Meet Our Guest Writer "Only those who risk going too far can possibly find out how far they can go." Frank Mazer has lived, worked, loved, lusted, and played in many parts of the world aside from his native California. These include: Norway, Peru, Oregon coast, England (near London), Switzerland, Mississippi, Venezuela and Germany. He has also studied in Innsbruck, Austria. Throughout his journeys he has always kept a detailed journal. His sharp eye for observation and his keen wit combine with his knowledge of history, his joy for doing sports, and his pleasure in meeting people to bring about amusing, insightful and thought-provoking stories. Climbing "peaks" and tumbling into "valleys" have provided him with many life perspectives and lessons, as have his interactions with wonderful students and other people everywhere. He has had a love for writing ever since he first wrote a front page story about environmental protection for the UCLA Daily Bruin in 1968. He has been a teacher and coach since 1974, having coached numerous championship basketball teams, and finds his greatest joy in inspiring students to achieve more than they can imagine. He has also coached tennis, volleyball, and other sports, and has worked with professional basketball in England. He is currently writing and teaching in Europe and cherishes time with his family in the USA as often as possible.

y friend, Jean-Paul, is a snowboarding addict. He is an expert who spends 100 days a year on the slopes of the Alps. I am a pretty good skier who has spent about 20 days a year on the slopes for each of the past 30 years. My friend, however, sometimes becomes overly zealous and childlike in his approach to the slopes.

We are at Les Portes du Soleil in Switzerland, the largest ski resort in the world, according to Jean-Paul. Actually, it is many resorts all linked together. He is so eager to show me the grand dimensions of this place that he gets carried away. He has more faith in my expertise on the slopes than I do. Especially on day one of my current season back on the skis.

So he takes me from piste (ski run) to piste and quad lift to quad lift as we make our way across the mountains. I have no idea where we are or how to get back to the place at the bottom where the car is parked.

I look at the trail map. There are so many runs and symbols that it looks like the circuit board for the space shuttle. I stuff it back into my pocket. There is some good scenery to behold but nothing close to the spectacular scenery I have been swept away by at some other resorts in the Alps. We get to this nice ridge run with a good view and I am enjoying it. I am beginning to get my skiing legs back and feeling like I am ready for the next World Cup competition. It’s a great feeling. I am in the flow! I am gliding, I am...

Suddenly there he is, sitting on his snowboard off to my left, shouting frantically to me to stop and come onto this piste veering sharply to the left. I come over to him and point out that no one is going down this piste. He says this is a good reason to go there. I tell him it may mean the other people are smart. He insists he has been here before and we will have a grand time.

Down we go. Eight hundred meters and a right turn and I know we are in for serious zaniness. I am looking down a piste with not a soul on it. A seriously steep one. That is not the worry. There are moguls the size of tanks. Everywhere. As far as the eye can see for about a half mile. There is shade. Darkness. There is shining ice along the moguls. Everywhere. There are occasional rocks poking their heads through. There are numerous tops of tree branches reaching skyward a few feet out of the snow here and there. Can you say "In over your head?" Well, again, ours not to reason why. I tell myself there is no going back. Push to new barriers. Expand horizons. Be confident!

Confidence disappears in the first 30 meters of the descent. The moguls are bad enough, the ice makes them impossible. My friend Jean-Paul, expert snowboarder, is ahead of me and struggling mightily. I am lurching to and fro, reduced to trying to pick my way through as best I can. At first I am insane and confident and brave enough to think I can ski this. I zig and zag and attempt to look ahead for the future mogul turns. Problem is the ice and trees here and there have other plans.

I pick up too much speed as I get hurled downhill, lurching and leaping from mogul to valley to mogul to out of control to up on a mogul and scraping rock and spinning to a crash as my right ski gets caught on a branch and snags my right leg back uphill while my left leg is determined to attack downhill. Off comes the right ski and down I go on my back head first sliding down the steep slope. Sliding and sliding, remembering the rule of the slopes as it all happens in slow motion, to get my ski downhill and plant it to stop the slide. My fear is hitting the top of some rock sticking up. I slide onward. Then manage to slow and stop myself.

Jean-Paul is watching the spectacle from far down the valley, barely visible - a speck lying on his back where there is a brief leveling out about 800 meters distant. I look uphill. Lying on my back. My right ski is back up the hill, taunting me. Half of it sticks out over the top of a mogul about ten feet high. The sides of the mogul are chopped off like the sides of an ice cube. The ski sits there about 20 meters uphill from me. It marks the beginning of my backwards parade. It occurs to me that a task lies ahead of me. There is no one in sight coming down the hill to help. Few are dumb enough to attempt this piste.

I feel a growing rage at my friend who has reminded me that he often loses all sense of sanity and judgment when he gets on the slopes. I stand up. I look down at him, shaking my head. I begin to plant my left ski and my right boot and laboriously make my way inch by inch back up toward the taunting ski. My ski keeps slipping on the ice as I try to edge it on the steep slope. My boot has to be slammed into the ice and snow to gain any purchase. One step at a time I go toward the ski.

Twenty minutes later, and many deep breaths and bad words later, I am now standing beneath the ski. I cannot reach it. It sticks out above me about ten feet. Every effort to plant my foot and get up the side of the mogul has been defeated.

Here comes a skier from above. He is clearly an expert. Good enough to battle through the elements without defeat. He is kind enough to ski over, grin, reach down and hand me my ski. The look on his French face tells me he is thinking, "How stupid are you to be on this slope?"

Now I manage to overcome the struggle to get the ski back on my foot on the icy slope. 800 meters of treachery lie ahead before I get to the halfway mark down the slope. I determine to simply side slip slowly and cautiously rather than risk injury. This is easier thought than done.

Thirty minutes later, and many an out of control zoom from mogul to mogul, I am standing next to my friend. He is repeating these words, "Sorry, sorry, sorry, these conditions are terrible. Last time I was here it was different, sorry.” I appreciate his sentiment. My aching knees beg to offer him choice words. The thought we still must negotiate the rest of this piste humbles me into remaining silent.

Les Portes du Soleil is a large region of the Alps (Chablais Alps) encompassing thirteen resorts between Mont Blanc in France and Lake Geneva in Switzerland, popular for skiing, snowboarding and other winter sports. The region offers 650 km of marked pistes and about 201 lifts in total, spread over 14 valleys and about 400 square miles (1036 square km).

As with many other Alpine ski resorts, the lower slopes of the Portes du Soleil have their snow pack supplemented by snow-making canons to extend the ski-able season by keeping the lower slopes open during the warmer months.

A wide variety of accommodation for tourists exists in the Portes du Soleil region. From large ski-hotels to independently owned chalets, the wide variety of resorts offers something for all.