Wetness is the Essence of Moisture

i was quite worried about it.  The way people had spoken about it you'd think skiing in the rain was worse than working in IT.  It isn't!  It's really not that bad.  And, it has some great advantages.  Firstly, it keeps the muggles away, and secondly, much higher up, just where the rain is turning to snow, the skiing is superb.  Grippy, fast snow and you get to lay fresh tracks.  We had a great time.

We did get quite wet though, so much so that the only time we "stopped" to take photos was on the drag lift.  This is me looking wet on the drag lift.

Actually, i noticed something quite profound today.  On any given day in the season, let's conservatively assume there are 5000 skiers and resort workers in the Portes du Soleil.  Let's assume half of these people have some item, either salopettes or a jacket or gloves containing GORE-TEX® adding up to an average of 1 square meter of fabric.  So that's 2500 square meters of arguably the best waterproof, windproof, breathable fabric currently available today.  The GORE-TEX® label certainly adds a good 25% to the cost of any item containing it.

So why, when all these muggles have spent oodles of cash on extremely expensive jackets, gloves, and salopettes do they hide indoors on the one day of their week out here when the GORE-TEX® would actually get to prove how good it is?  Today i suspect there were less than 500 people out in the entire resort.  So that's 2250 square meters of GORE-TEX® hanging on hooks instead of out fighting the cold and wet.  So listen up muggles, next time you spend £700 on a GORE-TEX® jacket from Prada, why not give it to someone who'll actually use it rather than letting it - oh, what's the point?

Anyway, we had a great day and our GORE-TEX® proved again how totally awesome it really is.  Well, i did get some snow inside my salopettes but that's more to do with bouncing, karate-kick-style off the piste into a snow drift than the GORE-TEX® allowing some water inside i suppose.

Whiteout again today and there's apparently half a meter of snow coming in the next 5 days!  It's going to be epic.  This is Natalie in said whiteout on the button-lift.  Notice how the cables disappear into the void, very cool.

Re-match! (not really)

Today we made an historic return to the awesomeness that is Barbossines.  It takes a good 2 hours to get there, not including a quick stop for the world-renowned soupe goulasch in le Fontaines Blanc in Morgins.  It is well worth it.  Barbossines has it all, steep moguls at the top, even steeper ones in the middle and then the prize: semi-steep, perfectly shaped, stupendously bouncy moguls on the bottom stretch with fabulous snow throughout.  After the long mogul field, which deters most muggles from doing it which is yet another bonus of this run as it means you get the slope to yourself, it opens up into a steepish fast, smooth, deserted, black run that you can just go for it on.  In short: wow.

Natalie on the run (Tovassierre) down to Morgins.

On the way there i thought i'd re-assert my position as the dominant fast male skier in my group of two and, essentially, show Natalie who's the boss on the timed speed trap in Super Chatel which she won last time. 

Well, the snow is very slushy at the moment and the warm temperatures are slowing everyone down.  Also, when i did my run i was having really bad contact lens trouble and also a lone gunman was sniping muggles from a nearby grassy knoll and i stopped to help him.  Consequently, i only posted a 61kph while Natalie, cheating all the way, and being pulled by a skidoo, and also in the partial vacuum and therefore tail-wind produced from my run, posted a 64kph.  Exactly the same difference in speed as last time. 

Clearly though, it doesn't count because i wasn't wearing the same salopettes as last time and Natalie's neck-warmer is just the wrong shade of pink for a competitive event.  Technically, i won really because i'm taller and therefore my speed relative to my height is faster.

This is me demonstrating the manqué de neige sur la Col du Bassachaux.  Actually it's not that bad, pretty good snow actually, but, seriously now, we really need some more snow.  Come on clouds!

Whiteout

A whiteout happens when the cloud cover or mist is so dense that the poor light intensity coming from above is the same as the light intensity coming from the snow.  No shadows fall and therefore the snow loses contrast and you can no longer distinguish the ground from the sky.  You can't tell how steep the slope is or if there are any moguls on it.  You can't tell how fast you're going.  You can't see the edge of the piste.  You can't see the piste markers.  You can't see any other people.  You have to feel your way down and it's almost like skiing with your eyes closed.

