The payoff: good snow, long descents, little avalanche danger and what is increasingly hard to find anywhere, a lack of other skiers seeking all those things. At least a paradise for skiers who are willing to climb for their turns using lightweight alpine ski touring equipment and synthetic climbing “skins” that attach to skis’ bases and grip the snow for the way up. Instead, what he discovered was a skier’s paradise. He thought his island home might offer a bit of practice in preparation for skiing elsewhere. Steiakakis was in his 20s at the time and had skied little up until that point, just a few days on the Greek mainland, which has a long history of skiing, with mountains that rise to more than 9,000 feet, and many ski areas - 25, to be precise. For its role as a rebel stronghold, Anogia, a gateway to good skiing, was burned and razed three times in the past 200 years, its villagers massacred. The tough reputation is earned in part from their stubborn and wily resistance to centuries of occupation by the Ottomans and, later, Nazi Germany. Steiakakis’ home in Heraklion to the base of the island’s highest summit, Psiloritis, winds through a handful of villages where sheep farmers and marijuana growers (some of Europe’s most prized weed is grown on Crete) have long protected their turf with a reputation for making outsiders - even coastal Cretans from just a few miles away - feel unwelcome. “He told me I was crazy, I was asking to be killed,” Mr. The mountains of Crete are both the birthplace and burial ground of the greatest god of Greek antiquity, Zeus, and the island’s three ranges are speckled with ruins, shrines, chapels and the cave lairs of Greek mythological figures. In winter, the snow is often meters deep. In summer, the rocky valleys, ravines and summits form vast, blazing hot deserts. Skiing on Crete may be little known, but local reverence and respect for the mountains runs deep. “The best spring skiing experience anywhere.” “That’s where I want to be in March,” he told me. Then, a decade ago, he “discovered” Crete and he’s been guiding skiers from the ancient Cretan harbor town of Chania in the spring on and off ever since. Guiding well-to-do ski clients on ski-touring “safaris,” he was among the early ski pioneers in Iceland, the fjords of Norway, Lebanon, Japan, Turkey and Kashmir. A ski oracle, he has devoted his guiding career to sleuthing out the world’s most interesting and worthwhile ski destinations. Falkiner is something of an expert in this realm.
#SPRING DAYS OF MY LIFE PROFESSIONAL#
and Jace.īrignac announced his retirement from professional baseball in July 2018, following stints with the Rays, Rockies, Yankees, Phillies, Marlins and Braves.“Crete is unlike any place I’ve skied,” the Verbier, Switzerland-based mountaineer and ski guide, John Falkiner, said when I asked him about it. Anderson and Brignac have two sons, Reid Jr. The situation didn’t simmer the couple’s chemistry, as they eventually tied the knot in 2010. Getty Images Reid Brignac played for the Yankees in 2013. Reid Brignac saved then-girlfriend Lauren Anderson’s life during a visit to spring training. “Imagine him, he was this 23-year-old trying to make a name for himself in the big leagues… Then this Playboy Playmate comes in and dies in the shower,” she joked about her then-boyfriend. She said doctors later told her that her blood pressure “dropped dangerously low,” and confirmed she was not pregnant at the time.
My arms were numb for a few days after.”Īnderson said she thinks “it was only a couple minutes” before Brignac found her in the shower. “He had to come in and revive me, and him and his roommate Fernando Perez, who was his teammate on the Rays at spring training, they had to bring me back to life.
I wasn’t on drugs or nothing like that, I just had a lot of stress,” she said. “I’m in his shower and I just lost consciousness. “He saved my life, no joke,” she said during an appearance on “Carton & Roberts” on Friday.Īnderson and Brignac were dating at the time and she was visiting the infielder at spring training with the Rays - the team that selected him in the second round (45th overall) of the 2004 MLB Draft. Rob Gronkowski’s girlfriend isn’t buying his retirementįormer Playboy Playmate Lauren Anderson recalled a scary incident when her husband, ex-MLB player Reid Brignac, had to revive her while she visited him at spring training. ‘Oh s–t, they won it’: How Damian Lillard learned Blazers took Summer League title Zach Wilson’s mom slams ‘idiots’ after introducing ‘cute’ friend on Instagram Brooks Koepka’s model wife gives tantalizing peek at honeymoon
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