Weather !

  It didn’t snow last night but the weather closed right in so visibility was pretty poor and then it started snowing as we went out.  It wasn’t snowing heavily but the flakes themselves were wet and heavy and the temperature was minus 2° C.

  We went to the top of the Tougnete gondola in search of better snow and found that the visibility was even worse although the snow was marginally better.  We came down Crêtes and then Choucas; the visibility was so poor I didn’t even realise that we were on Choucas until we got to the bottom.

  Then we tried to get on the Cherferie button lift.  Most of us managed to get on it, only one of us stayed on it to the top (wasn’t me).  There was another drag lift nearby - the much shorter and easier Caves, so I decided to practice on that for a while Guilliam went and rounded up the rest of the class.

  Having done a couple of runs around Caves I stopped and waited for the class.  Trouble was that by this time the visibility was so poor I couldn’t see across the piste… I assume they passed me in the mist and I eventually decided to board down Escargot; not the simplest blue run but one I am familiar with so I got back to the Chaudanne just before Noon and found Guilliam arriving with the class from the opposite direction.

  Didn’t bother going out in the afternoon as the snow was very slushy and although it was still snowing it was beginning to turn to rain with the rising temperature.  Instead I took my all mountain skis for a full service (mostly to get the base ground) and then went back to the chalet to fill the holes in the base of my race skis.

Ow !

  Because it was so warm yesterday the snow that had turned to slush was frozen and unpleasantly hard first thing this morning; as I discovered very soon, falling in exactly the same way as I’d bruised my shoulder yesterday.  Ow !

  After a quick run down the Altiport to remind ourselves how to link turns we went back up the Altiport chairlift and then boarded down to catch the Dent de Burgin chair.  Although we didn’t take Renard (a relatively steep red) we took the steeper of the two blues, Geai, the top section of which is reddish.

  Still trying to link turns I found myself travelling down the fall line further and faster than I’ve been used to.  The result was that I fell more often and, consequentially, harder.

  I wasn’t alone so our instructor, Guilliam, had us practice Festons.  We call the exercise Garlands; it’s where you turn the skis or board down the fall line as if you’re going to turn but then you turn back to traverse across the slope in the original direction.

  Certainly helped my control although I can’t say I was really carving except for a couple of occasions where I still went faster than I intended.

  I’ve been finding my boots quite uncomfortable and unfortunately the hire shop doesn’t have any other brands in my size.  Also, after the morning session I was feeling pretty battered and bruised so I decided to ski this afternoon.

  I remember that when I was learning to ski the greatest pleasure of the day was taking off my boots; today I found that when I put my ski boots on they were way more comfortable than the snowboard boots !

  The snow however had deteriorated over lunchtime and was very slushy below 2000m, even at 2500m it was still soft so I decided to pack it in and headed back down - just in time as it started to rain as I passed ‘The Ronnie’.

  Hopefully the rain will turn to snow tonight but I’m not holding my breath.

Test Technique

  I usually find it difficult to get to sleep here because of the amount of noise the inconsiderates generate, often into the early hours, but last night everyone (except me) was in bed by 10pm.  The downside was that I was woken at 5am by the sounds of doors slamming and chairs scraping – the rest of the crew getting ready for their 6am departure for Les Menuires.

  It was still snowing this morning when I set off for Les Menuires, not that I was going to race in the Test Technique – I wasn’t going to risk jeopardising the Instructor Training course by straining my calves again, especially since I stood no realistic chance of achieving the required time to qualify as for a Stagiare job.

  In fact I had quite a bit of trouble even getting to Les Menuires because the lifts from Méribel that access that valley weren’t running and when I did get a lift up I could only ski down to St Martin de Belleville and then the lift I needed from there didn’t open till 10am due to the snow conditions.

  Anyway I eventually made it to the stade in Les Menuires, although I missed most people’s first run.  I expected the second runs to take place pretty much immediately but I had to wait an hour and so did everybody else so any warm up they had done was totally wasted.

  Unfortunately no-one achieved a qualifying time so everybody was somewhat depressed at lunch and opted to take the minibus rather than ski back; except me that is because there wasn’t room in the minibus.

