Big Man, Big Heart

This week, we found out that Brandon Valeriano died.  It is quite gutting as he had such a terrific spirit, and he was too damned young.  Brandon stood out from the crowd at all the conferences as he was literally bigger than most of us, and he was also one of the very few Latinos in the field of IR. But mostly he stood out because he was always surrounded by the large groups of friends and mentees he had amassed over the years, as he had so much love and friendship to give.  So his passing is a huge loss to all of us.

Notice that there are no chips in front of
Brandon. This was not an outlier.

I was mostly a conference pal with Brandon.  I would see him twice a year--once at the American Political Science Association meeting and once at the International Studies Association meeting.  I didn't see him this year as I missed the most recent ISA, and now I regret not having a last chance to hang
out with him.  I first met Brandon at the poker games we have been having at these two conferences since the early 1990s.  He joined us when he was fresh out of grad school, if I remember correctly, and made a big impression.  Brandon was simply fun to be with.  He had a great sense of humor, and he also laughed loudly and with gusto (although his laugh was never as piercing as some of his fellow poker players).  He was, well, a lousy poker player, which made him, of course, more welcome.  He simply didn't care about the low stakes games--he was far more focused not on the cards but on the players--not their strategies but their lives and stories.  

Brandon could have easily not fit in.  He was much younger than most of us.  He was single while the rest of us were mostly not (of course, his single life made him far more interesting to the rest of us).  But he was so very sweet and funny that once he joined us, he quickly belonged and became not just a regular, but a crucial member of the group.  The games in the future will not be the same without him.

As a result of the semi-annual game, we became friends.  We didn't chat that often between conferences, but we kept in touch via the usual outlets of social media.  Through the poker games and through our other correspondence, I learned how much love he had to give.  I loved that he was such a big guy but had such a teeny dog who became a focus for his affection.  He talked much of his family, and one of the great tragedies of the timing of his passing is that he was just about to start a new job in his beloved home of LA.  

One repeated theme in his social media was hunting for food in LA that he could not get in Scotland and elsewhere.  One of the things we bonded over was our dissatisfaction with the challenge of academic life--not having a lot of choice about where one lives.  He enjoyed Glasgow (more below), but it was so far from home and from decent ingredients for the food he loved the most.  I have been thinking of him a lot lately, as I can't get decent tortilla chips in Berlin.

We also bonded over our shared love of tv and pop culture.  Some of my non-poli sci friends remembered him from the games I set up via social media during the last seasons of Lost and Game of Thrones. We agreed on much stuff, but I remember him pushing me on both Band of Brothers and The Pacific--the lack of Latino representation in those World War II shows. He had family that had served during the war, and he had been proud of them, and was disappointed that these shows didn't feature people like them.  

Jaroslav and Brandon as
we wander through Glasgow.

The one time I got to see Brandon outside of a big conference was at a smaller conference in Glasgow.  He got me invited to be a participant in a conference on Scottish separatism before the referendum in the mid 2010s, and we made the most of it.  He introduced me and Jaroslav Tir to his favorite place to drink.  We rented a car, and he made me drive, and we drove through the Highlands.  On the wrong side of very narrow roads.  At no time did he panic, even when I once entered a traffic circle the wrong way.  The three of us had a great time wandering through this beautiful landscape.  Which reminds me that we both had a travel bug, another shared interest.

 

The start of Brandon's career was difficult as his home institution blew up (no fault of his own), but he managed not only to survive but thrive and succeed so very well.  He was one of the first political scientists to study cyber-security, writing a series of books and many articles.  While that area is far from my own, I can tell that his work there was quite well respected not simply because of the citations, but the invitations--to be  a fellow at multiple places.  What I appreciated most about his work was that he could have been a threat inflater--making it seem like the world would end soon due to cyber war--but he pushed back against that, developing a reputation for measured, serious analysis.  It was clear that the most important part of the job for Brandon was mentoring.  I met a number of junior scholars who had worked with Brandon, and they all had so much appreciation for him.

