowls to choose from. The new Quicksilver Gondola — named after the region’s storied mining past as well as the quickness of the new lift — shuttles skiers between the base of the existing Silverlode Lift at Park City to the Flatiron Lift area at Canyons. A mid-station at Pine Cone Ridge offers access to three new runs leading to the Iron Mountain area, as well as gated access into Park City’s coveted Thaynes Canyon. The gondola’s mid-station is being touted as the new spot for Instagram-worthy panoramas of Park City, Old Town, and Canyons Village. What’s more, this season, Park City’s King Con lift has been upgraded to a six-person speedster, and the Motherlode lift has been powered up to a high-speed quad detachable.

P H OTO : M I K E T I T T E L

W

ith a gritty mining past, Olympic legacy, and Hollywood cool, Park City — home of the Sundance Film Festival — nails the ski town trifecta. Now it can claim bragging rights to having the largest ski area in the country — and you can ski it on a single ticket.

An eight-passenger gondola link called Quicksilver now joins what was formerly Canyons Resort with Park City Mountain Resort.

The two ski areas combining is the crown jewel of $50 million in improvements for what is now simply called Park City. Undertaken

by Vail Resorts, the rollout includes new branding and trail map, upgraded lifts, plus restaurants, advanced snowmaking, and expanded terrain to the tune of 7,300 acres of skiing across 17 peaks.

That’s significantly larger than any other Utah resort and even Vail Mountain itself, which looks paltry with its 5,289 acres.

This newly connected colossus is a boon for ski vacationers not just because of its sheer size, but also its ease of reaching it from Salt Lake, which is only 35 minutes by car, plus its range of upscale hotels, and a dining scene on par with cosmopolitan tastes.

Echoing Whistler’s Peak 2 Peak Gondola that connected Whistler and Blackcomb mountains with much fanfare in 2008 and introduced far greater potential to B.C. skiers, Park City’s

SKI TOWN SECRETS

DRINK A block off the town’s main street, kissing the base of the slopes at Park City, is High West Distillery — the world’s only ski-in distillery and saloon and first distiller in Utah in well over a century. That distinction alone is worth a stop, but its revered whiskeys are poured here alongside plates of inspired comfort food, all in a unique Victorian house/livery stable combination. High West’s fall opening of a 30,000-square-foot distillery on Blue Sky Ranch conducts tours, tastings, and high-country food pairings with savory libations.

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP

1. Snow over Park City. 2. Riverhorse on Main. 3. Washington School House.

EAT

On the mountain, Cloud Dine at the Canyons gets the oh-so-good award for its buzz-worthy homemade donuts. Lookout Cabin serves smooth and peppery cheese fondue. And situated alongside the new gondola, Park City’s new Miners Camp replaces the old Snow Hut with a big-window view of the Wasatch peaks.

In the evening, Park City’s frontier-era past comes alive in slick new concepts. At Riverhorse on Main, lofty ceilings, exposed brick, and crisp white tablecloths spread across two dining rooms and features a balcony overlooking the street. Here, the mountains meet the city — think Rocky Mountain rack of lamb with truffled mac and cheese, or Utah red trout in a pistachio nut crust. Opening this winter on Park City’s culinary scene is celebrity chef Mark Harris’s Tupelo, named after gold-standard tupelo honey. With items such as fried country ham, pork belly, and crispy okra on the menu, expect Harris’s Southern roots to show through.

WWW.PARKCITYMOUNTAIN.COM

64

PARK CITY’S TWO-WAY QUICKSILVER MARRIES TWO VERY DIFFERENT MOUNTAINS FOR THE BENEFIT OF UTAH SKIERS.

The Waldorf Astoria Park City is draped in luxury down to every last detail. Soaring ceilings, crystal chandeliers, and leather mixed with wood accents make for a rich feel. The hotel is connected to the lift system at Canyons via its own private gondola.

Right on the slopes, have your gear valeted at the Grand Summit at Canyons, a rustic-chic lodge with impeccable Utahan hospitality.

Step out the door to the ski school to leave the kids for a lesson. From there you’ll have the option of the Red Pine Gondola or the Orange Bubble Express, with heated seats.

In Park City, old school takes on a new meaning at the Washington School House. Walk out onto the town with easy access to the best restaurants, bars, shopping and galleries from a historic landmark that’s tastefully curated with modern touches while maintaining its original integrity.

RUSH Thrill seekers ages 13 and up can experience the rush of Olympic gold on the Comet Bobsled Ride at Utah Olympic Park (UOP). Built for the 2002 Winter Games, a professional bobsled pilot will shoot you down the sliding track reaching speeds of up to 60 mph and 3 Gs of force — all in less than a minute. Only slightly less fast is UOP’s new Extreme Tubing adventure that jets you to speeds of 50 mph by sliding down the landing hills of the Olympic ski jumps.

P H OTO S : M A R K M A Z I A R Z ( S T R E E T ) , C O U R T E S Y O F R I V E R H O R S E O N M A I N , C O U R T E S Y O F WA S H I N G TO N S C H O O L H O U S E

SLEEP

W-KEITH

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SNOW SUITES

Hotel Manali’s suites are themed on the owners’ favorite heli-skiing haunts.

FORMULA ONE ROYALTY BACKS COURCHEVEL’S HOTEL MANALI

BY LESLIE WOIT

66

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P H OTO : C O U R T E S Y O F H OT E L M A N A L I

The French Formula

assion, imagination and resources: the crucible of any successful enterprise. The family behind Courchevel’s exotic Hotel Manali has it in spades. After years indulging their passion for fast cars and über-tech arm candy — brothers Mansour and Aziz Ojjeh are the brawn behind the McLaren Formula One team and TAG Heuer watches — they turned to their serious heli-skiing habit for inspiration for the first and, as yet, only five‑star hotel in Courchevel 1650, the laid back alternative to the busy and built-out village of 1850.

True to the family’s roots — father Akram Ojjeh was a fixture of swingin’ Courchevel 1650 in the 1970s — Hotel Manali occupies a privileged position, a most beautiful suntrap with ski-from-the-door access onto miles upon miles of Aubusson-groomed pistes that weave through Trois Vallées, the largest connected ski area on the globe.

Hotel Manali’s 37 rooms and suites are themed on the owners’ favorite heli-skiing haunts — Canada, the Swiss Alps, and most

V UA R N E T.C O M

SNOW SUITES

Moriond, The New Frontier Families and those seeking lower-key luxury can leave the bling of Courch’ 1850 to the oilmen of the East.

One village lower is 1650 — Moriond, as the locals call it — home of Hotel Manali. Perched bang on the beginner slopes just steps from the école de ski and the gondola, 1650 is an ideal mountain for beginner and intermediate skiers.

Hotel Manali is a clever, less expensive option than its other five-star counterparts in 1850.

Terrace Terroir

WOODWORK IS ELEVATED WITH HAND-PAINTED ARABESQUES, FRIEZES, AND MINIATURES. 68

Villard. Canada is represented with pure trapper-luxe, right down to the “genuine faux” wolf fur.

Hotel Manali shines the klieg lights brightly on its little guests. Particularly suited to families are suites that comfortably accommodate two adults and two children. As well as the large, tranquil indoor pool surrounded by red-padded chaise longues, sauna, hammam, and fitness suite, kids delight in the Children’s Chalet daycare center for ages 3 and up. There’s also a daily dinner menu especially for children.

For grown-ups, chef Jérôme Faget delivers inspirations of the Mediterranean, plus fish from Lake Geneva, crozets pasta from Savoie, and the delectable lamb of southern France’s Sisteron.

For all ages, the Kullu Mountain Club offers wide screen TVs, pool tables, billiards, and table football. It’s France... and so much more.

WWW.HOTELMANALI.COM

Little Explorers Spa An all-organic experience is good fun for the little ones. Hotel Manali’s Mahayana Spa caters to adults as well as children with kid-friendly manis, pedis, gentle massages, and banana fig facials for girls as well as for boys.

Who says you’re ever too young for a bit of pampering?

P H OTO S : C O U R T E S Y O F H OT E L M A N A L I

of all, Manali, where the famed Himalayan peaks rise above 25,000 feet. Woodwork is elevated with hand-painted arabesques, friezes, and miniatures. Rajasthan marble, opulent Lelièvre Paris fabrics, and objets d’art decorate richly toned walls of red and orange. Down the corridor: different rooms, different continents. Cozy Swiss suites are decorated in honey-colored wood and antique desks and lamps, with deep Roche Bobois armchairs facing the fir trees of the Dent du

Where one eats in France says as much about a person as what one eats.

A piste-side lunch on the sun-drenched terrace of Hotel Manali sends just the right message. Beneath the benevolent gaze of its mascots — two white marble elephants — chefs grill meats and seafood, embellish with salads and charcuterie, then present too-pretty-to-eat sweets.

Affix your sunnies, refill your glass of rosé, and settle in for an afternoon.

uncompromising kjus.com

snow culture

Culture Club INSIDE VAIL’S VANGUARD OF PRIVATE SKI CLUBS

BY LORI KNOWLES

Inside Vail Mountain Club.

These are not the sort of private gentlemen’s clubs found in a Dominick Dunne novel.

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P h oto : C o u r t e s y o f Va i l R e s o r t s S i g n at u r e C l u b s

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hey’re known as Private Members Clubs — secluded bastions of white-gloved valet service, leather-clad libraries, and single malts served in Glencairn whiskey glasses after 4 p.m. at St. James, just off Piccadilly. On the social register since 18th century London, private social clubs remain commonplace in Dallas, Los Angeles, on New York City’s Vanderbilt Avenue, and in the shaded streets of San Francisco. Oh, and don’t forget, on the ski slopes of Vail, Colorado.

Known as the Signature Clubs, Vail’s seductive selection of members-only clubhouses hide in plain view — there are no neon signs or even trail markers pointing the way to the Vail Mountain Club at the base of Vail Village or to The Arrabelle Club in the elegant confines of The Arrabelle at Vail Square. Instead, there are gated underground parking garages with key codes and thick cement walls, heavy doors that lead into plush carpeted locker rooms, leather bar stools, picture windows, and walls filled with art.

But these are not the sort of private gentlemen’s clubs found in a Dominick Dunne novel. Sure, with a refundable deposit of about $275,000, membership

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to an establishment like the Vail Mountain Club (VMC) is exclusive. Yet inside there are women and children everywhere, and from the tone of the member newsletter VMC Weekly, one gets the clear message this is a family-friendly place. “Family Dog Sledding with Mountain Mushers on Monday, February 19!” and “Family Ski Biking, January 17!”

Signature’s Vail Mountain Club opened in November 2008 with a flurry of press, including detailed articles in such high places as the The New York Times: “The clubs reflect resort operators’ attempt,” it read, “to accommodate what seemed like an endless stream of the newly rich as well as the recently retired.”

Since the VMC opened, it has provided a cushioned landing and gathering spot mostly for those who own homes and have vacation lodgings on the environs of Vail. With Signature members hailing from Austin, Manhattan, Virginia Beach, and Plano, Texas, it’s a spot for like-minded semi- and full-time locals to meet, socialize, ski with one another, and partake in weekly après-ski cocktails.

There are also opportunities to gain avalanche awareness from the Vail and Beaver Creek Ski Patrol, hike under moonlight en masse up Simba to Game Creek Restaurant, or partake in wine and hors d’oeuvres at Beaver Creek’s Vilar Performing Arts Center on members-only evenings before taking in a show.

Breakfast is served each morning as part of the VMC’s $6,700‑plus annual dues; there’s a pool, a gym, a ski valet and concierge, and the lockers on the ground floor are handy for storing helmets and skis. Which leads us to one of the key reasons Vail families join clubs like The Arrabelle and the VMC: slopeside valet parking. It’s no secret a drawback of owning a beautiful home on Timber Springs Drive in Edwards is the concern of where to park the car at Lionshead, Beaver Creek, or Vail Village. Signature Clubs’ heated underground parking lots pave the way.

Vail’s Signature Clubs has eight private establishments on its roster, each with its own plush personality. Possibly the most unique is the Game Creek Club, which, while substantially less 72

Private ski clubs have multiplied like rabbits in the past 20 years in snazzy ski areas like Aspen, Sun Valley, Telluride, and Northstar. expensive to join at $42,000, holds a special place in Vail skiers’ hearts: on-slope in Game Creek Bowl. Members access this snow-covered timber hideaway via skis, snowshoes, or “club cat.”

It’s open for lunch and dinner inside the Mount Jackson Room, the casual bistro, or at a special outdoor space always referred to in marketing material as “the sunny deck.” Names of other Signature establishments: the Arrowhead, the Beaver Creek, the Red Sky Golf Club, and of course, the Bachelor Gulch Club, which carries with it access to Beaver Creek’s lavish Zach’s Cabin.

