St. Bernard Monestary/Hospice

The other day we went to the St. Bernard Monestary/Hospice and stayed there for a few days. It was a really cool experience. We hiked up a canyon and snowshoed through the Valley of Death to the hospice. It was pretty intense, but thankfully we had good weather on the way in. In order for us to stay at the hospice, we had to make a pilgrimage there instead of driving, hence the hike and snowshoeing in. The monks and all there were really great. We ate a lot of soup and bread while we were there. A LOT. Did I mention we had a lot of soup and bread? Regardless of soup and bread overload, it was really cool. It has been around since the year 1050 when St. Bernard established it to protect travelers and established the motto, "Christ is fed and nourished here."

Below is a photograph of the Valley of Death and the little dots in the bottom right corner are people still coming in.

Just over the border in Italy. An idea of what kind of snow is still up there this time of year.

One of the smaller snow banks.

While up there we did a service project for these big guys:

This was our project. When we started, there was nothing but cement pads and we built everything and all in a huge snow/rain/wind/fog catastrophie. It was nuts.