Didn’t do a blog last week, as we thought you’d all be sick of hearing about more skiing, so this one is a two-week blog about skiing.
More skiing, starting on Monday (13th), we when up the cable car and then the chairlift, skied down ‘Les Chars’ to the ‘Coulouvrier’ chairlift, which was the busiest lift we have seen in our time here, the queue of people was up the ski run, which was fun, standing on your ski edges and watching the novices falling over. Welcome to the school holidays!
A lot more people on the ski slopes, a lot more ski instructors being followed by usual 10 kids each, forming a little train across the slope. We’ve nicknamed them the ducklings. Avoiding one set of ducklings is not too bad, but occasionally you come across two, or even three, sets following each other which is just a pain to get passed.
Tuesday (14th), we got the ski buses to Joux Plane, a Nordic ski area across and up the other side of the valley from Morillon, the ski bus was busy, we got nearly the last two seats on the bus (only one other seat left, which was filled when the bus stopped half way up the hill to pick another Nordic skier). From the top you can see the top of Les Gets and Morzine ski resorts, but you are unable to ski to them. After Monday’s busyness on the piste, Joux Plane was extremely quiet by comparison.
In the evening, after our home cooked Valentines Day meal, we walked out to join the local Carnival celebrations. This included floats with a Dragon and dancing ski instructors, plus toilet roll and confetti cannons! All accompanied by a fantastic drumming band. As the procession made its way along the road towards the local car park, we took a short cut across the field at the end of our road to get a prime position for the lighting of the Pyre to burn Monsieur Le Carnival, a spectacular sight. We are still no wiser about why this happens on Valentines day, but were pleased we had the chance to see it all unfold.
Wednesday (15th) and Thursday (16th), we both skied together in the morning for a few runs, then Nic headed home and Rog stayed out skiing a few more runs before heading back.
Friday (17th) Nic has developed a painful knee, probably brought on by skiing, so decided not to ski today but instead walked to Sameons came up in the cable car. Rog skied to the top of the cable car and we met for coffee.
Saturday (18th) Nic again decided not to ski, Rog had a full day out on the slopes, up to the top of the mountain in Flaine, doing a few more new runs, including some red ones.
Sunday (19th) Rog skied again, Nic gradually coming to the conclusion that the knee is not up for anymore skiing. We met for a beer at Morillon 1100.
Monday (20th) we got the ski buses back to Cirque Sixt Fer aChevel, as the skies were clear and we wanted to see the circle of cliffs, we were not disappointed the cliffs were amazing.
Tuesday (21st) Nic decided to take her skis back to the shop, as you’ll recall we were offered a great deal at the hire shop for a up to 8 weeks ski hire for €190 each pro rata (collectively we had used the skis for a total of 10 weeks). However, when we arrived back at the shop they attempted to renege on the deal and charge the full €190 *2 = €380, when we were expecting a total bill of €237.50. After getting everyone in the shop involved because Rog refused to pay the bill, the chap we originally dealt with got a bit stroppy and stormed off in a huff to print out the price list and terms for the “season hire”, claiming that it was not a pro rata deal. We finally agreed that we would pay the full season price for the two sets of “eco” skis we had used, his face lit up as he thought he had won, however Rog then pointed out that the printed price list showed a season price for “skis only” at €120, rather than the €190 which was for “skis and boots”. He did not argue and agreed the final bill should be €240 for Eco Skis Only, wepaid the bill quickly and ran before they could change their mind, paying only €2.50 more than we originally expected.Phew!
Rog then went off to do more skiing on his e-bay bargain blades.
At the end of that day we realised that the electric radiator in the living room/kitchen was no longer working, not a major drama as the temperature in the flat was not that low. Wecontacted the Airbnb host, who arranged for an electrician for the following morning.
Wednesday (22nd) The electrician came at 9am, established that the radiator will need to be replaced, and hoped to return the following day. We managed conversation, mostly in French, about the local ski runs, while he drank his coffee.After that we headed to the market in Sameons by Ski bus. After drinking our coffee by the Lake, Rog walked back and Nic got the ski bus back, still being troubled by the knee.
Thursday (23rd) and Friday (24th) Rog skied back into the Flaine area, a couple of new red runs including “Satan” and ‘Lucifer”, sorry for the pun but ‘Lucifer” was a devil of a run,the trickiest Rog has done, steep with lots of moguls (big lumps). Enjoyable but tricky. After two good days skiing Rog decided to hang up the snow blades for this season.
It worked out that Rog managed to ski on 32 days, and Nic 24 days out of a total of 57 days in resort, not a bad average given that for the first 10 days there was no snow, and it has only snowed twice, the last time being on the 17th January!With an apology to any holidaying skiers out there, Rog managed to ski for just less than £17 per day (including Ski boots, Ski hire, Snow blades, Ski suit and a season Ski pass (with 53% early buying discount), by way of comparison a single week ski pass is €321 (or £284), that £40 a day!! A crazy price.
Saturday (25th) and Sunday (26th) We started the glamorous packing and cleaning process as we leave on Tuesday to fly back to the UK. Sunday brought a dip in temperatures with just a flake or two of snow in the air, but nowhere near the amount that we would have expected to have seen at this time of the year.
Travurple 