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.

  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.

  Although there is normally a ‘second discipline’ on a GAP course, this was dropped from our course because of the focus on slalom but 3 of us were still interested in doing snowboarding and BASI have arranged for our equipment hire to be paid for as well as the lessons.

  So this morning I was standing on a big slippery plank of wood that seemed to have a mind of it’s own at the top of a run that was clearly far far steeper than it was yesterday when I skied down it without turning or picking up any speed.  This is what it feels like to be a beginner; I’d forgotten, so I’ll try and capture the feeling and recall it when I’m unsympathetic instructor.

  We started with just one foot strapped into a binding and practised stopping on the back edge and then the front edge.  Fortunately I’d bought some padded shorts, because the snow was bum-bruisingly hard.

  Then we tried sliding down on the back edge, followed by a ‘falling leaf’ exercise where we still slid down but started to steer left and right.

  Having managed a couple of runs on the back edge we repeated the same on the front edge which seemed harder because we were balanced on our toes rather than our heels and because we were travelling backwards so we couldn’t see where we were going.  Fortunately I was wearing my helmet because the snow was brain-bruisingly hard.

  To turn right around you have to let the board go flat on the snow and allow it to run straight down the hill.  In fact it requires even more commitment than that because you have to put more of your weight on the end of the board that’s heading directly down the fall line.  Another feeling to try and capture – just how hard it is to throw yourself down a hill when you’re not at all sure you can make that slippery thing under your feet turn, let alone stop, without falling over (on knee-knackering snow).

  So we tried some turns, first from the front side to the back and then from the back to the front.  On my final run I managed to link two turns and felt inordinately pleased with myself.

  After just a couple of hours I was completely drenched and muscles that I didn’t even know existed were protesting of overwork – and I’ve been unusually active for the past 3 months.  Something else to remember when I’m in front of a class.

  Fortunately a bath and a good lunch restored my body and a couple of beers didn’t hurt either.

  Almost first thing, I went down to catch the first lift this morning and managed to get in a couple of runs practising my carved turns before we had to meet at 9:30.

  The first half of the morning was devoted to the remaining four practice lessons and then it was all Central Theme demonstrations: plough turns, plough parallels, parallel turns; with Dave looking on a grading us.

  Finally I got to do three runs showing off my carved turns, although my second run was pants so I was hoping Dave didn’t notice that as we are supposed to have fully acquired the techniques.

  Then the drag lift we were using broke down so we only got one run of short turns (my other bugbear) and it was all over.

  As soon as we’d all gathered at the bottom Dave saw us one by one and gave us the results.  Although we got a full breakdown later there’s really only 2 results; pass or fail.

  Of the 17 people on the course 12 passed – sadly I wasn’t amongst that group.

  I have to admit I’m disappointed although not surprised as I knew my carving and short turns weren’t really up to the mark – I was just hoping that on the day I’d nail them.

  When I was deciding which course to take it was a toss-up between a standard GAP course in Zermatt and this course in Méribel.  The difference is that on the Zermatt course I would have got the full 70 hours of shadowing, a second discipline and lots of time to practice the elements required for the BASI Instructor test.

  So I suppose the question is what now ?

  The answer is that I’ll think about it – I’m not far off qualifying so I’ll have to see what courses are out there.

  In the meantime I’m going to do some snowboarding.

  The next thing Dave told us was that four of us would be giving practice lessons today so we had to think on our feet because he didn’t say who would be going first.  As it turned out the first lesson was required after about half an hour and it was my task to improve the turn shape and steering of snow ploughers.

  I decided to keep it simple (for a change) and get everyone to ski behind me, keeping as exactly in my track as they could – so as long as my turns were good everybody else would be forced to make good turn shapes if they kept to my track.

  Then I stopped them to check that they were managing the task and to ask them what they thought contributed to a good turn shape.  Since they gave the right answers (steering by rotation) I asked them to ski down one-by-one keeping to a narrow corridor (to keep the steering continuous) but at that point Dave stopped me (as I thought he might !).

  The review seemed fairly positive so perhaps this was a better lesson as my previous couple of attempts rather flopped from being over-ambitious.

  Apart from one other practice lesson in the morning and a couple in the afternoon we practised solidly, mostly Central Theme stuff but for the last hour I got to practice my weaker points: carving and short turns.

  There was no lecture this evening so I stayed out for another hour to practice my carved turns – I’m getting there but I don’t think it’s good enough yet so I’m not at all confident about passing and tomorrow is results day.

  More technique practice on basic parallel turns this afternoon.  Still not good enough and they were better than my short turns and carved turns to begin with.

  Tomorrow we have a written exam so I’ve been revising this evening and didn’t even get out to watch the England game.