Over time, Brandon branched out, examining the international relations of sport, pop culture and IR (another shared interest), and the role of race and ethnicity in international relations.  One way to get to  know Brandon is to check out his old posts at Duck of Minerva.  It was a great place for him to share not just his IR but his other interests in very accessible pieces.  I will be going though some of them in the next few days.

A few years ago, Brandon had a heart attack while in Mexico and nearly died.  He joked about it, but it has been clear the past few years that he was not healthy.  I had thought things were getting better--that he was in better shape--but clearly not so much.  People are stunned at the news of his death because he was such a vital person, so full of love and humor.  We are now very sad for we lost a friend who had such a big heart.  My condolences go out to these friends and his family.

Security Clearances Fiasco 2: Another Bugaloo

 I wrote this piece a few years ago about how serious it is not to store classified documents seriously.  This week, the story is not documents but a group chat via an insecure system.  Lovely.  Now, the bullshit artists are trying to claim that the info was not classified.  Sure.  First, to be clear, the key official with authority to declassify stuff can't just say stuff was declassified after it is revealed that the info was mishandled.  There is a process by which stuff is declassified, and this ain't it.  

Ok, how does classification work?  Let's see what I remember (I learned this stuff my first week 20+ years ago and is very much burned in my head since, well, it was the only stuff that might have led to jail if I screwed up).

 Any document (and yes, a group chat counts) has a number of pieces of information.  Each bit of info, each clause or paragraph gets its own rating, so that a document may consist of unclassified stuff, some confidential info, some secret, and some top secret stuff:

(C)  Indicated confidental

(U) Unclassified

(S)  Secret

(TS) Top secret.

I guess there would also be either SCI--for need to know, compartmentalized info, but, guess what?  Since I wasn't cleared for SCI, I never saw any SCI stuff.  I inferred that mostly involved Special Ops or NSA stuff, but that is just a guess.

Anyhow, there are other classifications: NOFORN for not to be released to foreigners, NATO Only to be released to NATO countries, SFOR only to be released to countries participating in the NATO stabilization mission in Bosnia.. which included the Russians so not much secrety stuff there,  and so on.

 The key is that when a doc has a bunch of different info at varying levels of secrecy, the entire doc is rated at the level of the most secret piece.  So, a doc with lots of open source info having one bit of Top Secret in it would be classified as Top Secret.

Guess what a war plan consists of?  Heaps of Top Secret stuff.  For the Houthis group chat texts, the most secret thing there is probably the reference to the targeting of an individual.  We can't be certain of how they did that, but it probably involved a human source, given the context.  Guess who needs to know that?  Damned few people, and definitely not those on this chat.  So, probably TS/SCI--top secret, sensitive compartmentalized info.   You know what the opposite of compartmentalized is?  A 19 person chat on insecure channels.  

So, don't buy any excuse this assholes give--they were reckless because they were trying to show each other how tough they are, how cool they are.  So, they broke heaps of rules ... and laws.  But since their boss did so quite flagrantly, and since he pardons his loyalists, they can act with impunity. This is what impunity looks like.  A shit show.

Can Militaries Save Us From Democratic Backsliding?

 Last night, I participated in an event organized by the Canadian Embassy in Berlin and the Hertie School on what role do militaries have in arresting democratic backsliding (no, it was not taped).  While I am not an expert in this part of the civil-military relations field, I had views.  Ina Kraft from the Bundeswehr's Center on Military History and Social Science was my partner in crime.

What did I say?  Well, the bottom line up front, as the military likes, was, nope, the militaries of the world can't actively reverse backsliding, but they can try to avoid either being complicit or accelerating the demise of democracy.   In essence, do no harm. The timing, of course, was fantastic, as the attack on democracy in the US accelerates with every day, and the military has been a target of the arsonists under Trump. 