  I was slightly concerned that I wouldn’t be able to get back if the weather had deteriorated and the top lifts had been closed but although it was still snowing and the wind was still driving the snow horizontally and most of the mountain was covered in fog the lifts were open so I got back OK.

  In fact it was more practice in variable conditions with bad visibility for an added challenge… and I still need more practice !

Sorely tempted

  I thought I’d already decided not to do any more race training in order to let my calves recover and to avoid a recurrence of the strains that have meant that I haven’t skied for the best part of the past 2 weeks.  Nevertheless when I found that this morning everyone was going over to train on the stade at Les Menuires where the Test Technique will be held on Tuesday I was sorely tempted.

  Eventually common sense prevailed and instead of my race kit I went out with my all mountain skis but I still skied over to Les Menuires only to find that I was there before everyone else.

  The snow conditions have changed enormously during the week I’ve been away; the lower slopes are now very soft and there doesn’t seem to be any decent snow below at least 2000m and really you have to get above 2300 to find consistently good snow.

  So I skied on to Val Thorens to gain some height and after stooging around for a while decided I’d better not overdo it on my first day back on skis so headed back to Méribel.

  A good morning’s skiing and no pain from the calves, although they were a bit stiff by the time I got back to the chalet.  I’ll have to see how they feel tomorrow but ideally I’d like to ski all day (as there are usually far fewer people on the pistes on Saturday because its change-over day).

The sun has returned (for a day)

  After a late breakfast (well, it is Sunday) and a lazy start to the day, I went out to ski around noon; after spending an hour massaging, stretching and icing my calves.

  The lower slopes were still very slushy – not surprising as the temperature must have been pushing double figures in resort.  Above 2300m (where it had snowed rather than rained for the past 3 days) the pistes were in very good condition but not surprisingly this was where the lift queues were too.

  I didn’t try any off-piste because of the high avalanche risk and lower down where it wasn’t soft and sticky it looked like breakable crust.

  To pre-empt any further straining of my calves I only skied for a couple of hours before I went back to the chalet and repeated the massage, stretch and ice ritual.

  The weather forecast for the coming week is mostly cloudy with some precipitation; the freezing level will be somewhere between 2000 and 2300m during the day, at least for the first half of the week, so let’s hope we only get precipitation at night until the daytime temperatures drop.

Woo Hoo !

  It snowed overnight – about half a metre at resort level (1600 metres) and probably more higher up.  We were supposed to be slalom training on the Méribel Stade this morning but that was never going to happen with all that fresh powder so we went out with our All Mountain skis on.

  The coaches this week are Laurent and Yannick, who are billed as Méribel’s top race coaches so it’s a bit unfortunate that the forecast is for snow all week as that will make the stade virtually unusable although if there’s fresh snow on the day of the Test Technique it will still go ahead so it wouldn’t be a bad idea to get some practice of racing in those conditions.

   Initially we all started off as one big group and went up the Plan de l’Homme chair and set off down Bosses, a black run that was already beginning to get a bit chopped up so we peeled off to ski off-piste down a steep route between the trees.  Fantastic powder, mostly knee-deep but waist-deep in places and you had to be careful to look ahead for gullies, boulders and bushes, all of which were disguised by the snow.

  I lost count of the number of times I fell but the snow was so soft every fall (except one !) was cushioned. Because so many people were falling, waiting for everyone in a big group was causing delays so we split in two.

  Laurent’s group took the Saulire gondola up to the first station (it wasn’t open above this point) and down Mauduit which although a red run might as well have been off-piste. The hardest parts were where the piste surface had been exposed – it was slightly mogulled and with the tracked out powder was very unpredictable.

  Hard work, exhausting in fact, and the visibility was bad, and it was still snowing to boot.  All in all it was not great for my strained achilles/calves so I packed it in after a couple of hours to go back to the chalet and put an ice pack on them.  The treatment seemed to have a positive effect so after lunch I put some ibuprofen gel on them for good measure and then got my slalom skis because we were going to the Méribel Stade this time.

