The Secret Forest

We ascended the Lindarets chairlift, turned right, moved aside the suspiciously colourful tapestries in the shape of piste netting, skied past the top the Avoriaz Snowpark draglift while carefully avoiding the rapidly approaching buttons, stepped on the right combination of moguls, and voila, the hidden level we'd been looking for since we got here opened up before us and it was filled with treasure.

Natalie in the cool new area.

After four months here, skiing nearly every day, and with five weeks skiing here previous to that, we're still finding new areas.  i know i keep saying this, but this new area we have skied past on almost every single occasion we have been skiing.  We've unlocked 3 new areas in the last week alone and that's just in Avoriaz.  i think it's safe to say that we will be returning to the Portes du Soleil.  And once we get onto randonee, the area will exponentially increase in size again.

Ian valiantly fighting the moguls in the Cool New Area.  Not very elegant.

Anyway, back to how cool this area is.  Basically, it's in the trees above the Combe a Floret and Les Tannes runs down to Lindarets.  It's off to the right from the top of the Lindarets Express chairlift.  It's quite hidden because of the draglift which is used to get people to the top of the Avoriaz Snowpark.  i'm safe in saying that this new area became an instant favourite.  It's redeeming features:

1. No one knows about it,
2. Awesome snow,
3. Challenging steeps,
4. Bouncy moguls,
5. Exhilarating tree runs,
6. At least three different ways down it.

Natalie showing those that know the area where the New Cool Area comes out onto the Combe a Floret piste.

In fact, with this run in our repertoire,  we can now get almost all the way from the top of Avoriaz to the carpark in Ardent without skiing the piste at all.  The piste is like a busy super-highway that we hurriedly cross while looking both ways.  The off-piste is significantly superior.  Plus its always pretty cool to scare the muggles by appearing from the trees at random locations and knowing that they're wondering how you just managed to materialise from nothing.

I can't wait to get back on it.  Tomorrow we're off to Torgon for, probably, a last look, for this season, at another favourite: Barbossines.