I first highlighted what backsliding usually refers to--the usurpation of power and authority by the executive from the courts and from the legislature, the undermining of the media, and unfairness in the elections.  South Korea is an example of an attempt to seize the power from the legislature, Poland is an example of manipulating the courts.  The US these days is exemplar of pretty much every form of backsliding--disobeying court orders, stealing the spending power from the legislature, attacking the media, undermining elections....  Of course, defining backsliding these ways raises the very question of exactly what do we want the military to do besides .... something!!!

I then went on to discuss the fundamentals of civ-mil--that civilian control of the armed forces is foundational to democracy, often taken for granted, that we don't want to give the military a vote on who governs.  That both we and they want to stay out of partisan politics, and that politicization refers to that very dynamic of either being dragged into or jumping into not just politics (all things military are inherently political, and not just because of Clausewitz).   I pointed out that being loyal to a constitution or to democracy sounds neutral and non-partisan except for when politicization is so rampant even such a statement about the sources of loyalty are pretty partisan:

Milley's statement here was labeled as a swipe at Trump, and, well, yeah, it was, even though it was essentially pretty basic and mundane--the US military swears an oath to the Constitution, not to a person.

My next step was to consider why do we look to the military for help.  First, in many democracies, it is the most respected institution--it performs most highly in surveys.  Of course, that is partly or mostly because it is not seen as attached to one party or another, although again politicization is making a dent in that.  Military officers are also seen as being honorable, motivated by duty to country.  Also, despite what the white supremacist SecDef desires, miltiaries are often more diverse, more representative of society than other actors (and if that diversity is handled well, it improves capability).  And, yes, militaries have power.  Mostly via the weapons they carry, but also via their legitimacy as a national institution.

So, what can/should militaries do?  They can't un-usurp.  They can't take power from the executive and return it to the courts or to the legislature.  They can't free the media.  They can seize power and then hand over power to ... someone.  The record of coups is not great for facilitating democracy.  So, I raised a few other alternatives:

• Don't obey illegal orders.   The lesson of World War II is that "I was just following orders" is not a legitimate excuse, and democratic militaries are told that they are obligated to disobey an illegal order.  
• The question then becomes--what counts as illegal?  Who decides?  There are lawyers all over the place--civilian agencies have lawyers, miltiary units have lawyers.  But lawyers often disagree, so how do you decide which lawyers are correct?
• In my year in the Pentagon long ago, I saw the lawyers for the Secretary of Defense saying different stuff than the Joint Staff's lawyers.  So, this is not theoretical.
• Would invading Canada be illegal?  From international law, almost certainly.  From a US legal perspective, damned if I know as the war powers stuff is contested.  Both Republicans and Democrats have used force without congressional authorization.  Plus it might not be that hard for Trump to get his lackeys in Congress to sign off. 
• Would shooting at protestors be illegal?  Probably....
• How about lawful but awful?  That is, what should the military do if the president wants them to do something that would be really bad but would be legal.  
• Again, invading Canada comes to mind.  Always fun to be talking about such stuff at an event organized by the government of Canada (yes, I do love my academic freedom, good thing I don't teach at Columbia University).  One could imagine the military telling the President that this is a very bad idea.  But then he has the right to be wrong (although that norm is not as well understood or supported as civ-mil folks would like).  So, my best guess is that the US military would slow roll: hey, Mr. President, we need a plan.  Six months later, hey, Mr. President, we need to get a lot of snow tires....
• And then this might be the kind of order that some obey and some don't, which can lead to fighting within the US military.
• Or it could be the military simply refuses to fight, staying in their barracks. There are non-coup options.  
  
•  Avoid being co-opted.   Don't appear in Lafayette Square with the President after protestors are forcefully expelled, for instance.  Make statements before elections that the military has no role--of course, that can be seen as partisan in politicized times.
• Align with the opposition?  Not by fighting alongside but by endorsing.  Oh my.  Possible but would probably damage the military for a generation or two. 

To be clear, there are real limits on what the armed forces can do.  They can't create or reinforce political norms on their own.  Military leaders have no expertise when it comes to domestic politics--Milley demonstrated that in a big way.  