Today, if you hadn't guessed yet, we had a whiteout.  It was fantastic!  The poor weather keeps the vast majority of muggles indoors.  We've had light snow for the last 24 hours so the snow itself was great.  Unfortunately, we've also had rain above Avoriaz, so it's turned a bit slushy, but it's still good.  We skied until 17:50 today, the latest day so far, and it was still very light even with the thick cloud cover.

To give you an idea of what a whiteout is really like, i thought i'd include this video of Natalie skiing away from me.  You can get some sense of how isolated you feel and how important it is to stick together.

Piste Bashing

Took a quick burn round Chatel this afternoon to work off the frustration of having to rewrite some rather pointless code.  We weren't alone.

i thought the school holidays were over?  This is Rochassons, a red run going down to Plaine Dranse which is the main artery for muggles trying to get back to Linga and Chatel after a day in Avoriaz.  i've never seen it so packed.

i have a theory.  The French kids are still on holiday, so i suspect they've waited for this week, when the Italians and British kids have gone back to school, to come out in force.

Quite obviously, unless we wanted to do some piste bashing of our own, we couldn't ski the piste, but luckily we managed to find some unspoiled off-piste, free of muggles.  And yes, well spotted, that's Lac de Montriond in the background which today, for the first time in 3 months, got some sunshine of its own.

Everyone is talking about it, and i hope they're right, but big snow is apparently on the way and we're supposed to have light snow or snow showers all week.  Not a moment too soon - i hope it's huge.  Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

Elephant Rock

There's a field above our apartment with a perfect view of the "elephant" rock which overlooks St Jean d'Aulps.  This is that view.

And this is that field.

Annecy

 

Quite possibly the most perfect town on the planet.  Let's see, crystal clear, tranquil Alpine lake - check.  Medieval town center with original charm - check.  Beautiful, carefully jumbled canals and bridges - check.  Vibrant new town center with chilled-out happy people - check.  Pristine snow-capped mountains reflected in the glassy lake - check.

Apparently it's Winter.  Tell that to the hundreds of pique-nique-ing families sunning themselves on the grass next to the lake.  If this is Winter - i want more!

This is les Pont des Amours - the Lover's Bridge.

This is the classic shot of Annecy, le Palais de l'Isle, which started life as the residence of the Lord of Annecy, and seems to have a similar history to the Tower of London where, after being a mint, it ended up being a prison - le Prison Vieillle - the Old Prison.  It actually looks similar to the Tower.

We ate lunch at a cute little cafe on the edge of the canal.  The sun was setting behind the old buildings on the hill and we managed to find the last table that was in the sun.

And this was our view of the canal.  You can't see from this photo, but unlike Venice and London, the river is perfectly clear.

Suffice to say we had a wonderful time, sitting by the lake enjoying the peaceful Alpine surrounds - we liked Annecy a lot.

Another Day Another Face-Plant

It didn't start well.  The last Friday of the whole of Europe's school holidays saw record numbers of muggles all trying to get down the same slopes with even more reckless abandonment than usual.  Avoiding one such muggle who literally stepped in out front me from behind a barrier with 2m notice i ended up in the entrance to a hotel.  Very Bridget Jones.

Thankfully they're all going home now and even i couldn't begrudge them enjoying their last day out on such a gorgeous day as today.  This is in complete contrast to yesterday where the sight of actual clouds in the sky was enough to deter probably 50% of the skiers in the area.  Those fair-weather muggles missed out on the best snow in three weeks.

Natalie admires the uniquely stunning view of Avoriaz from the top of the Brocheaux lift.  Actually, she's looking at me and yes, i am uniquely stunning aren't i?  In this shot, you can see Bleue Arare (under the chair) and on the right of that the Arete (ridge) that is the Coupe de Monde.

Unfortunately i can't blame my face-plant on any muggles.  Exactly the same problem as before.  Very easy set of moguls that i managed to cross my skis on.  The top ski pushes the lower into a mogul and then my brain carefully erases the next few milliseconds as i somersaulted over some hard icy bumps. 

i can blame it on the snow though.  Awful snow today.  The 2cm of snow from the last night has frozen in and its turned to very heavy chunky ice which is nearly impossible to turn in.  Combine this with tired ski legs which just did not want to jump today and you end up face-planting down the Fornet Snowcross, which is exactly what i did.

Showing me how moguls really should be done, Natalie takes advantage of the best snow of the day on Cubore, an awesome mogul-field in the Abricotine valley.  Those are the Dents du Midi in the background.

