Underwear,
Appropriate
An aspect of skiing a ire that o en doesn’t receive
enough a ention, leading to the opposing discom-
forts of perspiration and frost.
One of the most critical
challenges involved
in winter sports is
maintaining climate
control around one’s base
camp. You’re hot, you’re
cold—either way, you’re
not happy. Predictably,
it took Norwegians to come
up with a solution. Sports
apparel company Odlo has
spent 66 years exploring
this conundrum, an epic
investigation that has
resulted in Odlo Evolution
thermal underwear
(
$105–
$130), which promises to
find an in-trouser balance
between Arctic Circle and
Amazon rain forest.
Vertical
Drop
A slightly misleading
term for the skiable distance
between a mountain’s peak
and its base; the drop itself,
if actually vertical, would be
called a cliff.
Anyone who’s subject
to nosebleeds or vertigo
will probably want to steer
clear of
Chamonix-Mont-Blanc
.
Some 90 percent of the slopes
surrounding this French resort
town—which, unsurprisingly, is
crawling with mountain climbers
during the summer—are located 6,500 feet above
sea level. It boasts one of Europe’s highest cable cars,
which rises to 12,000 feet, the starting point for a
13-
mile descent on demanding, unmarked trails. Its
Grands Montets slopes offer an altitude of 10,700 feet
(
or more, if you decide to climb up to the observation
platform). From here, there’s a world-beating, quad-
busting uninterrupted vertical drop of about 7,000
feet—part of that on a glacier. As one skiing enthusi-
ast puts it, “Your legs are happy when you finally reach
the lower gondola.”
Whiteout
A condition in which various
permutations of airborne moisture
make for poor visibility, the worst
examples of which deter all but the
most intrepid/stupid skiers.
When the squalls set in and it
becomes impossible to
see the tips of your
skis, let alone the
winding trail in
front of you, your
thoughts may,
understandably,
wander to the
sandy shores
of a tropical
island para-
dise like the
Bahamas
or Turks and Caicos. While Idaho’s
Silver Mountain Resort
doesn’t
have gently swaying palms or
drinks served in coconut shells,
it
does
have surfing. Among the
a ractions at Silver Rapids, the
resort’s 44,000-square-foot indoor
water park, is a “continuous surf
wave” upon which you can wipe
out to your heart’s content in
carefully calibrated summertime
temperatures. There’s also a
more sedate wave pool, a lazy
river, a warm spring, a whole
bunch of slides and, of course, a
poolside bar. With a li le imagina-
tion and a rum-based cocktail
or two, you could almost be in
the Caribbean. (As for that scary,
incessant howling you can hear
outside—well, that’d be the hump-
back whales, singing to each other
as they frolic in the turquoise
waters just offshore.)
HEMISPHERESMAGAZINE.COM
•
NOVEMBER 2012
101
