Skiing is Never Enough...
The highlight of our week of ski hands down was the Snow-Balancer adventure on the second-to-last night we were in Zermatt. Our group spent the better part of many months our time leading up to this trip trying to determine what exactly the Snow-Balancer would be...most of us figured it would be some sort of toboggan or 3-legged device, but everyone pretty much concluded that it would resemble a sled more than anything. So when the big day arrived we were greeted at the hotel by the hotel's owner who would be taking us on our adventure (along with her husband) and our Snow-Balancers. 
We were all a bit surprised to find out that the Snow-Balancer is basically a seat attached to a ski with a shock absorber mounted between the ski and the seat (and by seat I mean a piece of durable plastic with two holes strategically placed to hold your bum still while you rocketed down the mountain).
Wrong!! Our adventure began at 2939 m (9642 ft...almost 2 miles) and finished at 1620 m (5314...just over one mile), meaning we rode this thing vertically for eight-tenths of a mile (the actual length of the course is still being calculated by my independent auditing firm). The basic principle is to sit on the balancer, balance on the ski, and hold on tight as you attempt to turn your torso enough to carve gentle S-curves while hurling down the mountain. The more you leaned back the easier it was to control, but this lifted your feet further off the ground which may present a problem if you needed to quickly stop as your feet were the only brakes.
For a somewhat poor comparison, imagine being on inline skates going down a big hill and you suddenly find yourself in grass...if this has ever occurred to you than you know that if you fail to start running (in spite of the wheels on your feet) you will fall flat on your face as the grass prevents your wheels from doing their job. This principle is very similar with the balancer as the second your feet hit the ground you either need to stand up and start running, or be prepared for white-out conditions in your face as you have just turned into a snow plow without windshield wipers. I think I managed a few times to either impersonate Superman or a snowball sliding not-so-gracefully down a steep hill. Alli had no problems but somehow she wound up with lots of bruising on her legs (definitely not from falling on top of the snow-balancer).
In spite of the apparent danger of this activity (we even signed a waiver in German, I am sure that regardless of what happened we still had some legal recourse...Ich spreche kein Deutsch) we had a great time. I for one couldn't stop giggling every time I launched off a mogul and managed to stick the landing like Mary Lou Retton (although the German judges didn't give me a good score). In spite of my being unable to sit normally for the next few days, I would do it again if I had the chance. The only negative was as the event progressed I noticed a damp chill on my posterior that I soon discovered was caused by me leaving my back pockets on my snow pants open, allowing all of the snow encountered on my various slides down the mountain to enter my pants where it immediately melted. 
Hence, we have this picture from our dinner (which we consumed at the midpoint of our journey...cheese fondue and air-dried meats, delicious!!) of me trying to dry out my assets. As far as I could tell, everyone had a great time and found it much easier to balance on the contraption after their tummies were filled with cheese and wine (not to mention the fact that it was pitch black and we had lights attached to our heads so we could see our way down in the dark).
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