A Sad Day for Chatel

No doubt many people would love to hear the news of the new Happy Park in Chatel, but i am not one of them.

They've taken the most gorgeous, most fun, most powdery, tree-lined, undulating, off-piste the region had to offer, and bulldozed the snow into jumps, rails, and pipes, and then cordoned the whole section off with orange plastic fencing.

This, for me, is like taking the top of Half Dome in Yosemite, and turning into a skater park. Ideal granite conditions for a skater park, but not really what you want in an area of outstanding natural beauty.

There's a red run nearby which is perfectly wide enough to accommodate a snow park as well, why do they have to spoil the off-piste? There are still ways down and around it, but much of it has had the snow crushed by the bashers getting to and from the park. Very disappointing.

In better news, snow is coming tonight. Hooray! (Only 15cm though, but every flake counts). Tomorrow we move to our new place in Seytroux. We'll miss being so close to the slopes, but on the other hand we'll enjoy being able to eat, as the new place is much cheaper. So, tomorrow, we need to move as quick as we can so we can go enjoy the fresh powder. We've only had powder 3 or so times this season, so you've got to make the most of it.

Good snow about today as we've had a few centimeters overnight and we had a fun quick ski up on Les Hauts Forts. Very exciting on the way up, as there were really strong winds gusting with mini-tornados ice-blasting our faces. On one downhill section the wind was blowing directly up the slope so hard we had to skate and pole downhill!

Very exciting on the way down too. We got shouted at by a pisteur because we were trying to head off to the only lift in the resort that was still open and was still going to be open, but only just, when we got there. Anyway, he wasn't too keen on this plan so we just had to head home instead. It was even more entertaining for Natalie as he was shouting "Allez, allez!" at her as she was negotiating some steep rocky ice off-piste. Not what you need to maximize your concentration! i suspect he had some pisteur party to get to or something, or maybe he'd swiped a pisteur jacket from someone and was just having a bit of fun?

Getting a bit more used to my boots which have now decided to hurt the outer part of my feet instead of the left ankle. i think this might be a circulation problem though and i'm still holding off on the heat moulding so the material is a bit worn in before i do it.

This is me looking sweaty (and rugged and muscular and really really ridiculously good-looking) the day before yesterday (forgot to take the camera out today).


And this is Natalie looking gorgeous as usual.