Sunday, February 7, 2010

Broken Record

This week I headed back to France for some more x-country skiing. I admit that I'm probably starting to sound like a broken record these days, but, in my defense, one needs to take advantage of the snow while it lasts, right?

The area where we skied is called Chapelle-des-Bois, which is right along the French border with Switzerland. It's very nice as there are a lot of x-country trails of different lengths and difficulties. Similar to previous x-country excursions, we took the 8km trail. The following are a couple of pictures from the day.










I feel like I'm steadily improving and today was by far my quickest time. That said, the long uphill portions of the trails remain my nemeses and serve as humbling reminders that I've still got a lot to improve upon. At least this time I passed a lot of people, rather than simply being the one who was getting passed. That's considered progress, right?

On the way home I decided to do my part to stimulate the global economy by purchasing a set of (downhill) skis, boots and poles. I figure they'll pay for themselves over time as it costs nearly CHF 70 to rent a full setup for the weekend. Plus, the convenience of not having to go rent rent everything each time I go skiing is a huge benefit. The following is a picture of what I got -- Head skis, Dolomite boots and Scott poles.

Next weekend I'm heading to Adelboden in the Bernese Oberland region of Switzerland for two days of downhill skiing and look forward to trying the new equipment out.

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