These choices, the politicization of the armed forces, can break a military.  Promotion may not be viewed as a merit thing but about fealty to a person. The new Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, plucked from retirement, will be seen as unqualified and chosen solely because he is MAGA-ish.  The irony here is clear--that these folks complain about DEI but they appoint an unqualified and disqualified SecDef and now Chairman.  Anyhow, if asked to do something truly awful like shooting at protestors or invading Canada (invading Mexico would be bad too but may not be as divisive), the military may break apart.  

Ultimately, the challenge here is that acting disobediently to save democracy can erode democracy.  To be fair to Milley, he faced awful choices.  Ones he shouldn't have had to face--most of the responsibility for the politicization of the US armed forces is on the civilians.  And the same is true in South Korea and other places.

We received a lot of good questions from the sharp Hertie students, other attendees, and moderator Julian Wucherpfennig. Preparing for the event made me think, and I am grateful to Christoph Harig, David Kuehn, and Risa Brooks for helping me get a bit smarter on this part of civ-mil.  And then the presentation by Ina and the Q&A pushed me to think harder.   I got into this business because I like being pushed to think about important, interesting stuff.  I just wish it was not so damned relevant these days.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pop Quiz: Dystopia Edition

 Oy, things are getting dark fast.  So, yeah, ICE and DHS and other actors are trying to make the US as unpleasant as possible for foreign folks.  So much so that they pulled apart a Canadian sister act and asked each, do you prefer the US or Canada?  If I were asked, of course, I would have to be a good academic and say: it depends.  Given my dual nationalism, of course, I have some ambivalence, as each country has good and bad things.  To preview, I am not moving to the US anytime soon, so that's a hint, but let's borrow from every sitcom including a classic Friends, and list each side's advantages or disadvantages:

US

• Bagels. Yeah, 20 plus years in Canada and ten in Montreal and I am still firmly against eating smokey bricks covered in lousy seeds.
• Milk containers. Another old argument here. 
• Dairy prices.  Oh, the dairy cartel in Canada means that milk, eggs, and butter are very expensive.
• Football.  It is no contest--Canadian football just looks silly.
• Private grant money.  Heaps of foundations.
• Abundant think tanks--lots of entities generating ideas
• Chinese food.  I guess one likes what one grows up with, but I just like the Chinese food in the US better--the wonton soup is better, the fried stuff is better.
• Summer.  Hot, sure, but I had so many great summers growing up.
• Trader Joes 
• Mexican food

 Canada

• Democratic governance.  The court, while still a political actor, is not one that makes batshit crazy stuff up.  The elections are not gamed by parties, but run by non-partisan actors.  No concerns about gerry-mandering or voter suppression.
• Egg prices... for now.  That the US is gutting all public health stuff means a lousy avian flu response, among other things.  
• Better pandemic response--mostly.  Canadians did very well on the first round of vaccines, with not so great on the latter rounds.
• Government grant money--far more money for the social sciences.  Tis been bery bery good to me.
• Ultimate.  I had fun ultimate in the US, but the city leagues in Montreal and Ottawa were great to me.
• Skiing. Whistler and Lake Louise are special.  If I had more Colorado experiences, this might be a tie. 
• Winter.  Long and cold, but heaps of snow for the aforementioned skiing.
• Legal status of LGBTQ+.  The Canadian Conservatives are doing the same transphobic shit, but are less likely to be successful. 
• Few think tanks.  More is better, but few means that the government reaches out to academics and that has been mighty good to me.

 Tied

•  Costco!
• Treatment of Indigenous people.  Genocidal in both, better now but that is just because the bar is super low.
•  Senates.  Both Senates suck but for different reasons.  Canada's is unelected so it has less power/legitimacy, but the US's is, well, an obstacle to progress.
• Governors/premiers.  Those right wing folks governing federal units suck mightily in both countries.  Danielle Smith and Doug Ford give Abbott and Desantis a run for their money. 