The off-piste on Abricotine is fabulous so we tried to get down as far as we could avoiding the piste at all costs.  Unfortunately you end up having to cross this ravine on a very (i mean very) narrow snow-bridge.  We don't recommend it.  There may be another way down through the trees, but after a several kilometer traverse on extremely chunky steep ice, the piste was looking more appealing, even if it was infested with muggles.

The queue at the bottom of Abricotine for our return trip to Lindarets via the Brocheaux Snowcross (which was awful,  cruddy, and chunky ice, and on which i slipped so far i thought i'd sanded a hole in my salopettes) was very long and the queue time wasn't helped by the Alouette III helicopter taking off nearby.  Actually, this was interesting in itself because i thought the Alouette had been retired.  Also interesting as this is a Swiss rescue helicopter on the French side of the resort.

Anyway, away it flew and up went the lift and down we skied and home we came.  Not our best day's skiing admittedly, but an awesome day in the mountains anyway.

Snowcross Crozats

A Snowcross is a semi-off-piste ski run.  Its semi-off-piste because the run is never graded or bashed by heavy machinery, although access to it might be.  However, although the run is not graded, it's signposted to prevent you skiing off a cliff or end up walking in an Alpine forest, rather than skiing it.  So really a Snowcross is the best of both worlds, you get great off-piste adventure without the fear of skiing into the unknown.

Natalie heading towards Snowcross Crozats.

Actually, on the subject of off-piste,  it seems that most Winter-Sports insurers these days accept that you can go off-piste, and the only restriction they put in place is that you can't ski where they've explicitly closed the area, say because of high avalanche risk or packs of marauding bears randomly picking off boarders - not a bad thing.  But you should check out your insurance small-print about off-piste anyway.

Natalie, having headed to the Snowcross Crozats and now on the Snowcross Crozats.

Having said that, the off-piste skiing in Chamonix was largely roped off with warning signs saying you're leaving the marked area.  An insurer would probably leave you at these ropes.  Whereas, here in the Portes du Soleil, there are very few such ropes.  i wonder if the insurers know about these inconsistencies and, therefore, if they realise that they might be covering people doing more "dangerous" activities but in resorts where these areas aren't roped off.  It seems to me that, because of this, the insurer should insure you for skiing, regardless of what you do or where you go even if that means increasing the premium.  That's the risk they take.  This page has some very interesting reports on insurance and off-piste skiing.

Clouds can be quite pretty really.  Natalie took this photo and we've done no post-processing to it.  The Alps really are that gorgeous.

While i was on that site,  i found this extremely interesting article by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle written in 1894.  He was blogging about his experience with Alpine skiing a hundred years ago.  He writes:

The first time you try to turn, .... It must be done without presenting one's heels to the slope, and this is the only way.

So, in 1894, Sir Arthur realised what is still taught today on day one of your ski lessons - you've got to get your weight forward!

But i digress, today we skied the Snowcross Crozats.  Overnight we probably had 2cm of snow at the top so it was a perfect day to do it.  For those familiar with the area, this Snowcross is just over the lip of the Coupe de Monde run on the opposite side of the run to the Combe du Machon.  It is superb!  And it's massive, the off-piste that extends as far as you can see around the bowl of the valley and is reachable with a long traverse.

We came down it two different ways.  The first is more off-pistey and not signposted.  As you're approaching the trees, at the bottom of the main drop where it flattens out, head left through a narrow gully.  Following the ski tracks will take you down through some scrub and small pine trees right at the top of the treeline.  And, in fact, here's Natalie just above the said treeline.

And here's me showing off those baby pine trees i was talking about.  Yes, i know, i have a bit of a ski-tan going on.  It was extremely hot though which isn't helping in this photo.

 

This route is great, but unfortunately you end up in the trees and this path in the below photo was completely bare of snow in one small section of it, which meant dismounting the skis and walking the last 50m to the piste.  i do believe i've mentioned that you shouldn't follow me before.

So after doing this version of the Snowcross, which isn't signposted, we decided to actually try following the signposts this time.  This route takes you down some extremely fun bumps and ends up on the Coupe de Monde itself but much lower down.  Either way you do it, you end up in the same place and ultimately you take Le Crôt, a blue run which ends up at the Prodains cable-car.  Of course, you take the three-person chair back up to the Arete des Intrets, rather than standing in the cable-car queue.

