Packed Weekends

Last weekend Jonathan came to visit us for a smidgen of Genevan sight-seeing and some light skiing. As usual he did amazingly well skiing the vertigo-inducing Abricotine ridge after warming up with only a single run on the nursery slopes.

Natalie and Jonathan on the Abricotine ridge.

It was only his fifth day of skiing ever but by the end of the day he was skiing the nasty home run (called Parchets) which is marked as blue but has a nasty red section in the middle of it. Natalie and I had dog-entertainment duties so we didn't get to witness this feat but according to the Phils (his excellent guides for the afternoon) he did this spectacularly well.

I think he enjoyed the skiing (who wouldn't?) but I think he was less impressed with Geneva. This is unsurprising because there really is nothing there to see besides an over-sized broken chair, a rather big fountain and lot of expensive watch shops selling expensive watches that basically no one can afford.

On the Sunday after our morning ski we took the Scarpers up to Col du l'Encrenaz which is about 10 minutes up the road from our house. We, to the amusement of some French man in the carpark, then strapped our skis to our backpacks (with difficulty), strapped our racquettes to our boots, and hiked about 250 vertical meters up a black mogul field and then a red track on the Mont Chery side of Lets Gets.

Natalie and Scarlett walking up Chevreuil in Mont Chery.

Of course by this time the lifts were closed and we were totally alone apart from a pisteur who was checking for lost day skiers on her way home. She just waved at me. Normally they yell at you to get down the mountain but I guess she assumed we knew what we were doing. So the more hardcore you look and the more dangerous the activity (ok parents, not dangerous really, we were still in a marked ski area - just with no one else around at dusk) the more likely you are to be left to your own devices.



At the top of our climb we unloaded the skis and very heavy boots from our bags, kitted up, strapped the racquettes to the backpacks this time and stowed our walking boots. Then we skied the 1.5 kilometer downhill it took us an hour to walk up in about 8 minutes.



It was so awesome I can't really explain it. This weekend we're going to rent proper randonee gear and see if we can get a little further. It'll be a while before we venture out of the resort and we have to do avalanche training first for that but I've already decided that i love Alpine touring and i can't wait until lifts are a thing of the past.

Tomorrow we're skiing the Roc d'Enfer circuit. 10 kilometres of undisturbed downhill Alpine beauty with only one chair and a drag in the way. Hopefully we'll have the resort to ourselves.