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The opportunity came up for a crew of us at TGR to come over to Italy and film a segment in a resort called "La Thuile". None of us skiers had ever heard of it, but being right on the border of France and the coldest region of the Aosta Valley, in the Italian Alps, how could we possibly say no? So we booked our tickets, having only seen some photos on the internet of families hanging out on a sunny cafe patio, or neon clad skiers with sunglasses and a smile making tiny turns on a groomer.
The crew was Dash Longe, Chris Benchetler, and myself as the skiers, and Steve Jones, Matt Herriger and Chris Bezamat behind the lenses. Our guide/local interpreter Marco swooped me up at the airport in Milan (the only guy even remotely looking like a skier among the fashion savvy Italians of Milan, with an old red North Face puffy, shaggy hair and frostbite scarring on his nose from years in the mountains), and came right up to me with a smile and a high five. It felt like we knew each other for years, and I knew it would be a sick trip. We went and grabbed the other boys at the train station, who were just finishing a ski trip to Croatia. We headed out of the city in our van, up a whole bunch of switchbacks, and got right amongst the mountinas. The next 12 days were filled with sick powder skiing, tons of good food and amazing people, a couple blue days, and a really sick tour of La Thuile. All in all, we skied pow every day and probably ate way too much meat. But that's all right, that's what grappa is for.
**On our way to the mountains, this is an old refuge building the Italians built to defend themselves in World War 1.**
**This was the view of the village of La Thuile from up on the mountain.**
**This is the digestif of choice after a big meal:grappa. This is the local brand from the Vallee D'Aosta.**
**A POV shot from one of many pow runs.**
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**Dash, making use of an avy barrier. 720 into some pow.**
**This was our transportation up to a refugio on the mountain for an epic dinner, care of Lo Riondet.**
**Lo Riondet. Epic food, awesome people and an all time setting. High elevation dinner halfway up La Thuile Resort.**