Vail isn’t alone. Private ski clubs have multiplied like rabbits in the past 20 years in snazzy ski areas like Aspen, Sun Valley, Telluride, and Northstar. None are quite so peculiar, perhaps, as the Canadian clubs north of Toronto, where a rash of private ski areas have Canada’s version of Wall Street-types flocking to them every winter weekend for spates of gated alpine skiing.

Still, one has to ask the question. Beyond the après-ski socials and the advantages of on-mountain parking, what’s the draw? How have private members clubs — gentlemen’s or not — continued to thrive since 18th century London, and what makes them so attractive to skiers? Perhaps David Houle has the answer. The futurist and former Oprah regular has said that while it’s true we’re in an all-about-me era right at the moment — with blogs, Facebook, and Twitter personas — “we choose our ‘tribes’ or seek like-minded social groups more than ever.”

WWW.VAILRESORTSSIGNATURECLUBS.COM

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LEFT TO RIGHT

1. A private club locker room. 2. Game Creek Club on Vail Mountain.

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boutique

Pure Instinct Gary Cole Uses Intuition To Build A Chic Park City Boutique

By Hilary Nangle 74

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The Cole family from left to right: Jason, Jana, Gary, and Adam.

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Walk down Park Avenue in Old Town, and it’s nearly impossible to resist the lure of the red Triumph TR3 in the window of Cole Sport flagship store. A nattily dressed mannequin occupies the driver’s seat and arresting eye candy fills the open trunk. “It’s a draw like you wouldn’t believe,” Cole says. It’s just one example of the store’s slogan: “Expect the Unexpected.”

Step inside, and the unexpected becomes the norm. “Every customer is greeted within 10 feet or 10 seconds,” Jana Cole says. Most employees have been with the company for at least 15 years, some for as many as 25. “Our employees know our customers; they’ve developed relationships with them over the years,” she says. “We also spend a lot of time in the fall training our employees so that they can give their customers great information about the products.”

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Cole admits he always sang to a different tune.

FAMILY TIES Gary and Jana Cole through the years with sons Jason and Adam.

P h o t o s : co u r t e s y o f co l e s p o r t

hen Gary Cole opened Cole Sport in Park City, Utah in 1982, he did so on pure instinct. He and his wife, Jana, had resided in the resort town for 10 years, and as a ski instructor and realtor, this former opera singer — yes, opera singer — built a clientele of wealthy, well-dressed clients. “It occurred to me that nobody in town was doing any high-end, European-type fashion,” he says. Cole had always enjoyed shopping, liked clothes, and sensed opportunity. “It was a total seat-of-the-pants effort,” he admits. “We brought in unique quality design and built a reputation around that.”

Opening a luxury ski wear shop in the early 1980s was a gamble, not to mention an unusual choice for a classically trained opera singer. But Cole admits he always sang to a different tune. “I was the oddball in the music department, teaching skiing at Mount Baker in rain and wet snow, while everyone else was walking around with towels around their necks hoping not to catch a cold.” Realizing that the opera lifestyle would not be conducive to married life, he and Jana had moved from Seattle, where he’d studied opera performance, to Park City in 1972.

They intended to spend one winter. Not only are they still there, they now operate four stores in Park City and Deer Valley with their sons Jason, 35, and Adam, 32, and a staff that seems more like family than employees. Jason joined the family company right out of college. Adam, a former Junior World Champion for downhill, two-time NCAA champion, and U.S. Ski Team coach who worked with Bode Miller, recently came aboard full time. “They’re our succession plan,” Jana quips.

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boutique

The store is treated as a stage, with mannequins used to display clothes rather than hangers, and theatrical lighting spotlighting displays and highlighting décor. Gary says that to replicate the warmth and innate heritage of classic European ski shops, he scrounged antiques stores from Seattle to Salt Lake City.

Whenever he found an interesting piece crafted in old pine, he purchased it and put it in the store without gussying it up. Those pieces blend well with the store’s fixtures, which were built from scratch by a creative neighbor with a woodworking shop.

Juxtaposed against classic appeal is cutting-edge merchandise that includes brands such as Frauenschuh, Jet Set, and KRU. “What sets us apart is that we’re not focused on old European styles. We’re looking at fashion-forward companies that use more technically advanced materials,” Jason Cole says. To achieve the right mix, Jana Cole says: “We depend strongly on our buyers, they have a very good feel; they know what works and what doesn’t, and we rely on their expertise.”

Buyer Kathy Burke has been honing that expertise since joining the company in 1990. Cole Sport’s clients, she says, are first and foremost true skiers; they’re not here “to just walk the streets and look beautiful. They want products that are chic and sexy, but also are performance driven.”

Burke not only shops the big European shows every year, but also pounds the pavement, visiting numerous private showrooms 78

to distill global trends for local clients and to select the right mix for each store; Jet Set for Deer Valley, for example. “When I buy a line, I really commit,” she says. “You don’t just see a few jackets here and there, you’re seeing a majority of the collection.”

Within the flagship store, small boutiques showcase one brand paired with complementary ones. “We put a lot of thought into the process of what brands to buy and how they’re positioned within store,” Burke says. Bogner has its own intimate space, but it’s shown with Fire & Ice. Cashmere sweaters share the huge antique farm table in the Bogner room with luxury leather handbags and beautiful candles.

Another room showcases European brands, such as Frauenschuh, an understated Austrian luxury brand that Burke envisions pairing with KRU, a very sporty, fitted, hip and young luxury brand from St. Moritz. Bridging the Bogner and European rooms is a private room displaying Toni Sailer, a sport luxury collection from Europe. This year, Burke is excited about a new addition: the women’s line of SOS from Scandinavia. “It’s sexy, but made for skiing, and I think our customers will respond to it.”

In the end, it all comes down to customer service. That’s what distinguishes Cole Sport. “We’ll do whatever it takes to make the customer happy,” Burke says. “It’s not necessarily about making the sale.”

Now that’s unexpected. www.colesport.com

P h oto : D o u g l a s B u r k e

Kathy Burke, left, brings global ski trends to local Park City clients.

N O R W E G I A N O LY M P I C A L P I N E S K I E R :

Aksel Lund Svindal - Wearing the Glittertind sweater with windproof lining & water/stain repellent wool

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snow kids

BUTTERMILK’S NEW HIDEOUT PROVES ASPEN HAS ALLURE, EVEN FOR 3-YEAR-OLD KIDS

By Jenn Weede

“I want to go to ski school,” our little princess says.

“I’m old enough. I’m 3.”

“Almost 4,” I say.

“Where do you want to go to ski school?” her dad asks.

“Aspen.”

“If you’re going to ski anywhere,” he replies, “it may as well be Aspen.”

Snowmass has always been Aspen’s go-to for vacationing skiers with kids.

But these days Buttermilk — home of long, rolling, easy-to-ski green and blue runs — is catching up. Aspen Skiing Company recently spent $10 million to upgrade Buttermilk’s children’s center.

Bye-bye, Powder Pandas. Hello, Hideout.

Designed for kids from age 2 to 12, Buttermilk’s Hideout delivers a welcome approach to kids’ programming by seamlessly mixing indoor play with ski instruction. The 7,500-square-foot space at the mountain’s base — new last season — is a blue-and-green colored oasis of play space: ropes, 80

jungle gyms, hideouts, lookouts, towers, and forts. Add perfectly pitched ski runs and easy-to-ride lifts, and you’ve got Colorado’s Eldorado for kids.

As we drive the highway winding along the Roaring Fork River, cradled between the Sawatch and Elk mountains, I ask our daughter Zizi why she isn’t napping.

“It’s too beautiful,” she says. It is.

I point out Buttermilk ski area. “Look, Z,” I say, “that’s where you’re going to learn to ski tomorrow.”

Her reply: “Will I wear my new cupcake goggles? And my ladybug helmet?”

Aspen’s perfect for her, I think. She cares as much about skiing as she does about looking good.

Situated curbside at Buttermilk, the Hideout is an easy destination for families. Drop-off parking is permitted. Better yet, the building acts as a one-stop shop, offering parents access to the big three: snow school, rentals, and lift tickets.

P h oto s : b a r b a r a s a n d e r s ( s k i i n g ) , ©2 0 1 5 H a l W i l l i a m s P h oto g r a p h y I n c . ( h i d e o u t )

HIDING OUT

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snow kids

Kid-Friendly Aspen Fun for families off the slopes

Limelight Hotel With its living room-like lobby, generous room sizes, s’mores fire pit, and two separate hot pools — one for parents, another for kids — like the Hideout, the Limelight Hotel in down­ town Aspen is an oasis for kids. Once a party place — the Limelight was home to Aspen’s outlaw-friendly Ski and Spur bar — Aspen Skiing Company’s recent million-dollar remodel has given the Limelight a casual elegance and homey atmosphere that’s welcoming for kids.

Element 47

Alternatively, Max the Moose shuttle buses transport kids to-and-from the Hideout, Aspen Mountain Gondola and the Limelight Hotel… that is, if adults want to ski a different Aspen mountain, or head back to bed.

The Hideout’s structure has been designed to look as if a child built it over time from a series of blocks. Its configuration means that inside, the Hideout is pleasantly easy to navigate for both parents and kids.

Multi-level climbing structures, slides, ropeways, and games are overhead and built into the walls. Two playrooms lure with blocks, books, cars, castles, dinosaurs, and a massive fish tank. One girl has a Knuffle Bunny sticking out of her ski vest.

A rubber duckie bobbles on an instructor’s helmet. Friendly lunch ladies effortlessly accommodate gluten-free, nut-free, whatever-free food requests so no kid feels left out.

There’s a princess-worthy lookout tower, bridges made of ropes, and best of all, cozy nooks where kids can “hideout.”

Outside, snow clouds (snowmobile-driven sleds) shuttle kids from the Hideout’s back door to the magic carpet. Colorful “happy hands” obstacle courses encourage kids to learn to turn, go forward, and stop. There’s a snow snake, two tunnels, Hula Hoops, even stair steps to teach kids how to climb up a hill sideways. Ski pros animate the lessons and offer lots of breaks. And while it’s true, as the annual host of the Winter X-Games, Buttermilk boasts a standout terrain park and a 22-foot superpipe, the mountain’s plethora of easy-to-ski novice terrain makes it an ideal place for families learning to ski.

When we return to pick up Zizi at the end of her very first day on snow, she is actually skiing. And stopping. By herself. Her teacher can’t believe Zizi has never skied before, and I am impressed.

Still, Zizi herself is nonchalant. Never mind learning to turn. Ignore the fact her parents are witnessing the next Julia Mancuso in the making. When I ask her if learning to ski was her favorite part of the day, my 3-year-old looks at me as seriously as one can in cupcake goggles and a ladybug helmet.

“No,” she replies. “It was lunch.”

WWW.ASPENSNOWMASS.COM

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SK8 (Silver Circle) Ice Skating This idyllic winter wonderland in the shadow of Aspen Mountain makes Frozen dreams come true. Glide onto the ice, twirl amid glittering lights and “Let it go!” Just a few blocks from the gondola, the quaint rink is nestled amid festive trees and next to a cottage that serves hot dogs and kale salad — it’s Aspen, where else?

Aspen-Santa Fe Ballet Aspen’s art scene sets it apart from most ski resorts, from B.B. King to ballet.

A pioneering spirit drives the AspenSanta Fe Ballet to create new works and reshape the boundaries of contemporary dance, so it’s always unique. Most shows offer a kids’ performance.

Aspen Recreation Center A sweet sledding hill and pond-style ice rink are the ultimate nostalgic amusement at the ARC. Inside, a twostory waterslide plunges into a pool with lazy river, kiddie pool and hot tub, plus a climbing wall that towers 32 thrilling feet.

P h oto s : j e n n w e e d e ( z i z i ) , © 2 0 1 5 H a l W i l l i a m s P h oto g r a p h y I n c . ( m ag i c c a r p e t a n d b u i l d i n g )

HAPPY KIDS Kid-friendly moments on the slopes of Buttermilk and at Aspen’s Limelight Hotel.

Element 47 is named for silver, the precious metal that put Aspen on the map. But the restaurant’s Date Night is pure gold. A five-star, Five Diamond dinner comes with licensed childcare, so while adults savor the sommelier’s suggestion and the ability to converse in complete sentences, kids nosh on sliders and play games while their favorite mermaid laments life under the sea.

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F o r e x a m p l e , w e h a v e a d i s t i l l e r y.

