It's starting to feel like the holidays now. The Erasmus Student Network of Zurich organised a weekend away in the mountains. A popular event – I remember having to sign up for it pretty much as soon as the registration window opened in order to get hold of a place. Much like many of the other events held by ESN.
It was good to be back in Flumserberg.
We headed over to Flumserberg, the same area I recently went skiing in, but this time to go snow-shoe hiking. It was an unfamiliar feeling being on the piste, equipped with ski poles, without being able to actually ski. Left to my own devices, I probably would never have even tried snow-shoe hiking. I'm glad I did. It's a whole different way of enjoying the mountain. The pace alone allows you to take in the impressive scenery, which isn't necessarily what I would normally focus on if I were skiing - indeed if I did, I would probably end up crashing my way down the pistes!
The Quinzy method of building igloos seemed to work the best.
After reaching Panüöl, we set about constructing igloos. It was good fun making them, but I'm glad that we had a plan B, else we would have had to spend the night in unfinished and rather unstable igloos that better resembled wind breaks, than actual feasible shelters. Well, all except one – those lucky guys finished theirs and spent the night in it. Me and most of the other students made a strategic withdrawal to the alpine huts, where we could enjoy a decent warm raclette meal, the bar and the comforts generally associated with not having to worry about a dodgy igloo collapsing in on you whilst you sleep.
The alpine hut in Panüöl.
The next morning we continued our hike to the main piste area, where we swapped our snow-shoes for toboggans. There's nothing quite like throwing yourself down a hill on waxed aluminium, without brakes, whilst wearing all the kit attempting to steer, kicking up snow spray which both blinds and freezes you at the same time. It was quite awesome!
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