"You try?" Monsieur le Boucher asks, opening a bottle of Dôle—a red from Valais, the name for this part of southwestern Switzerland.

"Fruity, with a chalky nose," I say jokingly.

"Qu'est-ce que c'est—chaquénose?" demands the confounded Boucher.

"Bon!" I say. "Everything is bon!"

"Oui! Très bon!" he erupts, topping off my glass with wine in celebration of transatlantic understanding.

Party Boy rockets into sight and does his stunt thing. This time, my pork ingots and I sit in the back. The helicopter plunks us down at about 10,180 feet—at the top of the Unterrothorn, a peak above Zermatt. From there, we spend the afternoon skiing lift-accessed corn, eventually sliding down to the Germanophone Heidi Land of electric cars and pubs.

After a sound sleep at the Grand Hotel Zermatterhof, an 84-room palace of nut and cherry wood with granite bathrooms and views of the Matterhorn off the deck, we hit Italy. Brunner can't fly there, so an Italian pilot lands on the slopes—fully thrashing a lady in an all-white ski suit with a fur collar, who struggles to stay upright in the torrent. For the second time in 24 hours, I'm flying around the Matterhorn and near the toothy spires of the Dent Blanche, the Weisshorn, and the Dent d'Hérens. Not ten minutes later, I'm standing on the Tête de Valpelline—a 12,464-foot peak straddling the Swiss border. The snow is light, fluffy, and practically endless. It was good yesterday, but this is the best I've seen.

No longer able to contain my giddiness, I ski to the sound of my own whoops. We pass a group skinning up on randonnée gear, and they no doubt curse my big, fat snakes for devouring the runs they've been working hours to get to. A longtime observer of "earn-your-turns" ethics, I feel their pain. But my turns are so easy, I feel only slightly guilty.

Actually, I don't feel guilty at all. As I draw closer, I pull my wide, gluttonous turns into a modest series of prissy S's. I pass the group in an exaggerated telemark stance, hoping they'll see my freeheel and, oblivious to the helicopter circling overhead, think that I, too, hiked up. They aren't taken in. Oh, well: I hog the snow again and consider calling them suckers—just because I can. But that wouldn't be very bon.