There are a lot of so-called “craft distillers” out there these days, many of whom are distillers in name only. They buy industrial alcohol from big manufacturers, blend it with a small amount they make from a contract distiller and call it their own. But, of course, their label sure does look pretty. Woody Creek Distillers, however, is the real deal. We make and bottle our spirits in our own distillery. And we grow most of our ingredients ourselves. So if you want a truly craft distilled spirit, drink Woody Creek.

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Granada’s Alhambra.

P h o t o : © J e a n - P i e r r e L e s co u r r e t/Co r b i s ( f o r t r e s s ) , b a r b a r a s a n d e r s ( l u i s )

Sol y Nieve

Spain’s Sierra Nevada, the land of sun and snow

By Barbara Sanders

perfect places Luis Santisteban skis Sierra Nevada.

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spaña! Just the word evokes images of handsome matadors in skintight pants and elaborately bejeweled costumes, tapas of marinated olives, gambas al ajillo washed down with a regal Rioja, and languid siestas with flamenco playing softly in the background.

Skiing, on the other hand, may not be top of mind when dreaming of the land of Picasso. But there is a little known gem in the south of Spain called Sierra Nevada.

It’s just 20 miles from the center of Granada and perfectly encapsulates the Spanish ski experience.

My visit to Sierra Nevada begins in Granada, a city more than 2,500 years old. You are immediately struck by a mystical blend of architecture that encompasses the culture of its past inhabitants. The Catholic cathedral is the crowning jewel of Granada’s old town and just across the road, one can imagine Scheherazade from The Arabian Nights beckoning toward a market that transports you to the Islamic side of the city — stalls filled with brightly colored spices, golden baklava oozing honey, and men in djellabas smoking hookahs. The narrow market street winds its way up to Alhambra, a palace with Moorish architecture, gardens, courtyards, and behind it, snow-covered mountains.

A short drive from the city, up a gentle, well-paved road, we find the ski resort of Sierra Nevada. The name is Spanish for “snowy range,” and it’s no wonder — blessed with an average of 340 sunny days and an

The name is Spanish for “snowy range,” and it’s no wonder. annual snow depth of more than 100 inches, Sierra Nevada’s tag line is Sol y Nieve (sun and snow). The resort is so far south that from the top of its peaks you can see the African continent across the Mediterranean Sea. The ski area, all above tree line, has a network of 22 lifts with both off-piste terrain and groomed trails, some with a pitch of more than 50 degrees.

Word on the street is that the best shop in Sierra Nevada is Santisteban Sports, so we make that our first stop. This charming store is filled with a selection of the top brands in the ski world. The shopkeeper asks if I’ve skied today and I tell him tomorrow would be my primera vez skiing in Sierra Nevada. He introduces himself and his wife and they welcome me to their shop.

Luis Santisteban is a handsome man with steely blue eyes, so when he tells me to meet him at their mid-mountain store at 11 a.m. the next day for a ski, I quickly agree.

After a hearty breakfast that includes tart, fresh-squeezed jugo de pomelo (grapefruit juice), we take the gondola out of the village to Santisteban Sports’ slopeside ski shop. After a quick café con leche, we set out skiing. Turns out we’re in great hands.

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Having worked up an appetite, we ski right into our lunch spot. We click out of our skis and are delivered into the hands of Silvia Peris, who keeps the party going at the Nevada Terrace, a Veuve Clicquot-themed restaurant. This on-mountain spot is rustic and cozy inside, raucous and wild outside. Peris cracks open a bottle of Veuve, we cheer “Salud!” and become fast friends. Her outgoing attitude, warmth, and huge smile make it impossible not to love her. The restaurant’s sunny deck has an eight-person foosball table so if you want to challenge your new friends between menu courses, that is also an option. Spain is the embodiment of the fiesta lifestyle; each new guest that comes by to greet Peris immediately becomes our ¡ new “BFF.” Though technically on Central European Time, Spain really moves to its own clock. It’s well after 5 p.m. as we make our way to the bottom to trade our ski boots for something more comfortable and head to N’ice, Peris’s après-ski spot on the plaza in the village. The Veuve keeps flowing, stories are shared, and ¡ pronto ! — it’s 10 p.m. We bid our new friends good-bye and walk around the corner to find a table at Asador La Vinoteca. In the United States, the entrance of late diners is often met with hostile glares. Here we are greeted like familia and shown to a table, where owner Andres Garcia comes to tell us the special of the day. Our wine arrives with a plate of steaming patatas bravas, a dish native to Spain made with fried potatoes and a spicy tomato sauce. Starving and needing something to soak up the Veuve, I order 86

a filet of beef. My Muga rioja is the perfect accompaniment for the rare steak served sizzling on a hot stone.

We move to the bar after dinner to talk to the chef and the wait staff, and are surprised how time gets away from us. It is close to 1 a.m. as we make our way back to the Meliá Sol y Nieve — a savvy hotel choice with its proximity to the slopes, its spa, cozy rooms, and wonderful buffet breakfast that fulfills any skier’s dream.

The beauty of Sierra Nevada is not only its proximity to the art, history, and culture of Granada, but in its proximity to the glamorous beaches of Marbella. Less than two hours from the snow, the glitz of Marbella is calling our name.

Marbella has an Aspen-meets-Portofino feeling — every car a Range Rover and every shop a Dior, Missoni, or Malo. We check in to the fabulous Puente Romano Hotel and make our way straight to their beachside restaurant to have lunch with

P h oto s : c o u r t e s y o f S i e r r a N e va da ( m o u n ta i n ) , B a r b a r a s a n d e r s (a n d r e s ) , P u e n t e R o m a n o B e ac h R e s o r t a n d Spa M a r b e l l a ( p o o l ) , b a r b a r a s a n d e r s (g r a n a da a n d v e u v e c l i q u ot )

perfect places

Luis Santisteban is a former ski instructor and Spanish national team coach. From a young age, Felipe, the King of Spain, has owed his skiing skills to Santisteban’s instructional prowess.

Outfitted in some of his favorite brands — powder blue M.Miller jacket the color of the sky, Kask helmet and Rossignol GS race skis — Santisteban leads our little pack. We rip down long, rolling, perfectly groomed runs. Next, we make our way to the top of the mountain to see if the clouds might lift to allow us a view of the Mediterranean Sea and the African continent. Unfortunately, it is not to be. The low hanging clouds and mist are tantalizing and teasing — like a negligee, seductively they keep the good view just out of sight. We push on to explore the off-piste terrain, then finish our tour on a pista negra (black run) that is smooth and steep — as if the Cornice at Mammoth meets the Mausefalle at Kitzbühel.

perfect places

Marbella has an Aspen-meetsPortofino feeling — every car a Range Rover and every shop a Dior, Missoni, or Malo.

TOP TO BOTTOM

1. The slopes of Sierra Nevada.

2. Andres Garcia of La Vinoteca. 3. The pool at Marbella’s Puente Romano.

4. Historic scenes from Granada.

5. Silvia Peris at Nevada Terrace.

an ocean view. A crisp glass of Albariño is the perfect choice for our grilled pescado; with it we watch the world go. On the Venice Beach-like boardwalk, we ogle the body builders, bombshells, and vote on who has the best fake tan. After lunch, we stroll along the beach, finally making our way back to our lush bungalow to relax before dinner.

We select a Japanese restaurant in Puente Romano, making a reservation for 10 p.m. We arrive and the place is dead quiet; we think it must be because we are dining so late. Unfazed we settled in to an exquisite dinner of one Japanese treat after another: fresh sashimi, miso cod, and my favorite, spicy tuna and crab salad. Just as we’re about to leave, people stream in. It’s then that it dawns on us: we weren’t late, but embarrassingly early! It’s as if we are seniors turning up for an early-bird dinner at 5:30 p.m. We ask our waiter what time the restaurant closes. His reply: “4 a.m.”

We stroll after dinner to check out some of the other restaurants and bars, dumbstruck by the glittering array of beautiful people wearing very little clothing. They are busy eating freshly cut slices of jamón ibérico and washing it down with large glasses of red wine to provide the needed sustenance to dance the night away.

No matter what the hour, from city to ski to sea, the Spanish alegria (joyfulness) is warm, welcoming, and ever present. There is always a fiesta, and you can count on an invitation.

Note to self: there’s a reason Spain has a siesta every day. Take one if you want to keep up. www.sierranevada.es

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heli-skiing is better done late than never

By Lori Knowles

P h oto : R a n dy L i n c k s /A n d r e w D o r a n

THE 40YEAR-OLD HELI-SKI VIRGIN

heli

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t was the end of a long, cold, slow winter — the kind people whine about in my city. Snow piled high on side streets.

Over-laden cars were plowed-in and unable to move. The sun seldom made an appearance, and when it did its intensity wasn’t powerful enough to pierce the chill. Then the call came through: Would I like to try heli‑skiing?

There was a single spot on a late-March expedition into British Columbia’s South Chilcotan Mountains. TLH Heliskiing runs deep-powder excursions out of Tyax Wilderness Resort & Spa. It’s about 200 miles inland from Canada’s feral west coast in a range of sharply tipped, effulgent white peaks too far from civilization for steady traffic — or any kind of traffic. I would be a lone, 40-something woman in a group of… who knew? It would be eight strangers, plus me, a heli-ski virgin.

My inclination was to refuse: fear of going too deep, fear of inadequacy, and fear of leaving my young family.

But I said yes… yes because as a lifetime skier, I instinctively knew heli-skiing is a rite of passage — as is witnessing a Hahnenkamm, skiing Highland Bowl at Aspen, or tasting the warmth and smoothness of a fondue cooked in a caquelon in France’s Haute-Savoie region.

I was picked up in Whistler by a van full of strangers: two unspeaking Austrians, two Dutchmen clad in black leather, and a family of four Italians from the sweet, sunny city of Bolzano in Trentino-Alto Adige (Südtirol). We rode as strangers in edgy silence for six hours, first on the winding Sea-to-Sky highway northward from Whistler, then on a washboard-gravel path onward from Lillooet. Seated up front, next to the driver, I was warned to watch for falling boulders. “I’ve had trips where the passengers had to get out and move the rocks so the van could move forward,” the driver told me. Like a bird of prey, my eyes were riveted.

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HELI

But when tomorrow broke, the sun was nowhere. There were large flakes falling like goose down onto the front lawn of the lodge, and the guides were frowning. Poor visibility, they said.

We would have to bide our time; wait for a clearing. I spent the morning fully dressed — ski pants, jacket, helmet, avvy backpack and beacon fully charged and at the ready. The wait was nail biting. We finally got the call to move out at 2:59 p.m., and to the lake “we ran like young wild furies” (McCammon). The chopper swooped in. We loaded on. We were lifted high into the South Chilcotans. All of it was breathtaking.

We landed on top of the world. There was nothing around us but scalded black rock and snow-white terrain. As far as my eyes could see: white. It was the highest peak around and I was on it, crouched low and still, just as my guide had taught me, hugging my pack, hearing nothing but the roar of an engine and feeling the thwack of the chopper’s blades beating against the wind as the pilot lifted off. Then, silence: blissful, mind-bending silence.

I raised my eyes to thousands of pointed peaks in every direction.

My first run I could hear two things: the swooshing of snow and my own heart beating. I’d shoved forward, nervously, off a peak at about 9,000 feet. I was turning rhythmically in powder that was thigh-deep. It was as soft and airy as a fluffy white cloud must feel 90

to an airplane pilot. It wasn’t at all scary. I entered a dream state that day — a state that took me a whole week to break out of.

We skied the first day until about 5:30 p.m. — the latest our guides had ever gone. As we flew out, the sunset was a deep pink blanket that lay over the mountains. Out there, ages from civilization, I doubted I’d seen anything as comforting. The staid Austrians had huge smiles on their faces. The Italian family — with two sons helping celebrate their parents’ 60th birthdays — was hugging one another. The Dutchmen — rally car drivers from the Netherlands — were singing Gimme Shelter.

That night’s dinner was at a long, family-style table; the broad windows of Tyax Lodge at one end, a fire with leaping flames at the other. The iciness among us strangers had finally melted. Somehow we’d shifted from foreigners to kindred spirits who’d shared something very special.

We’d stood at the top of a B.C. mountain peak, a very long way from anywhere, with nothing but snow and rock and wind around us, and then we’d skied down it.

P h oto s : R a n dy L i n c k s /A n d r e w D o r a n ( TLH ) , M a r l e e C o r r a ( LORI KNO W LES )

Tyax Lodge is a long, caramel-colored log building on the brim of a lake on the edge of nowhere. Inside there’s a stoked fire, a table full of tapas, and a deck that spills into the British Columbian wilderness. At Tyax, the trees are the height of high rises in New York City and just as thick. After check-in, I watched from my balcony as a chopper landed by the lake, the silver water whirling into whitecaps. A slew of tired heli-skiers tumbled out; crouched, and huddled as the bird flew away. That would be me tomorrow, I thought. My tummy did a back flip.

