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Addictive Personality (Part II) ☕️

I’ve written about my coffee addiction several times over the years, including the last time Iz and I traveled together. We shared a tatami mat in a small town in Japan that had an abundance of green tea but a distinct lack of coffee. While Iz thrived off of morning tea, I went through withdrawals, which ended in the infamous lost passport incident (see Issue 164). When we started throwing around story ideas for this winter, access to coffee was the top of the list, along with world-class skiing, of course. Italy’s Aosta Valley became the obvious answer.

When we meet our guide, Marco Bozzolo, he’s waiting for us in a coffee shop at the base of Monterosa Ski resort drinking an espresso. It seems a good omen for the next three days of skiing with him. On the first day, we follow Marco across the sprawling resort to powder stashes that are still untouched after a storm earlier in the week. Despite the sleeper powder day and a Freeride World Tour Challenger event, we don’t wait in a single line all day, not even when we make several more stops for espresso.

The next day, the wind picks up, leaving lifts closed and limited options for skiing. With no rush to get to the skintrack, Marco shows us around the small villages above Champoluc, telling us about the history and stopping to talk to a friend on the cobblestone streets. After we make another stop for coffee, I sit outside, sipping a cappuccino and looking at the Alps. When Iz makes a joke that this is my happy place, I laugh and tell Marco that we don’t actually need to ski today. We could just drink coffee in the sun instead.

We still go skiing, and, despite the gusts, it’s surprisingly great. We make sunny turns over supportable wind crust and even find some corn and a little bit of preserved soft snow hidden behind rollovers. I giggle as Iz and I navigate tiny white strips, competing to see who can get closest to the car with their skis still on.

That’s the thing about ski travel. It’s both skiing and travel. Sometimes the conditions are stellar; sometimes you go on the cultural tour. On this trip to the Aosta Valley, we were lucky enough to find both, plus a surplus of coffee.

—Betsy Manero

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