We were only out for a short half-day and so we headed back down our now favourite off-piste run on the ridge between the cliffs of Combe du Machon and the cliffs above the Bleue Arare piste.

If you've never seen a white-out before, this is it.  As i was taking this photo the clouds started to move in.  Before i'd put the camera away i could barely see Natalie.

This was interesting because we don't know this particular area too well and the clouds were just getting thicker and thicker.  It was a very strange experience being able to hear the chairlift but not being able to see it or anyone else or any poles or markers.  At one point we were standing on a drop off debating the route to take but not being able to see the bottom of the drop off or, more importantly, what was going to happen next.

i think we made the right choice to head further down the ridge and take another, shallower drop off further down.  Then we were in a gully or bowl when Natalie said that it looked like we were on a piste.  Happily she was right as the poles at the side materialized, literally, out of thin air and thick mist.  We know this place pretty well by now, but in a white-out, we might as well be on another planet.

Web 2.0

How very Web 2.0 of me.  For those who don't know, Web 2.0 is a catch-phrase used by highly overpaid marketing executives to indicate that their Web 2.0 site can successfully vanquish the remaining thirty seconds of your day by allowing you to do things like upload pictures of yourself committing some or other minor summary offence or misdemeanor.  Web 2.0 allows you to totally goof off while everyone else thinks you're working.  Or rather, it allows you to goof off while everyone else is also goofing off but who you think are working but who hope you don't know that they are also goofing off.

Still wondering what this post is about?  Me too.  i added a subscribe button over there on the right to make your goofing off even less like actual work.  i'm using FeedBurner so i get pretty stats and things.  Also because they were recently bought by Google and i am using Blogger after all.  If you were already subscribed - impossible because my wife is my only reader - then nothing changes actually and if i did it right hopefully you won't notice any difference.

This way, if one day i get a subscriber that doesn't have the same surname as me, i'll know about it and that will seriously make my day.

Manque de Neige

This evening we took a drive round the Alps.  All the way round would have taken a few days, so instead we drove as far as Viuz en Sallaz and then up the valley to Boege and then back across over several mountain passes to La Vernaz and home.

Overriding impression?  It's really really gorgeous out here.  There's a storm heading in as well to give us some much needed snow.  We're getting about 1cm tonight and then another couple on Thursday and then some more next week.  Not a lot but we really need a refresher after the half-term muggles have left.

For the worried ones out there planning an upcoming ski-holiday, fear not.  i'm a bit particular about my snow and therefore may come across a bit negative.  There's plenty here.  i've seen only 3 closed runs in the entire resort because of manque de neige (lack of snow).  Considering there's 650km of pistes here and almost endless off-piste, that's really not a problem.

The moon is almost full and when it wanes, if the last several snow-falls and local legend is right, then we'll get our next big snow.  If you have a malleable appendage, cross it now.

Speedtrap

Today we headed over to Super Chatel to meet up with Grant and his family and extended family who are having a week's holiday there.  We planned to picnic on the way there but a lack of basic supplies at home and Champion not supplying any vegetarian options in their ready-made sandwich section meant that we had to eat at That Restaurant At The Bottom Of The Morgins Lift. 

We were meeting up with Grant after lunch, which was just as well because it took us a good two hours of skiing to get there.  Actually, the overwhelming majority of the travel time was spent on stopped lifts.  Not only can the enormous load of muggles not ski, they also don't know how to get on and off lifts, causing endless stoppages.  You may have gathered i'm not a huge fan of the half-term crowds.

Photographic evidence of Grant in the Alps.

Actually, for the interested minority, That Restaurant At The Bottom Of The Morgins Lift is actually called Les Fontaines Blanc.  After lunch we ascended the totally snowless slopes of the south-facing side of Super Chatel and met Grant at the ESF.  We jaunted around the resort for a couple of hours until we found the speedtrap.  This is a cool 300m drop that you take in a schuss and pass a radar gun which measures your speed.

Of course, Natalie and i had to try it out.  However, their equipment is clearly mis-calibrated because it clocked me at 65kph but Natalie came in at 69kph.  Actually, i think i was in a head wind and i distinctly remember a group of small children and hedgehogs crossing the piste in front of me that i had to avoid before the finish-line.  It was pretty interesting to realise that you can very quickly get up to 70kph on an easy blue run.  i really wonder how fast we go on the fast reds in Linga.

