
The World Economic Forum takes place in Davos, Switzerland, a snowy ski town carved into the Alps.
So after a week of trudging through a few feet of snow back and forth to the conference and staring longingly at the mountains, I finally got my chance to ski.
On Saturday, Reuters sponsored an event for a few hundred WEF-goers to ski or snowboard for the day at Parsenn, a local resort.
Business Insider’s executive editor Jay Yarow and I got to Ettinger Sport, the the ski rental place in Davos, at 9:3o AM. We got suited up and hit the lifts.
Here’s what it’s like to ski the Swiss Alps.
Reuters sponsored a skiing event at Davos and asked everyone to meet at Ettinger Sport Shop at 9:30 AM. The Reuters staffed greeted us, gave us wristbands and our lift passes (normally about $77 for the day), and the journey began.

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For a gift, Reuters gave each skier a new pair of gloves, goggles, sunscreen, chap stick, hand and toe warmers, along with an Amazon Fire tablet.

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Here I am all decked out. I rented the jacket, snow pants and helmet on Reuters. Basically the only thing I'm wearing that I brought with me are the neck warmer, ear band and t-shirt.

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Here's a map of the resort, Parsenn. Reuters had ski instructors ready for all of us, so Jay and I found one and headed for the mountain.

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Our instructor led us to a train, which was right next door to the ski shop. You ride a train or two up the mountain to start your first run, rather than a Gondola or a ski lift.

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The first few runs were just like this. Not really visible and a little icy because it was windy, and the wind was blowing away all the fresh powder.

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I got to the top, but Jay lost his balance and fell off the T bar mid ride. He had to walk all the way back to the beginning and board the T bar all over again while I waited at the top.

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We did one or two more runs before lunch, and the conditions weren't much better. I was beginning to think the Alps were just meh, and not anything special compared to skiing out west in the US. But things got a lot better after lunch.

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Our table included CEOs and executives. Google's chairman Eric Schmidt was at a table in the back of the room, enjoying his Reuters lunch.

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The Rosti was awesome. Everyone at our table ordered it. It's a Switzerland special -- a potato patty with cheese, meat and eggs. Nom nom nom!

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With the conditions being meh, Jay and I asked our Reuters-provided guide, Caroline, to show us how to ski down the mountain.

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Here's Caroline on the right. She's been skiing since she was 2, and it will cost you $400 per day if you want to rent her out as an instructor. She lives in Davos during the winter and Zurich during the summer.

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But the sky began to clear and with the Rosti in our bellies, Jay and I decided to stop being lame and asked Caroline to show us some more runs instead of take us home.

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With the sun out, we ended up having awesome skiing conditions. The wind died down and we found lots of powder. A run from the top to the bottom of the mountains took about 30 minutes.

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The resort was a true ski-in, ski out situation. Here I am skiing straight into the town. We stayed out skiing with Caroline until 4 PM.

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Here's Jay skiing in, not far behind. So, what's the key takeaway here? I've been lucky enough to ski a bunch of places out west in the US and Canada -- Whistler, Lake Tahoe, Keystone and Park City. When the whiteout cleared, the Davos/Alps skiing was right up there with the best of those resorts -- arguably even better -- with unmatched views and piles of powder.

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