 

So, what do I prefer?  The hint is at the top--I am not moving back to the US--I will eventually be retiring in Ottawa.  When I first moved to Canada, I thought I would eventually return to the US.  Not any more.  My friends are concentrated in Ottawa, I enjoy living here.  The people have been great to me and my family.  It, alas, is no longer about the best ultimate communities.  And, yes, I can't imagine living in the autocratic hellscape that the US is rapidly becoming.  Way too many Americans have chosen Trump three times now.  The first time, one could blame party id and the idea that he might not do so much bad stuff.  Sicne then, WTF America? More Americans don't support him or the party of bad faith, but way too many do.  Ewwwww.

Not sure this is what I would tell some border person, but this is where I stand these days--in a sea of maple, wary of the beavers and the angry geese.

NATO Is Dead, Long Live NATO? Canada Needs a Plan B

 When historians look backwards, February 2025 will mark the rupture of US-European relations.  Vice President J.D. Vance’s speech at the Munich Security Conference, an affront to all Europeans except the far right, was sandwiched by Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s statement that the US would no longer be the primary guarantor of European security and President Donald Trump’s negotiating away all of Ukraine’s bargaining chips with no Europeans present.  The future of NATO is bleak, as the alliance relied on the US security guarantee, and that no longer seems to be in place.  The next German Chancellor, Friedrich Merz, has started conversations about adapting to the end of the US security guarantee by perhaps tying Germany to France’s nuclear deterrent.  The question then is: where does Canada fit as NATO either disappears or becomes something else entirely?   Canada actually has a vote on this and a role—the transatlantic link, the North Atlantic in NATO’s name—can be fastened on this side to Canadian territory instead of American.  While others have focused on investing more in Canada’s military or leveraging its oil, my argument here focuses on a diplomatic strategy. 

What is the threat to Canada?  To be clear, while the potential alliance of US and Russia is most alarming, the most likely threat to Canada and its sovereignty is not an American invasion but yet more economic coercion.  To deal with that, Canada needs help.  Another target of Trump’s territorial ambition, Greenland, has produced an alliance within the alliance—Denmark has gained the support of the other Nordic countries and the Baltics via intense diplomacy.  Canada should exert as much diplomatic effort as it can to get the European members of NATO do something similar—to agree that any further economic warfare directed at Canada by Trump would be met with economic sanctions by as much of the European Union as we can line up.

 There is a natural trade to be made between Canada and Europe. Maintaining a Canadian presence in Latvia and a Canadian mission at NATO helps to keep the alliance going.  It is still a North Atlantic Treaty Organization as long as there is at least one North American member.  The Europeans are already finding challenges in finding a replacement, perhaps predictably so.  Ireland’s neutrality seems to be getting in the way of turning the European Union’s security efforts into a European military.  So, the best shot Europe will have at a unified military effort is through the old machinery at Brussels and the various NATO sub-headquarters throughout the continent.  International relations scholarship asserts that it is far easier to adapt old institutions than develop new ones, which means building on the broken foundations of NATO than creating a new organization.  Canada, as a founding member, gives any post-US NATO legitimacy and a way out for European leaders who are frustrated with efforts to build an EU security organization.

As some have told the Europeans, Canada is the canary in the coal mine.  If Trump engages in a trade war with Canada, Europe is surely next.  Right now, Europe is defending its security by supporting Ukraine.  We need to convince the Europeans that supporting Canada now in these trade wars is the equivalent—better to support Canada’s trade fight now than to have to fight the US directly.

 We are still stuck in the transition as many actors are not quite willing to publicly hedge against the United States.  However, the effort by Trump to push Ukrainian President Zelensky into an awful deal—submit to the Russians and give up 50% of the country’s mineral rights—is teaching European leaders that playing the pandering, transactional strategy to survive Trump 2.0 will not work.  It is time to figure out how to realign our international institutions without the Untted States, it is time for Canada to find like-minded countries to come together to support each other in the fight ahead.  These past few weeks should make it clear to all that the break with the US is coming and coming quickly.