And we were there too.

The snow in Super Chatel was not that great, unfortunately.  Those slopes are low down and in direct sunshine.  We're also at day 14 now with no snow and the pistes are slushy and icy.  We returned via Pre la Joux and over the Col du Bassachaux back down to Ardent picking out some nice bumps on the way.

Tonight we've had an exciting evening at the Laverie and tomorrow is a full work day which isn't such a bad thing because the resort is so crowded lately.

Reconnaissance

Tomorrow we're off to meet a work colleague who's out here for a week with his family.  He's over in Super Chatel and we're meeting him the afternoon.  So, today, given than the lift times have all changed for the school holidays, we just had to check out the lift closing times, which believe it or not, i could not find online, of all the lifts we need to get back home in time.  If we don't get the right lift in time, it's a 100 euro taxi back home.

By car, Super Chatel, so called not because it's particularly super-duper, but because its above Chatel, is about an hour and a half away.  On skis we think we can do it in about an hour.  That's not including lunch and kitting up and all the other non-skiing related task we have to do to get out there.

All together, it's going to take us about 2 hours to get there, and if we're really speedy about an hour and a half to get back.  That gives us only about 2 hours in Super Chatel itself.  And exhausted two hours no doubt given the pace we'll have to go to get there.  Should be fun anyway, and we may even get to have another go on the best run in the universe: Barbossines.

While over in Plaine Dranse today, which is on our return route for tomorrow, we finally got a good shot of Ian's Canyon.  Natalie has really long legs!  This shot was taken about half-way down.

And this is looking up it from the bottom.  You can tell it's called Ian's Canyon because it's even got my name written on it.

It was really hot today.  Today was the first day i've skied without thermals.  And even without the thermals i was still getting too hot so Natalie took this shot because this kind of outfit isn't seen too often in the Alps in Winter.  And i was still too hot.

Combe du Machon

Yesterday we finally got around to exploring more of the Arete des Intrets.  That's the exposed ridge that runs down from the top of les Hauts Forts (the huge mountains directly above Avoriaz) to the Prodains cable car.

Perched on the cliff in the background, if you didn't know by now, is Avoriaz.

The snow on the Arete is still very good and we'll definitely be going back to explore the Snowcross Crozats if we can ever find it.

So first we skied the Arete des Intrets itself.  Very nice bumps, not too big and not too steep with pretty good snow.  Next we did the Combe du Machon.  This is a steep black.  And when i say steep i really mean vertical.  It's a close call between the Swiss Wall and the Combe du Machon.  The Combe is steeper in places, in my opinion, and narrower, and longer. 

It was the first experience i've had where your own mini avalanche is following you down the slope.  It got so bad that it looked like the ground was moving under my skis as the loose surface snow-dust and chunks of ice toppled down the slope.  Quite disconcerting really, so i stopped, waited for it to pass, and then carried on.  But seriously, the Combe is very steep.  The and the bumps were huge.  Surprisingly, it was also a bit crowded but then it was the Sunday of the half-term break.

Natalie on the Combe du Machon.  To try to give an idea of the stepth (there is so such a word) of the slope, i aligned the camera base with the slope itself so the horizon is how steep the slope is.

The majority of the crowd were cheating Muggles dropping into it from further down the Arete.  We did it right from the top, which starts in a very narrow gorge with a pinch-point about 50m in.  The Muggles were all dropping in past this point just to irritate me.

We finished off our tour of the Arete with some awesome off-piste between the Intrets chairlift and the huge over-hanging cliff that forms the wall of the Combe du Machon.  If i hadn't face-planted spectacularly on some really easy moguls to my great chagrin, i would have really enjoyed it.  Actually, it's a great run if you avoid the cliffs.  And you don't eat snow, face-first, at speed.

Here's that cliff edge i was talking about.

Mission Accomplished

We finally managed to visit Geneva when it was actually open.  And the shop we wanted was open too.  And the staff in the shop were extremely helpful and friendly.  And we got what we wanted.

What we wanted was Paul's birthday present.  Since his birthday's on the 6th of March, i'm afraid you'll all have to wait until then to find out what it is.  i bet you're super-excited about it.  Well, i hope that at least Paul is.