   However when we got there we found that although it had probably been pisted last night the snow was so soft we couldn’t set a course because it would have cut up so badly as to be unskiable within a half a dozen runs.  So we just worked on technique for an hour until Laurent said we’d finish with an hour of free skiing, which meant more variable conditions, so I decided I’d save my sore legs for another day and went back for a bath and a hair cut (a number 2, since that’s the only choice).

   Another 40cm forecast tonight !

Chores day

  It didn’t snow overnight, but it did start snowing great big soft wet flakes around 8am.  After half an hour the flakes began to get smaller and this trend continued until lunchtime when the snow petered out leaving us with another 5cm of fresh snow.

  Meanwhile I had booked a flight for Felix to Grenoble, done my washing and various other odds & sods so I had lunch and rewarded myself by going skiing (well, you have to, don’t you).

  Had to give up after an hour or so as the bottom of my calves/top of my achilles got very sore; not sure why, probably a combination of poor technique on slopes (on and off piste) that were very chopped up and variable conditions from soft sticky powder mixed with moguls and exposed but invisible hard-pack.

  More snow predicted overnight !

The less said the better

  Anyway, Brian Ashton said it all:  We were stuffed by the Irish. 

  The only bright spot was David Strettle who had a brilliant debut (if only he could have matched his England Sevens debut, when he scored 5 tries… in the first half !).  Hopefully Jason Robinson will recover from his neck injury before the game against France and then with Josh Lewsey and Matthew Tait we’ll have some real choice of wings who can also play centre or full back.

   On the skiing front, Saturday mornings is the quietest time on the slopes in most resorts because it’s ‘changeover’ day; Méribel is no exception so I got out for a couple hours this morning and as a bonus it was snowing.  We only had about 5cm but at least it didn’t turn to rain as had been forecast.

  The visibility was poor until lunchtime (when I quit in anticipation of the rain) but it was nice to feel fresh snow underfoot even if the skis were cutting through it to the hard pisted surface below.

  More snow predicted overnight. 

Quack or Pow ?

  The room seemed colder than usual when I woke this morning and oddly my roommate was absent, as was his duvet.  It turned out not to be the cold that had driven him away but my snoring.

  The snoring was possibly related to what felt like a tennis ball sized lump under my left jaw (although on closer inspection it was actually more like a third of a golf ball).

  Anyway I resolved to see the local quack without delay.  That plan was promptly abandoned when I looked out the window and saw around 20 cm of fresh powder covering everything in sight.

  I’ve come here to ski and this was an opportunity not to be missed.

  In view of my new and exciting disease I dressed extra warmly (just as well considering the temperature had dropped to around minus 15) and headed out for an excellent morning’s skiing.

  This is the first time I’ve skied the Apache Recon’s in decent powder and had the confidence to make bigger, faster turns; the skis didn’t disappoint (definitely more of a freeride ski than the Rossi B2’s that I used to ski).

  The fresh snow had given the mountains a much more rounded, gentle look and everything was softer in the muted light.  Even the chair lift was quieter as we rose into the merest hint of a cloud composed of millions of frozen fragments, sparkling all around us.

  Magically beautiful.

  Seems to have been good for my lump too as that had shrunk considerably by lunchtime but I still stopped in to see the quack and got dosed up with anti-biotics and other powders and potions.  Roll on recovery.

Things are on the up

  Felt considerably better this morning but still didn’t ski the afternoon (I serviced my skis and had a good long bath instead).  Actually my room is one of only two that have a bath, nearly all the others have a shower.  Although describing the facilities as ‘ensuite’ would be laughable even on a cross-channel ferry; mostly there’s a basin in the room, a shower cubicle (also literally in the room), and a cabin-style toilet.

  Whereas I’ve got a proper ensuite, the bath is almost full size, and I only have to share it with my roommate; we even have a decent amount of cupboard space and (wonder of wonders) 15 hooks dotted around the bedroom and the ensuite.

  Course it would be nicer if we had the same room on the floor above then we’d be on the same floor as the dining room (instead of being nearly adjacent to the lounge, which can get rather noisy on occasion) and we’d get a balcony to boot.

  Not that I’m complaining, particularly as I came here to ski and it’s been snowing continuously for the past 5 hours; if it continues at this rate we’ll have at least 15cm by morning.