Euro TR: Strong Men Also Cry

[JoeStrummer]

Sometimes a trip begins with great promise, with a variety of cured meats, cheeses from an assortment of hooved mammals, liberal applications of sunblock, drinking chilled cans filled with centuries of monkish wisdom . . .


In between ordering endless servings of beer and hitting on flat-chested Scandi girls, it's possible you might succor in the mountain cathedral, standing in the footsteps of Bonatti and Terray and Rebuffat and the other giants of alpinism who have gone before you. . .


After awhile perhaps it comes to seem like it will always be this way, that you will spend your days tucked in God's own shirt-pocket. Occasionally, of course, you will have to wait for the next bin with a horde of mouth-breathers and window-lickers who could never appreciate the mountains as profoundly and deeply as you and your hand-picked crew of shaman-friends!


Soon enough you can leave the clueless assholes far behind, peeling your skins to boot yet another 4000 meter peak in search of perfect corn. Some are born to die at birth in a Mumbai garbage dump and some are born to agonize over the weight and shape of carbon skis and gaps in their quiver. Is it your fault you're beautiful?


Sometimes, however, it all goes to shit and you find yourself lying in a white-out at the edge of a crevasse on some blind glacier with darkness approaching, raging at your Sherpa for abandoning you. Afterall, you gave that bastard an entire knock-off Armani Exchange gym bag filled with rupees. Those rupees were to make sure your soft ass got short-roped to the top. The wind howls and in your delirium you wonder if perhaps he has returned with a thermos of hot chai? Nah, that's just the temporary warmth from your bladder as its contents start to fill your softshell pants. Or maybe you never even had a Sherpa. Afterall, you're in fucking Switzerland!



*****Place-holder for a largely skiing-free TR******

[Loon]

Just wanted to be the first to post in this soon to be epic thread

[Arno]

more cheese and meat please

[CookieMonster]

Dear Mr. Joe Strummer:

You write brilliantly.

Best,

CookieMonster

[neck beard]

I have no idea where this place is, but if you can't get to the top without a Sherpa you shouldn't be there!!

And I go to bed happy knowing that tomorrow I will read the rest of your sorry tale.

Thanks for the sausage photo.

I have the same pack as you.

Nice skis.

[leroy jenkins]

Eagerly awaiting.

Are scandi girls really flat chested? Never been but Linda (pronounced leeeenda) the swedish au pair I knew had very perky mammaries the size of my head. Probably the best I've ever fondled. Ever since I have wanted to believe scandinavia was full of such treasures. Puss och krom the giant titties my friend.

[Tunco]

I'm waiting for Brandt to fill in the details.

[Cruiser]

Any TR that begins with a plate of cured meats and aged cheeses is bound to be a good one! Well played Strummer...

[userA]

cry all you want but i do not feel sorry for you yet

[TWINS]

Crying for my Sherpa.........."priceless"
Waiting for some pics of the flat chested Scandi girls please.

[buckethead]

SHERPA!


SHERPA!!


SHERPA?


taking a seat here...this looks to be good.

[hutash]

Is the rising falsetto when calling your Sherpa an aid to cut through the rising gloom and desperation?

Well done, looking forward to more, and flat chested Scandi girls.

[Meathelmet]

Flat chested scandi girls?? Dude, that was Jon Olsson you were hitting on...

[f2f]

stellar!

[JoeStrummer]

Might be a day or so until I can get around to continuing this worthless narrative. In the meantime, content yourselves with this short film of an old Austrian woman optimistically shoveling off the sun patio of her hut.

And no, I did not put down my camera to help her shovel.



In retrospect, I only have 1 main regret from my most recent trip to Europe, even though it was filled with defeats and retreats. I could not break 3 million on the AC-DC pinball machine across from the train station in Evian-des-Bains. Not entirely my fault, since the thing was touchy and would TILT with the brush of a feather. Even French pinball games can't take a fucking punch!



Also, I know it's fashionable to prefer European ski areas to the US because of the lack of "rules." From Coombs to Plake, everyone seeks to go someplace where they can take responsibility for their own actions and are free to pursue their passions without interference from "the Man." Skiing the way it used to be. Skiing the way it ought to be.

Well, I have been puking and fucking in Vail toilets for years now and have NEVER seen a sign expressly forbidding me from following my bliss! Maybe Europe isn't so "free" after all!