 So, the words of an American founder, Benjamin Franklin, apply now: “We must, indeed, all hang together or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately.”

Serious Sweden

 I have spent the past week in Sweden as part of the Phil/Steve/Ora project seeking to understand the dynamics between defense agencies (departments/ministries of defense) and militaries in democracies around the world.  I was here in Stockholm last summer for the ERGOMAS meeting, but this trip was more like my visit to Finland last April.  One big difference, besides the weather being far more pleasant, was that I had a very well-wired reservist senior officer act as my fixer.  As a result, I met with a couple of former Ministers of Defence, a recent Supreme Commander (what they call their chief of defense), and several other high level current and former officials.  So, I got what I needed.

Another big difference is, well, the Trumpness of it all.  My fixer kept asking me to give a Canadian perspective on the state of things.  Most hadn't quite realized how serious Canadians are taking the 51st state craziness.  Once I put it into the context of how everyone around here lined up with Denmark over Trump's Greenland threats, they got it.  I did interview a Saab rep as he had previously been in defense, and I suggested that they might still have a chance to sell the Gripen to Canada as it will become very difficult politically for any Canadian leader to ship billions of dollars to the US to buy a plane when the US is increasingly becoming an adversary.

The Swedes understand that Article V of the NATO Treaty, an attack upon one is equal to an attack upon all, is either dead or in a coma while Trump is president.  They get it.  Some suggested that they need to invest more in bilateral ties since the multilateral effort may not work out so well.  

Sweden is serious about this stuff.  During my first day of interviewing, we were interrupted by a regular alarm--every Monday apparently--that, if any other time, would signal an attack (presumably Russian).  The Swedes had been cutting their military for decades and organized it around expeditionary operations (Balkans, Afghanistan, etc), and since 2014, the budget went the other way.  Sweden is now at 2.4% defense spending/gdp and is headed towards 3%.  They went from not having any planes flying on holidays to putting a regiment on Gotland.  They stopped conscription in 2010, and then restarted it, now with women being drafted as well as men.  It is not the full out conscription of the distant past--they only take 10% or so of each cohort.  The struggle is developing enough capacity to train more and more people.

There is much discussion of Total Defence--civil defence, mobilization for war, and all that.  I have been asked by the Canadian media should we do the same.  I scoffed as (a) the old civil defence people are nostalgic about involved bomb shelters that would not shelter folks from nukes, (b) the Russian military threat to Canada is inflated.  The conversation has, of course, turned to civil defence against... US attacks. And again, I am not sure if the expense is worth it.  I am still pretty convinced that the conflict between Canada and US is political and economic and not military.  And I also think that Trump might risk munity (military refusing orders, not a coup) if he tries to use force against Canada.  I think shooting protestors and attacking Canada are far likely to get more resistance than, say, grabbing Panama.

One thing that did rub me a bit the wrong way--lots of references to World War II as if they had taken a side.....  Very strange.

Anyhow, I got a lot out of this week, including freaking out some Swedes about Trump.  I didn't do much tourism as I spent most days interviewing folks, and I had seen stuff last summer.  I did go to a couple of medival kind of restaurants because I needed some silliness.  

Back to Berlin for some interviews there plus a roundtable on whether militaries can help stop democratic backsliding. I am going to have to postpone my plans to do this research later this month in Poland--I don't have my act together.  So, I will probably travel in western Germany to interview a general and see a part of the country I haven't seen thus far.  Much more work to do on this project, and I am lucky that folks are willing to talk about this stuff.  More interesting conversations ahead.

 

Zo Much Skiing: Does It Materhorn?

Zermatt is a pretty small town, not a city.
The restaurants fill up. Far more crowds
here than on the lift lines.

 I am taking advantage of my three months in Europe by taking many forms of transportation to get to Zermatt, which has, yes, many forms of transportation to get one to the top of the various peaks: big gondola, small gondola, chair lifts of varying sizes, funiculars (can't spell it without fun), and a ski train.  