Clockwise from top left

1. Starry, starry night at TLH’s lakeside lodge. 2. Unlimited powder turns. 3. Good food and fine wine end a heli-ski day. 4. Lori, the heli-ski virgin.

5. TLH terrain includes 1 million acres and 375 runs.

“What makes a woman go heli-skiing alone?”

There were warm smiles, and tales told, and wine poured. Our hearty guides told us stories of wolverines and winter camping, and withstanding the Canadian wilderness for days alone in the backcountry. Soup bowls were filled, bread was broken, enormous platefuls of beef and fish and pasta came and went. “Lori,” I was finally asked, “What makes a woman go heli-skiing alone?”

The entire table fell silent. Eyes turned to me and waited. I wanted to say, “It’s not so unusual for a woman to heli-ski,” but as it isn’t true, I couldn’t. The two long tables next to ours were filled with Germanand Russian-speaking men of great girth and stature — men make up 80 percent of Canadian heli-ski operators’ clients. Instead I said, “I’m over 40 and I’d never been heli-skiing. It was something I had to do.

Until today, I was a virgin.”

There were nods all around. The Austrians, the Italians, and the rally car drivers from Holland — all of them got it. Someone raised a glass. Someone else toasted: “Here’s to 40-year-old heli-ski virgins.”

80%

20%

POWDER FACT

80 percent of Canada’s heli-skiers are male, 20 percent female.

— Canada West Ski Areas Association, anecdotal.

WWW.TLHHELISKIING.COM

91

Dave McCoy, founder of Mammoth Mountain, turns 100

By Peggy Shinn

92

P h o t o : T h e M cCoy Fa m i ly A r c h i v e

snow kings

A Mammoth of a Man

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snow kings

“We always laughed that Dave led by pulling on the rope, he wasn’t behind cracking the whip, pushing the rope.” — Long-time Mammoth ski coach and employee Dennis Agee Standing at the top of Dave’s Run, it’s easy to see what attracted Dave McCoy to Mammoth Mountain. The sculpted cornices and brilliant white bowls that go on forever beckon those with skiing in their blood. And that pretty much defines Dave McCoy. McCoy turned 100 last August. Over 68 years at the helm of Mammoth Mountain, he grew the ski area on this snow-covered lava dome from a couple of portable rope tows to the monumental resort that it is today — with 28 lifts, including three gondolas, and 3,500 acres of skiing. Why? Because McCoy wanted to have fun.

And he wanted those around him, whether they were building new chairlifts, racing gates, or skiing through several feet of untracked powder, to have fun too.

With a personality — and a following — perhaps larger than Mammoth, Dave McCoy and Roma, his wife of 74 years, are quick to share the praise. “The family and the community were always a big part of our success, as they helped play in the big sandbox as well,” McCoy wrote on his website DaveMcCoyPhoto.com. “It shows that no man does anything alone.”

Mammoth’s community of friends, employees, townspeople, ski racers, and many others, stuck with McCoy for a reason.

Born on August 24, 1915 in El Segundo, California — just south of what’s now LAX International Airport — Dave McCoy was only 5 years old when his father quit his job at the Standard Oil Refinery and began working as a state highway contractor. With thousands of miles of California roads to pave, the McCoys lived an itinerant life, traveling from one tent encampment to the next. An only child, McCoy quickly learned how to make friends, and perhaps 94

more importantly, how to “look at a guy and know what he’s like,” McCoy once told Sports Illustrated.

In 1928, McCoy visited Independence, a town along U.S. Route 395 in the Owens Valley. With the snowcapped Eastern Sierra rising from Independence like a theater backdrop, he was captivated. The nomadic boy had found the place where he would spend his life.

“I couldn’t get over the snow on the mountains in the middle of July,” he told Robin Morning in the McCoy biography, Tracks of Passion. “This spiritual feeling came over me, a sense of opportunity, and desire. I felt like I belonged, and I knew I would come back.”

He did come back, in 1935 — after a few years living with his grandparents in Wilkeson, Washington, where he learned to ski.

In Independence he worked at Jim’s Place, a restaurant owned by his mom’s friends, then became a hydrographer for the L.A. Department of Water and Power. His job: to ski into the backcountry, measure snow depth, and estimate how much water would flow downstream each spring. Before he left Jim’s Place, he met a curly-haired cheerleader named Roma Carriere — they married in 1941.

Skiing was more than a means to work. It was pure fun — swooping through snowfields was the definition of freedom.

McCoy built portable rope tows so he and his friends could ski on the weekends. Friends and ski lovers flocked to McGee Mountain (about 16 miles southeast of Mammoth Mountain along Route 395) to ride McCoy’s tows. When the snow melted in the valleys, he moved his tows higher, first skiing Mammoth’s slopes on Easter Sunday 1936. The cost of a lift ticket: A smile. As grandson David Barrett says, “He manufactured fun.”

But Dave and Roma still had to eat. One weekend shortly after they were married, they ran out of money. With a few days until

P h oto : T h e McC oy Fa m i ly A r c h i v e

Ski racing with Dave McCoy of Mammoth Mountain.

snow kings

Mammoth’s growth was fueled by passion, hard work, and ingenuity.

MOUNTAIN MAKERS CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT

P h oto s : T h e McC oy Fa m i ly A r c h i v e

1. Dave and Roma McCoy at the summit.

2. Dave McCoy skis Gravity Chute mid-1950s.

3. The McCoy family on deck.

4. Dave McCoy overlooking the Mammoth ropetow.

5. Dave and Roma McCoy mid-1960s.

McCoy received his next paycheck, he suggested to Roma that she charge 50 cents to ride the rope tow. Roma was mortified… until she realized that they collected $15, and people still smiled.

A talented ski racer — even after he shattered his leg racing in the California State Championship in 1942 — McCoy was also a renowned coach.

He coached local legends like Jill Kinmont, Linda Meyers, and his daughter Penny, who won a bronze medal in slalom at the 1966 World Championships. And some of the nation’s top skiers — Jean Saubert and Joan Hannah, to name just two — came to Mammoth to ski with McCoy. “None of those people were invited, they came to ski,” says Dennis Agee, who was inspired by McCoy to learn to ski after his family moved to Mammoth.

“It was almost like a skiing field of dreams.”

McCoy coached each person differently and made instruction clear by explaining the physics of the sport. “He had the ability to see what each individual’s challenges were, and he spoke to those challenges,” adds Agee. “He didn’t say, ‘This guy is the best skier in the world, you have to look like him.’

He looked at you as an individual and brought out your strengths and recognized your weaknesses and came up with a program for each of us that allowed us to fulfill what God-given talents we had.”

And he focused on every skier, not just the stars.

“He was always positive to all of us who were less than athletic but willing to work,” says Dennis “Poncho” McCoy, Dave and Roma’s second-oldest son. “He always made it fun for us.”

McCoy also made it fun to work for him; his passion for building a ski area was as great as his desire to play on it. When no one else thought that Mammoth Mountain was a good location for a ski area — too windy, too snowy, too high, too avalanche-prone, and too isolated — McCoy thought otherwise. He had had too much fun skiing its glades. So when the U.S. Forest Service asked how he would develop the

mountain, he drew three lines on a piece of paper showing where he would put the lifts. The Forest Service gave McCoy a permit.

Two weeks before his sixth child was born in November 1953, McCoy requested a leave of absence from the LADWP and began welcoming skiers to his rope tows at Mammoth Mountain. Over the next couple of decades, Mammoth became truly mammoth, paralleling the growth of California in the boom that followed World War II. Unlike other ski area founders, he did it without investors, taking out small loans and pumping any profit back into the mountain. But mostly, Mammoth’s growth was fueled by passion, hard work, and ingenuity.

“He’s one of these guys, because he is so passionate, he has a sparkle in his eye and a grin on his face almost all the time,” says Poncho, “really, all the time.”

And he wanted to put a smile on the faces of those who came to Mammoth. Barrett remembers driving to the mountain with his grandfather and asking why he didn’t want to make Mammoth a high-end destination resort like Aspen or Vail. “He said, ‘I don’t want to beat Vail or Aspen,’” recalls Barrett, now a TV producer in New York City. “He said, ‘I am in this business to manufacture fun. If I can make it as cheap as possible so that I can see as many families as I can possibly see smiling down that mountain, that is what drives every decision that I make.’”

Mammoth’s growth was also fueled by the hard work of others who came to work at the mountain.

Like the young ski racers who trained at Mammoth, these employees were drawn to work for McCoy. He never asked them to come. He was, as Dennis Agee says, the pied piper.

“His management style was by example,” says Agee, who worked at Mammoth before and after stints coaching the U.S. Ski Team. “He never asked anybody at the mountain to do anything that he hadn’t done, whether it be driving a snowcat, a cement truck, or a loader to clear trails. We always 97

snow kings

laughed that Dave led by pulling on the rope, he wasn’t behind cracking the whip, pushing the rope.”

McCoy also empowered people. Clifford Mann, who grew up racing at Mammoth and ran mountain operations, remembers the summer when he turned 12. McCoy let his youngest son, Randy, and young Clifford drive a bulldozer to fill around the foundation of the mid-mountain lodge. Three years later, Clifford helped build Chair 6. He was 15 years old.

“Some kids got Tonka toys,” says Mann. “We got the real deal.”

They worked through good times and bad, surviving snow droughts and years where there was so much snow that it buried the ski area. They survived avalanches, earthquakes, and volcanic activity, and recessions and gas shortages. Through it all, McCoy was positive. “We’re going to get it done,” Mann remembers McCoy saying in 1990 when he tasked Mann with developing a snowmaking system while the company was in financial trouble.

In 1996, Rusty Gregory, who started at Mammoth as a lift operator in 1978, took over as CEO, then later as Mammoth’s chairman. “Taking over Dave’s responsibilities was a little like 98

Dave and Roma did not sideline themselves in retirement. They have continued their involvement with the Mammoth Lakes Foundation, founded in 1989 to carry on McCoy’s legacy by bringing higher education and cultural enrichment to the Eastern Sierra. In Mammoth Lakes, a branch of Cerro Coso Community College now offers associates degrees and transferable credits to the University of California system, and the MLF provides free tuition to the Mammoth campus to anyone living in Mono County who wishes to continue their education. To date, the MLF has given out 625 scholarships, and the campus has grown to 500 students.

“Dave built this college program from zero to where it is today,” says Evan Russell, CEO of the MLF. “But he will tell you it’s not just him. He gets people excited around him, then people come out of the woodwork to do things.”

McCoy has also pursued photography in retirement, his “camera’s eye keeps making the Eastern Sierra a place for all of us to enjoy,” he wrote on his website. Sales of his prints benefit the MLF, as well as other organizations.

And he’s continued to tinker, turning the ATV on which he and Roma explore the mountains into a zero-emissions vehicle. He worked with a team from the mountain and from town to develop the ATV. And it’s still not about the money, he told Mammoth Magazine. It’s about fun.

“He’s spent his life doing what he loved,” says McCoy’s son Poncho. “Not many people can say that.”

P h oto : T h e McC oy Fa m i ly A r c h i v e

“There’s never been a man like Dave McCoy and there never will be.” — Roma McCoy

coming out on stage after the Rolling Stones, ” says Gregory.

“It’s impossible to follow in Dave’s footsteps. His imprint is too large and his stride is too long for anyone to follow.”

“Dave left a culture of having fun, putting people first, and doing things our own way, the more idiosyncratic and different the better,” he adds. “We still believe strongly in all of these things.”

Looking back, McCoy realizes that Mammoth was really a college for those who worked there. “It educated so many people in so many professions that they carried on through their lives,” he said recently.

In October 2005, less than two months after McCoy’s 90th birthday, he and Roma signed the papers selling Mammoth to Starwood Capital Group. “It’s like selling your heart,” Roma McCoy tearfully told reporters. “We practically grew up here.

We raised our kids and grandchildren here. There’s never been a man like Dave McCoy and there never will be.”

snow homes

F

sir richard Style Sir Richard Branson’s Stylish Verbier Hideaway for Hire words By Leslie Woit photos by yves garneau 100

irst, let’s get the name right.

It’s Verbs, darling. And true to the moniker, this resort is all about action men and women.