Since it was lunchtime we just had to return to the Spaghetti Factory.  We're carbo-loading for the intense skiing routine we've got so that works out perfectly.  i'd recommend the Spaghetti Tennessee and Natalie really liked the Ravioli Epinards.

Tomorrow morning we're off skiing really early for a half-day, and then we're back home for some work.  It's a tough life.

Torgon

We took 208 photographs on our visit to Torgon with Sally and Simon yesterday.  You may gather from this that we rather enjoyed the day.  Trying to sift out the best ones was very hard, so go grab some popcorn and a box of smarties and settle in for a long ride.

i worked out on the GMaps Pedometer that we covered about 50 kilometers on the trip which started, as usual, in the Ardent car park. This shot was taken at the top of the Chaux Fleurie chairlift looking down towards Plaine Dranse, possibly our favourite area in these mountains.  i should clarify that, up 'til now, when i've been talking about Chatel, i've really been meaning Plaine Dranse, which is part of the Chatel ski domain.  i'm sure that's a load off your mind.

This is Rochassons, a red run that leads down to Plaine Dranse.  It's a pity that it's a tough-ish run because it limits people getting over to Plaine Dranse from Avoriaz - they don't know what they're missing.  Anyway, Natalie skillfully skids to a stop near the bottom.

You may have seen this shot before as we always seem to take a photo from this spot.  i don't know why, it could be that it's just so stupendously awesome there.  It's from the top of the Rosees chairlift.  Under the brownish haze in the background is Lake Geneva.  Pretty cool, huh?

And this, regulars, is Ian's Canyon.  Well, the bottom of it anyway.  There's still a mini-crater at the bottom of it in the shape of my head.  Anyway, this time we all got down unscathed.  Still, i don't think it helped to convince anyone to go down it when i reminded everyone that this was where i nearly killed myself.

This is Le Linga.  A red run in Linga.  You can go really fast on it.  So fast, you need to use italics.  This is Natalie going fast.

This is Natalie, having gone fast, now going faster still.

This is me going fast.  Very poor style too, hope you don't notice.

And this is Simon going fast.  It's contagious.

Not to be outdone, Sally also went fast.

And this is us going slow.  Stationary in fact.  This is the view from the top of Torgon.  The astute reader will notice that this shot gives you a unique perspective on the Alps where you can see both the Dents du Midi (those spiky big mountains on the left) and, in the far distance just above Simon's hat, it's Mont Blanc again.  Did i mention that i love the Alps.  i love the Alps.  And no, Andrew, i'm not just pointing at mountains and saying that i love them.  i really do.  For all the not-Andrews out there that don't get it, go and watch Anchorman immediately before carrying on reading this.

And then there was Barbossines.  My.  Favourite. Run.  Ever.  The bumps on Barbossines, in Torgon, are simply the best anywhere.  If you like moguls, and i do, then Barbossines should be included on your skiing pilgrimage to mogul enlightenment.

i like it a lot.  Just a pity it takes 3 hours to get to it from our start point.

That smidgen of blue in the distance is Lake Geneva.  Notice how much closer we are now?  That's how far you travel in the Portes du Soleil.

And this is for those who don't believe in avalanches.  Quite disturbing really because we had to ski into this valley.  Notice how this slab avalanche has pulled itself away from the mountain and creased?  This shot doesn't give a good feel for the scale, but that crack is a good 30m across.

And this is le Restaurant Panoramique at the top of Torgon.  It was sunny.

So named because you can see quite a lot from it, including Lake Geneva.  This isn't zoomed in, so now scroll up and look at the 3rd photo down.  In the far distance there are some mountains above the lake to the right.  We're now in those mountain.  See, the Portes du Soleil is big.  Very big.

In case you're wondering what the half-term crowds are like, they are totally crazy.  This is the Cornebois lift queue in Pre la Joux.

 

And, many hours later, having skied back down from Linga, we're heading home.

But before we headed home, we tackled Les Renards again.  A fantastic fun black mogul field.  Natalie expertly bounces her way down.

We finished up our perfect day in the friscolating dusklight on the Col du Bassachaux.  Ok, it's not quite dusk and i don't even know what "friscolating" means, but it sounds good.

In case you were wondering what we were looking at, this is it.  That's the frozen Lac de Montriond in the background.

It was Sally and Simon's last day, sadly, but it was an awesome day which required the customary chocolat chaud celebration at l'Escapade in Ardent.

J'adore faire du ski.