 This place is massive as it comes three different mountains with the weather-affected ability to ski over to Italy and Cervinia.  My ski days have not been that long as I get worn out pretty quickly, but wow, this place is amazing.  Last year, I skied Zurs and Lech and related areas, and that seemed big and extensive.  This place has way more height and breadth--something like 50 lifts across the two countries.  

Mid mountain cafe/restaurant for
a much needed breather and
hot chocolate.

Like last year, they haven't gotten a ton of snow lately,
but there is more softer stuff here than last year at Zurs.  Still, lots of hardpack, some ice, which makes the steep stuff a bit more daunting, and invokes the old skills I learned in the mountains of Pennsylvania--how to use one's edges to ski on ice.  Over the course of the week, the conditions improved and I got better at avoiding the iciest areas, so I strained my legs less and lasted longer each day.

I was eager to get over to the Italian side on my first day because weather often interrupts that connection, and my basic skiing desire is to ski as much of a place as I can--a FOMO on skis, if you will.  I got to the gondola early--first one, and as I remarked to a bunch of Americans who were behind me, best to wait 30 minutes in the front of the line than 30 minutes in the back of the line.  It took about 40 minutes to get to the top, and required not just the gondola stopping several times at stops along the way, but another, much bigger gondola to get to the very top.  So high that the Materhorn was mostly next to rather than above us. 

The view of Italy from the top of Cervinia's slopes

Then I skied in Italy's direction--the pass I bought covers both sides.  One of my fears every first day anywhere is whether my pass has been processed ok or not, but I got through without a problem.  I then decided to go to the very end.  The village of Valtournenche is at the end of the longest run in the world apparently 22km.  And it felt like it--the skiing itself was not too challenging--all red runs (intermediate) with just a pretty steep icy bit to start the descent.  The signage was pretty good, although I wish I had gotten prescription inserts for my goggles so that I could see the numbers more clearly--each trail has a number that is posted, while the names are only on the maps.  It was a pretty bright, clear day as I kept going and going.  It took me about an hour, with many stops along the way to catch a breath and apologize to my thighs and my feet.  In many spots, I could get a good rhythm, in some I was mostly turning and sliding to avoid going too fast down a narrow traverse.  Again, not enough fresh snow in some parts. Once I got down, I then had to take a series of lifts--gondolas and chairs to get back up far enough that I could then ski to the other village--Cervinia.  My original intent for this trip was to stay there and then occasionally ski into Zermatt, as Cervinia has great intermediate runs and lot of them and lots of good food.  But I couldn't find an affordable place that was convenient to the slopes.

So many restaurants and cafes all over these mountains.  So, I stopped off at one near a lift on the Italian side and had a monster slice of pizza--it was thick and wide and pretty tasty.  I took my time as I was pretty tired.  When I ski Whistler or Lake Louise, I tend not to go top-to-bottom, usually just skiing part of the mountain.  So, two top-to-bottom runs took a lot out of me.  Just amazing views and some fun terrain along the way.  I then grabbed a series of lifts to get me back to Switzerland (I ended up paying an extra day of roaming since my phone was in Italy and Switzerland).  I then started skiing down the Matterhorn Glacier Paradise--well named as it is indeed a glacier and is a skier's paradise.  It was here where I made my only mistake--I ended up at the wrong lift, so I had to go up a small one (next to a nice slalom run that tempted me, but I was too tired--but I did that my last day, see below), and then took the gondola back to the bottom.  I was just too tired to ski out.   

Ski train at the top of Gornergrat,
a working observatory is at the peak

Wow, that was long.  Well, I will be faster about days 2-4.  Day two started with the ski train--yes, a train that exists to go up to the top of Gornegrat, which is the middle peak on the Zermatt side.   There were good runs that took me halfway down and then I wanted to check out the next peak over--Rothorn.  It was a long run, mostly fun, a bit of annoying narrow traverses.  But I was glad to do it, as Rothorn has some of the best cruisers.  Also, I found a great restaurant/bar along the way that had great hot chocolate and a sweet dog awaiting guests.  Skiing out at the end was fun.  The weather that day and the next closed the border with Italy (the lifts more than the border).  We didn't get as much snow as I had hoped.  