Verbier lures mountain-mad alpine fashionistas like a siren in a storm. A true classic of the Alps, this big-mountain bit of Switzerland is renowned for powder, parties, and chalet culture. Verbier’s huge off-piste and non-stop socials attract Hollywood royalty from Leonardo and Jude, to the 24-carat kind that includes William, Kate, and Harry. Their aunt and uncle, a.k.a. Fergie and Prince Andrew, bought a Verbier chalet just last year.

Verbs has chalets in spades — catered, self-catered, and über-private. Atop the A-list is the well-established nine-bedroom home of Sir Richard Branson, the U.K. founder of the Virgin Group. Known as The Lodge, it’s an exclusive member of the Virgin Limited Edition collection of retreats.

It’s a snow-coated wedding cake en bois, enviably tucked in a wood just 800 feet from the Médran gondola station. Opened in 2008, The Lodge has made its mark as one of Switzerland’s sought after luxury retreats.

Sir Richard and his family make good use of The Lodge. “I’ve always had a passion for skiing because of my dad,

photo by Stefan Schlumpf

Jacket GLOBAL // pants CASANNA

// refined skiwear. capranea.ch

Edward James Branson, who was one of the pioneers of skiing in the 1920s,” Branson says. “From the moment I saw it I knew this beautiful chalet in the Swiss Alps was destined to become my favorite mountain hideaway. I chose Verbier because it’s an amazing year-round destination, and offers world-class skiing, fabulous après-ski, and beautiful old restaurants tucked away in the woods.” He adds: “I have always loved Verbier. We get there a couple of times a year.”

For the rest of the winter, this sumptuous chalet and its team are available for exclusive hire by the week, or an individual room basis if the chalet has not been booked for exclusive use.

Rental includes a staff of 14 — activities co-ordinator, spa therapist, and cooks trained by celeb-chef Raymond Blanc.

Oh, the games you’ll play. The Lodge accommodates 18 guests plus up to six children or young adults in a funky bunkroom kitted out with TV, Xbox and beanbags. Five lavish floors reveal nine en suite bedrooms — that’s seven suites and two top-floor master suites. Take a dip in the indoor pool, or get bubbly in the indoor and outdoor Jacuzzis. (Champagne and other tipples are included.) Shoot some pool, workout in the gym, or trip the light beneath the twinkling disco ball in your dance and party room. There’s even a private ice rink.

Just because it’s big doesn’t mean it’s not cozy. Warm wood surrounds and high thread counts prevail. From remotecontrolled fireplaces, a large wine cellar, 102

and wide balconies that open onto one of the finest peakscapes in the Alps, exciting pops of orange, purple and yellow keep things vibrant. Branson’s humor is evident, too: vast bathrooms and egg-shaped tubs come with rubber duckies at the ready. Tired ski legs? The spa treatment tables lie in wait and the elevator comes in handy too.

Fifteen months of work went into this eco-oriented chalet, by architects Sophie Mourad and Patrice Coupy (archimc.com), employing recycled wood to water-saving loos. The decor is contemporary chic, thanks to star interior designer Fiona Barratt — granddaughter of late Sir Lawrence Barratt, known as Britain’s most prolific house builder, and spouse of former England football captain Sol Campbell. Furniture was custom made in England and shipped to Switzerland.

Clean lines are paired with sumptuous fabrics: plain oak armchairs are lined with flannel and cashmere stoles drape out-sized sofas. Branson’s globetrotting joie de vivre lives large in the personal touches that include photos of his exploits (public and private), and beloved biographies of his favorite adventurers.

Sir Richard has a hand in all of it, including the secret passageway in his bedroom that opens into a further private suite. Says Branson: “My wife Joan and I love to get involved in the design of our properties.”

Of course, we’re not surprised to learn moguls love powder — virgin powder at that. “I love to heli-ski in Verbier,” Branson says. “It’s nice to have a day without lifts.”

The Lodge’s concierge regularly organizes heli-skiing days. Lifting off from just below the village, a glittering array of peaks surrounds Verbier proper. Ones like Petit Combin, whose 360-degree panorama stretches from Mont Blanc to the Matterhorn, the rugged Trient Glacier, or, at a height of 12,454 feet, the Pigne d’Arolla, the highest drop-off point around Verbier — these are the Alps’ classic heli-skiing landing zones at altitudes above 10,000 feet. Long runs descend through stunning mountain scenery, averaging close to 6,500 vertical feet. Far from the madding crowds, one or two multi-hour descents end in a picturesque barn-filled hamlet, or inside a remote restaurant where a tangy fondue or tasty raclette and excellent local Valais wines such as Chasselas and Humagne Rouge await…

As does your 24-hour chauffeur, just another service for Sir Richard’s guests at his hideaway in Verbs.

WWW.VIRGINLIMITEDEDiTION.COM

snow homes

“From the moment I saw it I knew this beautiful chalet in the Swiss Alps was destined to become my favorite mountain hideaway.”

— Sir Richard Branson

CONTEMPORARY CHIC Interior designer Fiona Barratt paired clean lines with leather, flannel and cashmere fabrics to warm surroundings and create a welcoming atmosphere that’s both contemporary and chic.

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SNOW stories Swing into the snow season with Mod Squad style and magical moments in Megève.

Mon Dieu ! Don’t miss the mountain-loving men of the 10th Mountain Division.

Alma Coat Moncler $1,820 Fur hat SOS $610 Sunglasses Stylist’s Own

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Reid Jacket Sportalm $1,729 Pant Sportalm $759 Alma One-piece SOS $690 Belt SOS $120 Goggles Optic Nerve $169 Mittens Astis $195 Vanusa One-piece Fendi $2,800 Helmet Kask $1,800 Diego Jacket Lacroix $1,989 Pant Lacroix $845 Watch Bell & Ross $3,900

The Mod Squad

Onesies, hipster belts, trippy geometric patterns, and ‘60s silhouettes groove the slopes from Vail and Aspen to the Andes and St. Moritz.

Photographs by daniela federici STYLED BY Shifteh Shahbazian

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OPPOSITE PAGE Reid Jacket Descente $550 Pant RH+ $500 Glove Kjus $279 Skis Bomber $1,900 Sunglasses Vuarnet $540 Diego Jacket Aztech $1,300 Pant Aztech $725 Sweater Lacroix $1,130 Helmet Kask $550 Gloves Zanier $140 Ski Boots Surefoot Lange $499 THIS PAGE Reid Jacket Perfect Moment $750 Pant Perfect Moment $350 Alma Jacket Skea $935 Pant Skea $418 Baselayer Kari Traa $55 Boots Vist $349 Sunglasses Revo $349

THIS PAGE Vanusa Jacket Fera $275 Top Osklen $179 Skirted Leggins Newland $179 Beanie Eisbar $60 Reid Jacket Strafe $600 Puffy Jacket Sync $299 Pant Perfect Moment $350 Headband Chaos $40 Skis Bomber $1,900 OPPOSITE PAGE Alma Vest Goldbergh $550 Sweater Krimson Klover $189 Pant Authier $890 Helmet Goldbergh $403 Diego Jacket Helly Hansen $850 Baselayer Helly Hansen $100 Pant Helly Hansen $90 Goggles Optic Nerve $169

4

THIS PAGE Diego Jacket J.Lindeberg $1,100 Baselayer J.Lindeberg $175 Pant J.Lindeberg $690 Sneakers Converse $70 Alma Jacket Moose Knuckles $795 Top Skea $128 Pant Bogner $599 Shoes Aerin $338 Beanie Chaos $45 OPPOSITE PAGE Vanusa (1) Jacket Fusalp $1,910 Pant Fusalp $600 Beanie Lacroix $79 Booties Pedro $338 Vanusa (2) Jacket Paul & Shark $1,850 Zip-neck top Colmar $199 Après pant Colmar $290 Booties Pedro $338 Sunglasses Vuarnet $345 Ring Lulu Fiedler $380 Vanusa (3) One-Piece Goldbergh $1,024 Booties Pedro $338 Helmet Goldbergh $403

OPPOSITE PAGE Reid Jacket Mountain Force $1,299 Sweater Dale of Norway $299 Goggles Lacroix $235 Alma Jacket Nils $600 Pant Perfect Moment $350 Sweater Ecote $69 Sunglasses Barton Perreira $430 THIS PAGE Vanusa Jacket Frauenschuh $1,398 Sweater Stylist’s own Pant Snow Sugar $90 Helmet Vist $690 Reid Jacket Aether $325 Pant Aether $495 Sunglasses Revo $189 Alma Jacket Vist $799 One-Piece Jet Set $598

2

THIS PAGE Vanusa Jacket Kjus $899 Pant Kjus $579 Top Nicole Miller Price available upon request Ski Boots Surefoot Lange $919 Beanie Discrete $32 Goggles Optic Nerve $169 Reid Jacket Bogner $1,499 Pant Bogner $869 Sneakers Creative Reception $72 OPPOSITE PAGE alma Jacket M.Miller $1,730 Turtleneck RH+ $800 Pant RH+ $450 Sunglasses Barton Perreira $430

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P h oto : c o u r t e s y o f t h e C o lo r a d o S k i & S n o w b oa r d M u s e u m a n d H a l l o f Fa m e , Va i l , C O www. s k i m u s e u m . n e t

war & skiing

War &

Skiing There never was a group of fighting men quite like the 10th Mountain Division

By David Shribman

war & skiing P h oto s : c o u r t e s y o f t h e C o lo r a d o S k i & S n o w b oa r d M u s e u m a n d H a l l o f Fa m e , Va i l , C O www. s k i m u s e u m . n e t

“All of the guys in the 10th Mountain Division had one thing in common.

We loved the mountains.”

— Richard Calvert

T

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT

1. Pete Siebert, Bob Parker, and Bill Brown in Vail.

2. 10th mountain troops marching in formation with skis rather than rifles 3. Training at Colorado’s Camp Hale.

hey were present at the creation of Aspen and Vail. Without them there would be no Arapahoe Basin in Colorado, no Crystal Mountain in Washington, no Sandia Peak in New Mexico, no Sugarbush in Vermont, no Mount Bachelor in Oregon. Alta in Utah would be a different place entirely without them. The same applies to the Olympic Village in St. Moritz in 1948. Five of them were on the United States ski team in the 1948 Olympics, six if you include the coach.

Footprints in the snow are notoriously shortlived — new snowfall covers them up; they become smudged by time, they are eroded by thaws and disappear with the changing of the seasons. But the footprints the men of the 10th Mountain Division are left where they trained in the snows of Colorado, where they fought in wartime Europe, and across North America, where they planted more than five dozen ski resorts, defying the physics of snow.

They endure and, in a further defiance of the natural world, they glimmer, if not actually on the mountainsides, then surely in the legacy they provided.

Because there never was a group of fighting men — there never was a group of ski pioneers — there never was a group of snow-crazy warriors, partiers, visionaries, and men of destiny — quite like the men of the 10th Mountain Division. They helped defeat tyranny, they helped establish an important industry, and they helped define an era that grows more glorious with the years.

“All of the guys in the 10th Mountain Division had one thing in common,’’ says Richard Calvert of Wolfeboro, New Hampshire, who is still skiing

at age 91. “We loved the mountains. We were hunters, we were fishermen, we were climbers and of course we were skiers. And when we came back we continued to hunt and to fish — and to ski.

“For me,’’ he continues, “it was the most important experience of my life.’’

It was, for all of them, a defining experience. One of them became the president of the Sierra Club and founded Friends of the Earth. One co-founded Nike, one coached the San Diego Chargers. One was the governor of Massachusetts, one — not a skier but whose life was saved by two skiers — was a flatlander from a Dust Bowl town. He was Robert Joseph Dole of Russell, Kansas, where no one he ever knew in his hardscrabble plains hometown had ever seen, let alone put on, a pair of skis. Dragged to safety in the mountains by two skiing comrades, he survived to become the Senate majority leader and the 1996 Republican presidential nominee.

“I can say without reservation that if those two skiers hadn’t been with me I would have never made it,’’ Dole told me. “I would not have survived.’’

In our mind’s memory, skiing is a sport of tranquility and serenity, performed in a remote mountain fastness; the wind and the glancing sweep of skis against snow are the only sounds, and if audible at all, those are whispers, not shouts.

Whether amid the trees in the West or on finely sculpted cruising trails in the East, skiing at its artful best is a matter of swishes and swooshes, rustles and murmurs.

