Hot Karl

My first manuever after donning snowshoes for the very first time in Wildhaus (altitude 1050m) was to leap up onto a snowbank and promptly fall over sideways, into about four feet of soft snow. The process of righting myself soaked the leather palms of my lightweight cross-country ski gloves, which would have made the whole snowshoeing experience a little less fun and a little more miserable. So to get new gloves, not to mention rent poles, and get advice on the best schneeshuhwandern routes, a visit to Sport Center Wildhaus Karl Alpiger was in order.

Little did I know that the gent with the wavy brown hair and the angular cheekbones who was in the shop giving schneeshuhwandern advice to our hosts in German and bantering in English with me about gloves was none other than Karl Alpiger, two-time bronze medalist in the skiing World Chapionship downhill. He wished us well and sent us on our way, up the lift to the station at Oberdorf (altitude 1230m), where we began our journey.

Later, after our out-and-back trip that took us back to Oberdorf, a schneeshuh descent down the sledding piste into Wildhaus, and a quick Jaeger Punch in Karl's bar, we saw Karl again, pushing a snowblower around the lot, a a frosting of snow on top of his fluffy brown hair. Men want to be him, women want to change him ...