That night, I couldn't get into my first choice restaurant, so I went to a Swiss place.  The guys next to me were speaking English, and then when I heard "Trudeau," I realized they are Canadians. Turns out they are based in Manotick, the town next to my suburb, the one I go biking through for bice cream.  I kept bumping into these guys--once the third day on the furnicular and once on the fourth day at the gondola station on the Matterhorn glaciar.  Similar bumpings happened with a Canadian I met this morning who ended up at the same restaurant for lunch on the Italian side and with some young French women who were on the gondola this morning and then at the
same bar on the run out at the end of the day.  Zermatt is both big and small?  Oh, I bumped into the Americans who waited with me on day 1 at the gondola before it opened at a cafeteria in the middle of Gornergrat on day 2.

Day three was the reverse of day two--I started on Rothorn and then went to Gornergrat.  I just liked the runs at the top of Rothorm so much.  I explored more of the middle including finding a village I skied through.  I also found a restaurant that had its own trail to access it that had some great hot chocolate and a wonderful apricot strudel.  I always get apple, but the waitress said this was fresh out of the oven, and she earned her tip with that great advice.  My trip down Gornergrat was interrupted by a helicopter than landed on the trail right after I passed that spot. Not sure what happened there.  But the way down to the bottom after that was pretty sweet.  It was my first of two times going down the run out from the first gondola stop up the mountain past a bunch of bars.

The Matterhorn went from
brown to white due to
some fresh snow. 

 

 

 

 

 

My last day was a repeat of the first except I did more of the Swiss side before going over to the Italian side, and I didn't ski forever on the Italian side. I went with purpose--for a great Italian lunch under the Materhorn.  And I also got to try some trails on the right side of the mountain (as one looks down from the top), having done the left and the center on Monday.  I got lucky as the border is often closed due to weather.  It was closed Tuesday and Wednesday, but not Monday or Thursday.  Just provides so much more terrain, different light angles, and space.  For most of the four days, on most trails, I often felt alone.  Not as much this last day, but still plenty of times I didn't have to worry about traffic. I have become Thoreau-ian--choosing the path less traveled.

 

 

 

Random observations along the way:

• What is it with Sweet Caroline?  Last year at Lech, the gondola played it and folks sang along.  This week, on a couple of different gondolas, it was played, and people sang along.
• I mentioned above that the slopes were not that crowded (except when a huge gondola disgorges many people--then I just took pics and waited).  The mountains and the 50 plus lifts absorb a lot of people.  The worst liftline was about 20 minutes, and that happened once.  I rarely had to wait.  But the town of Zermatt is small, so walking into a restaurant and getting seated is a gamble.  I didn't make many reservations, and I ended up having to go with second choices.  Which worked out fine, meeting Canadians who live near me.  The restaurants on the slopes--very different--no problems there.  

  

  Last day, I induldged
  at one of the bars that
  line the runout.

• Oh, no need for passport to cross from Switzerland (a non-EU country) into Italy.  And, no, I didn't go through customs at the airport--Switzerland isn't in the EU but it is a Schengen country.  Makes all of this much easier.
• Strange to go skiing and not hear any Aussie accents.  I heard a lot of French, German, and Italian, and everyone could speak English, but no Aussie accented English.  
• The Trump stuff came up from time to time--no fans here.  Just Europeans marveling at how crazy things are.
• 
  People often say that American serving sizes are big, but I have to say I was most impressed with the sizes of the dishes I ordered, including this slice of pizza which was about two inches think and about the size of my head 
  
  
  
  

 Oh, and I finally grabbed the chance to do a race course--a short one--and it had automatic video!!!