That’s the reverie. The reality is different. For a millennium, these implements of recreation have 121

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT

1. In the field in Italy’s Apennine Mountains, WWII. 2. Camp Hale 3. Learning to ski. 4. Aspen’s Friedl Pfeifer greets Dartmouth’s Walter Prager.

war & skiing

A division of ski warriors whose high-altitude agility and skiing prowess could provide protection along America’s northern boundaries

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P h oto s : c o u r t e s y o f t h e C o lo r a d o S k i & S n o w b oa r d M u s e u m a n d H a l l o f Fa m e , Va i l , C O www. s k i m u s e u m . n e t ( l e f t pag e )

1. Charles J. Sanders’ The Boys of Winter.

2. Peter Shelton’s Climb to Conquer.

3. Skiing by Walter Prager.

had the capacity to help wreak military damage, perform acts of sabotage, and stage lethal forest ambushes in various isolated episodes of history. Our weekend warriors on the slopes of Killington have their analogues and ancestors in the killing fields of Asia and Europe — and records show that skis were prominent in warfare as early as the Battle of Oslo in the year 1200.

Yet it was the Finns who shaped winter warfare, as we know it. On silent skis they moved along remote trails to resist the Soviets in the Winter War of 1939-1940, oftentimes in temperatures so forbidding that, in one of the curiosities of cold, the Fahrenheit and Celsius scales merged at minus 40 degrees. In evocative photographs of the time, the Finnish soldiers, outfitted in white, are portrayed burrowed in snow banks, their rifles at hand but their skis and poles discarded at the side. These troops, known to the frustrated Russians as “White Death,’’ caught the Soviet invaders off guard with forest ambushes that, as the Times of London put it, made “rings around Russian soldiers” — and inspired the world. They also attracted the attention of a fabled Dartmouth skier named Dave Bradley, who would later design more than five-dozen ski-jump hills and win international attention for his work for peace in a nuclear world.

Dave Bradley — writer, surgeon, Olympic team manager, New Hampshire state legislator — had seen the Finnish resistance firsthand, and he conveyed this report to Charles Minot (Minnie) Dole, the founder and, for more than a dozen years the director, of the National Ski Patrol: “The Finnish skiers were their own armies, their own general staffs, and many is the boy who tackled and downed a tank with no more weapon than a log of wood or a gasoline bottle tied to a hand grenade.’’

That sentence and a hearthside conversation involving Minnie Dole and three other ski pioneers in a Vermont retreat provided the strategic seeds of the 10th Mountain Division. There had been American ski soldiers before; in 1898 Frederick Remington captured on film the activities of U.S. Army ski patrols in Yellowstone. But what these men conjured in front of a roaring fire 3,750 miles from Hitler’s Berlin bunker would change the nature of

American warfare and lead to a vital World War II victory in the northern Apennine Mountains of Italy.

And so the call went out for mountain men and for men merely familiar with the mountains, the goal being the creation of a division of ski warriors whose high-altitude agility and skiing prowess could provide protection along America’s northern boundaries, or wage guerrilla warfare in the high altitudes of Europe, or conduct conventional attacks along mountain frontiers. The idea was fanciful, it was romantic, it was exciting — and it was dangerous. The foes would be Axis forces, to be sure, but the foes would also be the weather (unpredictable, but leaning toward terrible in the mountains) and the terrain (the most dangerous in the world).

“When it came time to get drafted I joined the 10th and skiing was the reason,’’ says Don Linscott, who grew up barreling down the Thunderbolt Trail on Mount Greylock, constructed by the Civilian Conservation Corps and site of the 1936 United States Eastern Alpine Ski Championships. I caught up with him — one of 19 young men who joined the 10th from his tiny hometown of Adams, Mass. — just before he went skiing at age 91 last winter at Pat’s Peak in Henniker, New Hampshire. “I figured that if you were going to go into the Army anyway you might as well join the mountain troops. It was perfect for me.’’

Bradley suggested the ski troops recruit his onetime Dartmouth coach Walter Prager, a Swiss émigré originally drafted into the Coast Guard even though he did not know how to swim. Before long he was First Sergeant Prager and was assigned to the mountain troops, in part because along with being a ski evangelist he was at heart a practical man.

In a $1.50 how-to book about skiing written in 1939, the man who would later become the coach of the 1948 United States Olympic ski team opened Chapter Four with this sentence: “If you can walk, climb, and regain your feet after a spill, you are ready for downhill skiing.’’

It was slightly more complicated than that, of course, and as a result the core of the corps was Prager’s Dartmouth skiers, who accounted for 107 of the 10th’s men. “There is little use wasting all 123

war & skiing

“I can say without reservation that if those two skiers hadn’t been with me I would have never made it,’’ Bob Dole told me.

“I would not have survived.’’

LEFT TO RIGHT

1. Men of the 10th in Italy’s Apennine Mountains, WWII. 2. Cover of LIFE Magazine, November 9, 1942. 3. Vail’s Pete Siebert.

the time and energy teaching a bunch of southerners how to ski,’’ Bradley said.

The training was rigorous and remote at Camp Hale, 9,500 feet above sea level near Pando, Colo. There the men were drilled in mountaineering, skiing, snowshoeing, and then were taught how to construct snow caves and employ dog sleds. One picture produced by Winston Pote, who would later attain fame for his photographs of skiing in New Hampshire’s White Mountains, showed the mountain troops marching in formation with skis rather than rifles balanced on their shoulders.

The 10th was an object of irresistible and unremitting interest, stoked by the military publicity machine. Crews from Columbia Pictures and Warner Brothers mobilized. LIFE magazine put the mountain troops on its cover. The 124

film Mountain Fighters opened with an NFL Films-style narrator who bellowed with a stentorian reverence that would later be applied to the Mercury Seven astronauts: “Here, surrounded by the awe-inspiring grandeur of towering snow-clad peaks, our mountain divisions are being trained for the vital role they will play in the destruction of the Axis. And what men they are!’’

What men they were. Their greatest moment came in February 1945, on the Riva Ridge escarpment, so steep that, according to Jeffrey R. Leich’s account in his Tales of the 10th, published in 2003, “the German mountain troops holding it believed it was unclimbable.’’ On four separate routes the men of the division made their daring ascent, scattering the German soldiers, some of whom may well

have been members of the German Universities Ski Team that members of the mountain troops had faced in ski competition on the very Thunderbolt Trail that Don Linscott had bolted down as a boy.

“It cannot be ruled out,’’ Charles J. Sanders wrote in The Boys of Winter, his 2005 chronicle of the men of the 10th “that some had met their enemy before in the mountains.’’

Their training — so steeped in mythology and romance that Robert Redford has optioned Peter Shelton’s 2003 Climb to Conquer for a film — changed history. The nighttime assault on the ice and snow of Riva Ridge is regarded as an indispensable part of the combat along the spine of the Apennines in Italy. Riva Ridge lent its name to one of the original trails at Vail, a beloved four-mile journey with stunning views and challenging steeps. And Apennine

war & skiing P h oto s : c o u r t e s y o f t h e C o lo r a d o S k i & S n o w b oa r d M u s e u m a n d H a l l o f Fa m e , Va i l , C O www. s k i m u s e u m . n e t ( v i n tag e ) , S t e v e P r awdz i k (c h a i r l i f t )

10th Mountain Division vets in Vail: (left to right) Jimmy Nasser, Hugh Evans and Dick Dirkes.

combat resulted in the transformation of one of the most remarkable men in modern American politics.

He is known to history as one of the greatest legislators ever to serve in the Senate. But before he moved into politics, Bob Dole — once a high school basketball star renowned for his two-hand set shot and later an advocate for the disabled — was blown apart by a shell on the side of an Italian mountain while leading his troops in the last months of the war, injured so badly that a platoon sergeant gave him a shot of morphine but didn’t think he would survive. He almost didn’t.

“We had two ski guys with us,’’ Dole, then 92, told me last winter. “I was no mountain guy, but they were. They dragged me to safety, and then they stayed with me far too long, or at least longer than they probably should have.’’

Dole was so profoundly injured that his weight dropped to 122 pounds.

One day his temperature spiked to 107.8 degrees. He lost his right kidney. He was hospitalized for four years. At his very depths, Dole was a symbol of the hardship the mountain troops endured — hardships shared even by those who returned fit enough to ski and go on to found scores of mountain resorts in the peacetime primes of their lives.

“I wanted to be in the ski troops, but when you get into a combat outfit you don’t realize that it is not glamorous,’’ Newc Eldredge, a onetime Dartmouth skier who still occasionally strapped on his skis at age 90, told me before he died in early July. “There is a lot of darkness to it.

It is not a pleasure. We experienced a lot of combat, and I hadn’t anticipated that.

It was devastating.’’

After the war a new, quieter battle began — to restore and enhance a ski business that had been hindered by gas rationing and wartime privations, and perhaps even to tame it.

“These were the men who came back from the war and continued to live that life,’’ says Bob Linscott, president of the New England chapter of the National Association of the 10th Mountain Division and the son of one of the winter warriors.

“They wanted the outdoor ethic to survive, and they wanted to expose as many people as possible to the ski life. They literally made a new industry.’’

One of those pioneers was Pete Siebert, injured in Apennine combat so badly that his rehabilitation took 17 months. With grit and a homemade leg brace, he became a ski instructor at Aspen and operations manager at Loveland. But like so many

in the 10th, he was a dreamer, too, and his vision transformed a Colorado sheep pasture into a resort known as Vail and then sowed the seeds of Snow Basin, the Utah ski behemoth that later was host to the 2002 Olympic ski events and was the setting for the movie Frozen.

Siebert and his companions from the 10th provided the impetus and the inspiration for the new ski industry, leaving their fingerprints on more than 60 ski areas beyond Vail and Snowbasin. They were helped by the piles of surplus ski equipment, all originally intended for the mountain soldiers, but were perfectly serviceable on trails on the sides of White Pass in Washington State, Ski Santa Fe in New Mexico, and Jackson Hole in Wyoming, which the men of the 10th would sculpt.

And so the story of skiing in wartime is really a tale of triumph in peacetime. The soldiers who towed their materials with ropes constructed rudimentary rope tows.

The men who carried guns in mountainside battles soon set up ski guns on stateside slopes. They traded military bases for base lodges. They built more than just T-bars, Poma lifts, and chairlifts. They built lives in the mountains — and their legacy is a mountain way of life that has endured, a sparkling vision in white, for three generations.

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megève

MEGÈVE MOMENTS A HUNDRED YEARS ON, FRANCE’S ORIGINAL GLAMOUR POT STILL SPARKLES LIKE ITS BEST CHAMPAGNE

BY LESLIE WOIT

Photo: Megève Tourisme - Simon Garnier

The village of Megève with the chic AAllard ski boutique in the background.

D

o we know each other?” asks a tall handsome stranger pausing by the linen-draped piste-side table, the pretty sunlit peaks of Mont d’Arbois surrounding like jewels of a Cartier tiara.

“Why? Do you think we’re going to?” she replies playfully from behind large dark sunglasses. “I already know an awful lot of people.”

The elegant woman is dressed in Givenchy, her delicate violet scent — L’Interdit, bien sûr — wisps delicately over the cool air, direction Mont Blanc. Despite being deliciously thin, she’s tucking into a brouillade aux truffes and a glass of red with gusto. “Until one of them dies, I couldn’t possibly meet anyone else.”

Stylish, chic and witty, it’s just another Megève moment, this time with Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant in 1963’s Charade. For a century, mountain restaurants like Les Mandarines have been providing perfect alpine placement to beautiful people, glamorous clothes and champagne fueled repartee. Plus ça change…

Located between two rivers in the Mont Blanc region of HauteSavoie, Megève derives its name from the Celtic — Mag, for house, and Eva, for water. Its current century-long incarnation — alpine farming village as glittering getaway — is the brainchild of Baroness Noémie “Mimi” Rothschild, so bored with St. Moritz she invented a new resort. At least, that’s the sanitized version of the story. In reality, the Rothschilds were keen to move their money and their selves away from the increasingly Teutonic atmosphere of between-wars St. Moritz. In 1924, the Baroness commissioned a young architect to renovate a weathered guesthouse on a plateau overlooking the village. The gentle, Gallic sun-soaked mountainscape was hers.

The Rothschild chalet is now a deeply cosseting Relais & Châteaux property known as Chalet du Mont d’Arbois, and it is here in a sun-dappled corner table at Le 1920 that we settle in for our first Megève luncheon. The linen is starched, the crystal glittering and plentiful, and elegant original frescos adorn the walls as we taste a little of what life at chez Rothschild is like — a sort of aristocratic version of 100-mile dining. Game, butter and cheese all come from the family farm, Ferme des 30 Arpents. The extravagant cheese board, in its lactose loveliness, offers the only Meaux brie boasting a farm label, produced at the same Seine-et-Marne estate.

And of course the wine list draws heavily from the Compagnie Vinicole Baron Edmond de Rothschild.