[powdork]

^^classic. perhaps that is just meant to prevent bovine sex in the bathrooms

[garyfromterrace]

Great vids Mr. Strummer!

Sherpa???? = pure gold

[Imz]

I find this quite humorous... Sherpaaa???

[PassTheDutchie]

FKNA, even pinball is expensive in Euroland.

[Danno]

pics of Scandi women please. for scientific evaluation purposes.

[JoeStrummer]

No matter the snow conditions or the exchange rate, I can always convince myself to go set fire to francs and euros for a few weeks in the spring. This year, with the EuroZone about to economically collapse under the weight of a decade of bad bets and Colorado's snowpack about three grades below "utter digshit" it was even easy to convince a few other folks.

JoeStrummer. . .


Mike T. . .


We decided to warm up with a few days in Chamonix, since Mike had never been there before and I always like to be there when people get "Chamified." Say what you want about the hordes of drunken dimwitted Brits and the increasing pressure on the classic lines but where else can you drink a tall boy on Edward Whymper's grave in the morning and toast two centuries of dead heroes before skiing 9000 feet of vertical supplemented with pastries in the afternoon?

Mike T stepping out of the tunnel of the Midi. . .


Unfortunately for us, it was 65 degrees in town and had not snowed for 3 weeks. So we skied crust in the mornings and slush in the afternoon. At night we played blackjack in the casino, where we won some $$$ but always seemed to be one over-exuberant outburst away from being banned.

Chamonix is extreme. . .


. . . and one must prepare for it the way one prepares to make love to a beautiful woman. Apparently, this takes the form of a regimen of various lunges and squats. . .


Most of my training was after arrival, and slightly less strenuous. . .


Eventually, after crushing a few classic descents (i.e. waking late with hangovers and fumbling for easily accessible things to do) we decided to meet the rest of the posse elsewhere in Europe. But where? Where was one location we were all familiar with, a rallying point we could all find in our sleep? Oh yeah, there was one place . . .


Onward to Switzerland, a place I always go with some ambivalence. France is the sexy and elegant wife of an industrialist who lets you backdoor her with your ring-finger in the pantry at the dinner party while her husband holds court in the dining room discussing cigars. And she assures you he doesn't really care because his cock doesn't even work anymore but that doesn't mean you want everyone knowing you're in her up to your third knuckle.

Austria is the reliable old high school girlfriend with Daddy Issues that you used to play to your advantage. Not a stunning beauty but sturdy and attractive enough, and willing to blow you in her Toyota Celica even though she's living with a dude who is deployed in the Korengal Valley and still won't admit she took your fucking Smithereens records. But Switzerland?

Switzerland is a cool and imperturbable beauty that you spend your whole paycheck trying to impress and are repaid with a dry chaste kiss on the cheek and an invitation to coffee with a bunch of her asshole, ipad clutching friends. Despite being given few encouraging signs, you somehow manage to convince yourself she is in love with you and will leave that Swiss Uncle Rico-like terminal grad student she is apparently on/off dating. She won't unbolt her knees for you, yet she's willing to give you life advice, like telling you that all the pornography you watch is turning you into a different person, someone she barely knows. And you tell her to shut her dirty whore mouth before you choke her with a pair of jumper cables! Finally it dawns on you that this frosty princess could see you at the bottom of a well filled with pit vipers infected with ebola and not drop you a fucking rope because that would make her late for her train to work. Yet you still hope she calls you.

Wait, where was I? Oh right, the sex shop! Where we met up with globetrotter extraordinare Telelebowski. . .


and retired TGR forumite arg. . .


And up the Jungfrau railroad we went, a marvel to backbreaking manual labor. . .


Over 200 men were killed in its construction just so we could come up and purchase over-priced baguette sandwiches and shoplift postcards.


Also, enjoy some views. Mike in crampons for the first time ever (don't snag a pant-leg!). . .


Telelebowski and arg headed up. . .


About this time, sweating up the hike and cursing the shorty vents on my pants that I think I made some off-hand comment like, "Jesus, all this sunshine is getting to be a bit much. I could use with a bit of cloud cover."

And the Gods heard. . .


But really, fuck the Gods. I mean, what could they do to us?

[f2f]

this just went to 11!

[StuntCok]

Hall of Fame material for the writing alone

[klar]

very spot on description of switzerland. disrespectful sex shop owners clearly not swiss.

[lynchdogger]

pure gold here . . . waiting for more.