Over coming years, a further 200 Megève chalets and buildings were designed by anointed super-tect Henry Jacques Le Même, producing a pleasing palate of shuttered, A-framed charm, in sharp relief — visual as well as spiritual — to the brutalism that would soon characterize many French resorts. Comfortable, functional

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and open to the countryside, his design for chalets, schools, shops, and bars made a significant contribution to defining 20th century mountain living. With King Albert of Belgium as Chalet du Mont d’Arbois’ sponsor (a keen mountain lover, he too had no love lost for the Germans, blocking progress through Belgium of the Kaiser’s troops en route to attack France) Megève’s ski lifts and its altiport, crucial for the emerging jet set, blossomed under the aegis of aristo-energy. France’s original purpose-built ski resort, Megève became for the chic by the chic.

After a fortifying five courses, we are primed to explore the area’s three distinct ski areas, Mont d’Arbois-Princesse, RochebruneCôte 2000, and Jaillet. I make for Rochebrune — linked with the village center via gondola and cable car into a series of wooded, northeast-facing runs — up to the high point of Côte 2000, though the best snow to be found is literally everywhere. This January week, a foot of light powder has pummeled the valley and flanked the peaks, leaving neighboring resorts of Chamonix and Courchevel agog with envy. Our local instructor shares the powder blessing with us, through trees on rolling slopes. This is a low altitude ski station that can suffer for it, but for us, the sight‑enhancing trees define some of the finest hero runs of the season.

After skiing, the entire community strolls the snow-laden alleys of the medieval village, the 14th-century Church of St John the Baptist, and the tall glittering Christmas tree in front, providing the perfect orientation point. We need a compass to navigate the dizzying array of elegant furs, cashmeres and woolens that pad the shops of Chanel, Bogner, Moncler, Hermès — all here in multi-hued splendour. But one stands out among this soigné crowd: AAllard.

Remember Miss Hepburn working her mountain chic look?

From Audrey to Bardot and Carla Bruni to Catherine Deneuve, no right-thinking Megèviste would be seen on-piste or off- without her fuseau. Yes, fuseau. The chic black ski pants of the ‘50s, ‘60s and beyond began here in Megève with the famous Allard Family.

The fuseau ski pant, designed by Armand Allard in 1930 in Megève, was the first clothing item specially designed for an alpine sports activity: le ski.

“My grandfather invented the fuseau during winter 1929-30 for Émile Allais, the very famous skier from Megève,” explains Antoine Allard, third generation guardian of the AAllard brand.

“He was the first world champion and the first world champion in every discipline.”

“You know Tin Tin?” he asks me cryptically. “The story is they used to ski with golf pants, very large with the long socks, not easy for skiing because it takes the wind, snow attached to it, and it

P h oto : © P Sc h a f f

megève

“

We need a compass to navigate the dizzying array of elegant furs, cashmeres and woolens that pad the shops of Chanel, Bogner, Moncler, Hermès…

The indoor / outdoor pool at Chalet du Mont d’Arbois.

P h o t o s : M e g è v e t o u r i s m e - c y r i l e n t z m a n n / z i r (c h u r c h ) , M e g è v e t o u r i s m e - d d d Da n i e l d u r a n d (c h r i s t m a s d e co r at i o n ) , © M C e l l a r d ( ta b l e ) , M e g è v e t o u r i s m e - d d d Da n i e l d u r a n d ( s k i ) , © P S c h a f f ( b e d) , © LB r a n da j s ( f i r e p l ac e ) , M e g è v e t o u r i s m e - d d d ( h o r s e s ) , L e s F e r m e s d e M a r i e / L . D i O r i o , M P M , T. S h u & DR ( p o o l )

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT

1. One of Megève’s many snow-covered chapels.

2. A view of Megève through a magical snow globe.

3. Restaurant Le 1920. 4. Skiing into the village. 5. The Pure Altitude spa at Les Fermes de Marie. 6. Megève’s preferred choice of transportation: horse & carriage.

7. Rustic chic inside Chalet du Mont d’Arbois. 8. The Noémie suite at Mont d’Arbois. next page CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT

1. Megève’s diamond-cut peaks. 2. Audrey Hepburn on the Megève set of Charade, circa 1963. 3. The salon at Chalet du Mont d’Arbois. 4. A satisfied customer of M. Allard expresses her gratitude with a photo in her new fuseau, 1956.

wasn’t comfortable. So Émile Allais came to my grandfather and my grandfather told him, ‘Come back tomorrow. I will think of something’.”

Voilà, pants slipped inside boots to streamlined, speedy effect, and an elastic band under foot secured the deal. Émile Allais became a world sensation. “He won it all and he won it with the fuseau,” declares Antoine.

Our destination for the night is thanks to another scion of the French good life. The Family Sibuet began its hotel dynasty in Megève, its fabled Fermes de Marie, one of nearly a dozen luxurious oases across France. Built of reclaimed 19th century wooden farmhouses, the hamlet of the Fermes de Marie unites tradition and modernity — tweed and fur throws, carefree chic and smoky sexiness, plus an excellent traditional restaurant and the headquarters of its award-stealing Pure Altitude spa. The spa’s own line features unguents and emollients made from more than 50 mountain plants.

Past the sheepskin throws and stone accents, the tranquil indoor pool and wood-lined saunas, I am surprised when the masseuse opens the door to one of 17 treatment rooms. “Is this ok, for you?” she asks sweetly. The table, or bed in fact, lies on the floor. We’re both on it when she proceeds to knead and noodle my ski-addled muscles into a fondue of flexibility. On her knees, she explains, she has better leverage and I feel its benefits instantly. Of course, there is little the French don’t know about secrets of beauty — beautiful skin, elegant clothing, divine food and wine.

Never short of a reason to pop a cork, Megève is celebrating 100 years of alpine A-listers and après luxury. Joined by assorted Euros and Brits and beyonders, its primary clientele has always been the BCBG — bon chic, bon genre — of Paris. Back in the 1950s, famous French entertainer Sacha Distel was king, sharing bubbles with Yves Montand, Johnny Hallyday, Charles Aznavour, Brigitte Bardot, and Jean Cocteau, who famously blue-ribboned the snowy sanctuary as “Paris’ 21st arrondissement.” If they weren’t swinging at Club de Jazz Les Cinq Rues — the institution is still a Megève nightlife must-do — you could always find them at the Hôtel Mont-Blanc.

Only a cork pop from the Chamois gondola station, any hour is Mont-Blanc hour. Le George is the spot for Champagne in the afternoon, or perhaps to stand a silver spoon in a pot of sinfully sweet chocolat chaud. When the sun goes down, the scene ramps up.

Cocteau loved the Mont Blanc so much, he decorated the sexy, black and red bar with a (now priceless) mural. His most celebrated novel 132

“Émile Allais won it all and he won it with the fuseau…”

Enfants Terrible lends its name to the restaurant. Tuck into a tower of fruits de mer and a truly fine entrecôte. You won’t be short of reading material: Cocteau’s quotes are etched in the beams above.

The following morning lift-off is from Alpette, the iconic Le Même-designed chalet (remember him?) and long-lived mountain lunchstop-to-the-stars. Kudos to the village farmers who made it all possible; they invested in the Rochebrune ski zone and in 1933 made possible the first cable car solely for the use of skiers, Megève’s iconic red rocket. After an eye-opening espresso — or, on the other hand, if they offer you a génépi, who’s to say no? It’s the local tipple — a homemade, heady, green elixir made from the alpine génépi flower, plus sugar and alcohol. Then it’s tips down onto the fabled Émile Allais off-piste run. One of the first downhill race courses to attract major international stars, it subsequently failed to conform to increasing regulation. Too narrow, too many trees for modern-day World Cup racers and their modern-day lunatic speeds, but ideal for a glorious powder-laced descent for we fuseau-fitted wannabes.

Finally, in case you got the impression that Megève is all sommeliers, lap dogs and old French crooners, en garde! La Folie Douce est arrivée. Atop Mont Joux, the unmistakable tchoonktchoonk of dance music pulses across the peaks. “Après-ski is new in France,” Kely Starlight, artistic director at Folie Douce, told me last year. “We have to teach the people here how to drink and have fun.” With branches in Val d’Isère, Val Thorens and Méribel, Folie Douce and its excellent sister restaurant La Fruitière have emerged as the adult Euro Disney of French après-ski. Megève’s branch blasted off last winter.

And there they are, all around us: part Ibiza, part high-mountain Hard Rock Café, Parisienne women of a certain age, Genevois bankers and their well groomed teenagers grooving to the lunchtime floorshow’s version of Gene Kelly à la Miley Cyrus: Twerkin’ in the rain? Skiers dance, inside and out, in onesies and puffas, moon boots and fuseaux, as snowflakes flutter and rosé flows.

“In the ‘70s, the pants came out of the boots,” Antoine Allard noted, but he was quick to remind me of their primary modern-day function. “The fuseau is the ski pant. And it is still always used for parties.”

Fuseau at Le Folie Douce, is it a step too far? Certainement non.

In the words of Jean Cocteau, “A little too much is just enough for me.” www.megeve.com

P h oto s : M e g è v e to u r i s m e - ddd Da n i e l d u r a n d ( m o u n ta i n ) , C o p y r i g h t © Ev e r e t t C o l l e c t i o n / Ev e r e t t C o l l e c t i o n / b i n g . c a (a u d r e y h e p b u r n ) , C o u r t e s y o f A a l l a r d ( f u s e a u ) , © LB r a n da j s ( l i v i n g r o o m )

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Perfect Moment is having an Americana moment with its red, white, and blue après-ski sweaters.

“We all want to be more active in our lives, and I think a sporty look can be very sexy and, when done right, stylish, too,” says Perfect Moment’s Creative Director Helen Lee while reflecting on why this trend is primed to take over this winter’s slopes.

Keep in mind, an entire fashion overhaul isn’t at all necessary — color-block accessories will update even the most neutral ski basics. Stay warm in Valentino’s muted cashmere color-block scarves, jump into Moncler Grenoble’s chevron snow boots before and after hitting the slopes, and finish off your look with a hand-knit, tri-color beanie by London-based designer Natasha Zinko — a little bit of this bold trend will go a long way. — Leah Bourne

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By the snow fashion editors

ready-to-wear offerings. That Fendi’s ski collection incorporates Gore-Tex and jackets with fitted snow-skirts means, besides scoring high on style points, these pieces will work well for even the most serious of skiers.

Proving that color blocking is not a one-note trend, Austrian brand Sportalm showed a luxurious side, offering up quilted jackets with raccoon colors, and Bogner headed straight to the 1970s for inspiration with its retro jackets complete with color-block sleeves. Cult ski brand

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Luxury winter offerings from the likes of Valentino to Moncler are sending the message that it’s time once again to dress bold on the slopes — peppering their collections with geometric motifs, and transforming familiar shapes like boxy shell jackets and quilted snow boots into something sophisticated with just the right jolt of fun by incorporating the trend.

Leading the charge is Fendi, which this season showed color-block jackets and pants in graphic white and black, plus jewel tones like purple and fuchsia, taking cues from its similarly styled

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118 WAR & SKIING

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Mountain Force Vest www.mountainforce.com

Andrew Marc Vest www.andrewmarc.com

Parajumpers Coat www.parajumpers.it

126 MEGÈVE MOMENTS It sparkled on the scene of 1963’s Charade with Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn. More than 50 years later, France’s magical Megève continues to shine.

Argentine Bird: The Condor

Fur M.Miller Fur Vest

Kiwi Lodgings: Eichardt’s Private Hotel

What to Wear: Mountain Hardwear

www.mmillerfur.com What to Wear: Picnic Lunch Canada Thief: The Goose Cheeky Kea

Hot Spot: Samsara

ON THE COVER Vanusa wears a Postcard onesie and a Kask helmet. Alma’s jacket and pants are both Toni Sailer. Goggles by Vuarnet, base layer by Newland, beanie by Dale of Norway.

Ski: Völkl Mantra

Ski: Dynastar Powertrack

THIS PAGE Vanusa in a one-piece ski suit and helmet by Goldbergh, booties by Pedro.

Photos: Daniela Federici Stylist: Shifteh Shahbazian See The Mod Squad Page 106.

www.goldbergh.com

Pedro Booties $338 www.pedrogarcia.com

Snow Ride: Toyota SW4 Snow Ride: Range Rover Sport

Snowcieties

www.carolinefurs.com

Goldbergh Jacket www.carolinefurs.com

Moncler Coat www.moncler.com

Wolfie Fur Coat www.furshopping.com

Page 36 Bariloche Mountain Hardwear Jacket

Authier Parka Performance Ski (970) 925-8657 Ventesima Strada Boot

www.mountainhardwear.com

WWW.fissportswear.com

Völkl Mantra Skis www.volkl.com

Sorel Boots WWW.SOREL.COM

Toyota SW4 WWW.TOYOTA.COM

Queenstown Canada Goose Jacket WWW.CANADA-GOOSE.COM

Dynastar Powertrack Skis WWW.DYNASTAR.COM

Red Band Gumboots WWW.REDBAND.CO.NZ

Land Rover Range Rover www.landrover.com

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Sip: No.5 Belle Rouge

Gumboots: Red Band

36

www.skealimited.com

Caroline Furs Hat and Scarf

Culture: Michael Hill International Violin Competition

Boots: Sorel

Contents Image

Page 08 Goldbergh One-Piece $1,024 Goldbergh Helmet $403

Vintage Ski Race: Carrera de la historia

Sip: Campari Orange

8

Skea Fur Hat

resources

3

Reid Jacket Sportalm $1,729 Pant Sportalm $759 AlmA one-piece SOS $690 belt SOS $120 goggles Optic Nerve $169 Mittens Astis $195 VAnusA one-piece Fendi $2,800 helmet Kask $1,800 diego Jacket Lacroix $1,989 Pant Lacroix $845 Watch Bell & Ross $ 3,900

SNOW StOrieS

AD VEX

The Mod Squad

Swing into the snow season with Mod Squad style and magical moments in Megève.

Mon Dieu! Don’t miss the mountain-loving men of the 10th Mountain Division.

Onesies, hipster belts, trippy geometric patterns, and ‘60s silhouettes groove the slopes from Vail and Aspen to the Andes and St. Moritz.

AlmA Coat Moncler $1,820 Fur hat SOS $610 Sunglasses Stylist’s Own

PhotograPhs by daniela federici styled by shifteh shahbazian

105

SNOW Stories

Converse Sneakers $70

Ecote Sweater $69

www.converse.com

www.ecote.com

Barton Perreira Sunglasses $430

www.SkeaLImited.com

On Alma Moose Knuckles Jacket $795

Kari Traa Baselayer $55

www.mooseknucklescanada.com

SOS Fur Hat $610

www.karitraa.com

Skea Top $128

www.sos-sportswear.com

Vist Boots $349

www.skealimited.com

www.Vist.it

Bogner Pant $599

Page 115 On Vanusa Frauenschuh Jacket $1,398

Revo Sunglasses $349

www.bogner.com

www.frauenschuh.com

Page 105 On Alma Moncler Coat $1,820 www.moncler.com

The Mod Squad

On Alma Skea Jacket $935 Skea Pant $418

Aerin Shoes $338

Snow Sugar Pant $90

www.aerin.com

Www.Snowsugarshop.com

Page 110 On Vanusa Fera Jacket $275

Chaos Beanie $45

Vist Helmet $690

www.chaoshats.com

www.vist.it

On Alma SOS One-Piece Ski Suit $690 SOS Belt $120

www.ferastyle.com

www.sos-sportswear.com

Newland Skirted Leggins $179

Page 113 On Vanusa (1) Fusalp Jacket $1,910 Fusalp Pant $600

www.newland.it

www.fusalp.com

www.revo.com

Eisbar Beanie $60

Lacroix Beanie $79

www.eisbarusa.com

www.lacroix-skis.com

On Alma Vist Jacket $799

On Reid Strafe Jacket $600

Pedro Booties $338

www.vist.it

www.pedroshoes.com

Jet Set One-Piece $598

www.strafeouterwear.com

www.jetset.ch

Sync Puffy Jacket $299

On Vanusa (2) Paul & Shark Jacket $1,850

Kask Helmet $1,800

www.syncperformance.som

www.paulshark.it

www.kask.it

Perfect Moment Pant $350

On Diego Lacroix Jacket $1,989 Lacroix Pant $845 Bell & Ross Watch $3,900

www.perfectmoment.com

Colmar Zip-neck top $199 Colmar Après pant $290

Chaos Headband $40

www.colmar.it

Page 116 On Vanusa Kjus Jacket $899 Kjus Pant $579

www.chaoshats.com

Pedro Booties $338

www.kjus.com

Bomber Headband $1,900

www.pedroshoes.com

Nicole Miller Top $130

www.bomberski.com

Vuarnet Sunglasses $345

www.nicolemiller.com

www.vuarnet.com

Surefoot Lange Ski Boots $919

Page 111 On Alma Goldbergh Vest $550 Goldbergh Helmet $403

Lulu Fiedler Ring $380

www.surefoot.com

www.lulufiedler.com

Discrete Beanie $32

Vanusa (3) Goldbergh One-Piece $1,024

www.discreteclothing.com

www.Goldbergh.com

www.goldbergh.com

www.opticnerve.com

Krimson Klover Sweater $189

Pedro Booties $338

Kjus Glove $279

www.krimsonklover.com

www.pedroshoes.com

www.Kjus.com

Authier Pant $890 Performance Ski Aspen (970) 925-8657 On Diego Helly Hansen Jacket $850 Helly Hansen Baselayer $100 Helly Hansen Pant $90

Goldbergh Helmet $403

On Reid Bogner Reid Jacket $1,499 Bogner Pant $869

www.goldbergh.com

www.bogner.com

www.mountainforce.com

Page 117 On Alma M.Miller Jacket $1,730

www.HellyHansen.com

Dale of Norway Sweater $299

www.mmillerfur.com

Optic Nerve Goggles $169

www.daleofnorway.com

www.opticnerve.com

Lacroix Goggles $235

RH+ Turtleneck $800 RH+ Pant $450

www.lacroix-skis.com

www.zerorh.com

On Alma Nils Jacket $600

Barton Perreira Sunglasses $430

Page 106-107 On Reid Sportalm Jacket $1,729 www.sportalm.at

Optic Nerve Goggles $169 www.opticnerve.com

Astis Mittens $195 www.astis.com

On Vanusa Fendi One-Piece Ski Suit $2,800 www.fendi.com

www.bellross.com

Page 108 On Reid Descente Jacket $550 www.Descente.com

RH+ Pant $500 www.zerorh.com

Vuarnet Sunglasses $540 www.Vuarnet.com

On Diego Aztech Jacket $1,300 Aztech Pant $752 www.aztechmountain.com

Page 109 On Reid Perfect Moment Jacket $750 Perfect Moment Pant $350 www.PerfectMoment.com

www.revo.com

Osklen Top $179 www.osklen.com

Page 112 On Diego J.Lindeberg Jacket $1,100 J.Lindeberg Baselayer $175 J.Lindeberg Pant $690 www.jlindebergusa.com

136

www.bartonperreira.com

On Reid Aether Jacket $325 Aether Pant $495 www.Aetherapparel.com

Revo Sunglasses $189

Optic Nerve Goggles $169

Creative Reception Sneakers $72 Page 114 On Reid Mountain Force Jacket $1,299

www.nils.us

Perfect Moment Pant $350 www.perfectmoment.com

www.bartonperreira.com

exquisitely the warmest snow destination in the Canadian Rockies

Reservation: 1.800.661.1586 www.posthotel.com

ski team parties

NEW YORK SOCIETY SUPPORTS U.S. SKI TEAM In a penthouse high above Manhattan, legends of the ski world along with New York’s biggest ski enthusiasts gathered to support the U.S. Ski Team.

Bomber Ski presented its new line for the 2015-2016 season, and guests got to

138

mingle with Bomber Ambassador Bode Miller. Also on tap: the latest looks from top brands in ski wear, including Bogner, Toni Sailer, and Mountain Force.

Sentient Jet was on hand to demonstrate how easy it is to fly privately into Aspen

P h oto s : S h aw n P u n c h ( Fa s h i o n ) , Sc e n a r i o P h oto g r a p h y (c h a i r l i f t )

SNOW scenes

Also on tap: The latest looks from top brands in ski wear.

P h oto s : S h aw n P u n c h ( fa s h i o n ), S c e n a r i o P h oto g r a p h y (c h a i r l i f t )

snow scenes

or any ski destination of your choice. Macallan Rare Cask was poured and guests dined on celebrity chef Peter Callahan’s paella.

The highlight of the evening was watching the new Bode Bomber Chase film, shot in Portillo, Chile. Ski-lebrities were out in full force, including Olympic Gold Medalist Jonny Moseley, and World Cup Champion Steven Nyman.

Making MeMorable l u x u r y M o u n ta i n va c a t i o n s 1-800-759-3686 www.fcprentals.coM

snow scenes

ski Beijing

SNOW VISITS CHINA, HOME OF 2022 OLYMPICS

SNOW teamed with Oriendra in early winter to visit Beijing, China, home of the 2022 Olympic Winter Games. Along with luxury lifestyle brands Toni Sailer and Skea, the group presented the latest in ski fashion. Colorado’s Steamboat Ski Resort joined the fun to promote what they have in store this season for international visitors.

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SNOW JOINS SKEA, STEAMBOAT, ORIENDRA, AND TONI SAILER IN CHINA.

SNOW produced two events in two days: one in Beijing’s trendy 798 Art District where Cheng Art Gallery provided the perfect backdrop; the other at Jing A, a local hot spot. Fashion-forward guests got a chance to try on the latest in snow fashion.

Susan, a show visitor, purchased new Toni Sailer pants, then raced to Wanlong ski resort the following weekend to try them out!

SKI-IN/SKI-OUT ASPEN HIGHLANDS

Experience privacy and convenience in this luxury Five Trees ski-in/ski-out estate quality home. With inviting views of Thunderbowl, this furnished property features a fabulous chef’s kitchen, six bedrooms plus an office and library, a fully-equipped gym and extensive entertaining spaces all accented with handcrafted details and finishes. Located on over an acre and a half and beautifully landscaped in one of Aspen’s true ski-in/ski-

out neighborhoods with adjoining dedicated private ski lift and trails. This warm and engaging residence is the perfect gathering place for family and friends. Walking distance to the Aspen school campus, the Aspen Recreation Center and the community theater, and just a five minute drive to the airport, Maroon Creek Club and downtown Aspen. $15,350,000 - Now $13,950,000 MLS#: 139319

Carol Hood Peterson 970.379.0676 carol@masonmorse.com

The Source for Real Estate in Aspen 970.925.7000 | masonmorse.com

last run

We’d just fled down the front face of Middlebury’s very own mountain directly into the arms of our future.

Graduation Day

T

he best part of my graduation from college was that it happened on skis.

Every February at Vermont’s Middlebury College, about 90 seniors ski down the Middlebury Snow Bowl for Winter Commencement — caps affixed over woolen hats, gowns puffy from covering the down underneath. Graduates speed down hill and into a future unknown.

Skiing that hill on graduation day, I remember feeling as though I was getting away with something extraordinary. Something exceptional and remarkable was happening, yet if I dared speak it out loud it might end. With gravity on my side I flew down that slick white hill in central Vermont at a fantastic pace, skis-first into the “real” world of paved roads and promise.

I have few photos of the day itself. I graduated long before smart phones made memories instant fact. But a fellow grad recently 144

posted a picture on Facebook and I was surprised by how happy we looked, yet, why not? We’d just fled down the front face of Middlebury’s very own mountain — a run we’d skied hundreds of times — directly into the arms of our future, as well as those of our family and friends. We had arrived, and with the squeaky swoosh of a hockey stop, we were done. We were ready to start.

It’s been years since the snowy afternoon I graduated from Middlebury. I look back on our college commencement like an art historian — brows furrowed, caught in a moment that no longer exists, searching for meaning. “Something happened that day,” I say to myself. And it did.

The awakening chill of that winter’s run taught me one final Middlebury lesson: Life carries us from one moment into the next, sometimes at a faster pace and with more of a whoosh than we expect, whether we’re ready or not.

P h oto : C o u r t e s y o f M i dd l e b u r y C o l l e g e

By Emily Natasha Voorhees

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thebineauteam@masonmorse.com www.AspenFineProperties.com The Source for Real Estate in Aspen 970.925.7000 | masonmorse.com

People have been known to line up for over 25 hours to buy a bottle of our Rocky Mountain Single Malt.

Experience Stranahan’s

throughout Aspen this season!

ROCKY MOUNTAIN SINGLE MALT

Founded by Jess Graber in 2002, Stranahan’s is Colorado’s first legal distillery since Prohibition. Made in Denver at 5,251 feet, our whiskey is double-distilled from barley and aged in new American white oak barrels. Darn high up.

Stranahan’s® Colorado Whiskey. 47% Alc/Vol. (94 proof). ©2015 Stranahan’s Colorado Whiskey, Denver, CO. Please drink responsibly.

(This only sounds crazy if you’ve never tried it.)