Summer Skiing

This weekend Natalie and i, suffering from withdrawal having not skied since May, took ourselves off to Tignes to ski, according to them, the World Capital of Summer Skiing. Since there were only about 10 runs open and i don't actually know of that many other places where you can ski in the Summer i think this similar to the US having a World Series of Baseball.

That aside, i can happily report that it was totally awesome. All those nay-sayers claiming it wasn't worth it were completely wrong. It was absolutely brilliant being at 3500m with an air temperature of about 10 degrees in the brilliant hot sunshine on snow with hardly anyone else around. And the snow really wasn't that bad - I've had slushier, slower snow in the Porte du Soleil in April than we had in August in Tignes.

It took us 3 hours to get there from our front door via the Mont Blanc tunnel and La Thuile and San Bernard in Italy. The way back was via the Col du Cormet which was spectacular but extremely busy with traffic and of course packed with narrow "tornantes" (as hairpin bends are called in Italy) so the return trip took four hours.

You drive right up to the lake at Tignes and then buy your lift pass (35 Euros for the day) and then take the funicular inside the Grand Motte to 3032m where a cable car takes you the rest of the way to 3500m. It was a bit annoying to have to wait around for the funicular which only runs every 30 minutes considering it runs almost all the time in the winter. Anyway, once we got there all that was forgotten as we completed our first downhill pisted run since May. The snow was crispy, quite fast, perfectly pisted and excellent for carving. You can't ski off piste because your on a glacier and you might ski into a crevasse and die. This is a good reason not to bother with it. Other good reasons include really awful off piste snow. And "no", i didn't try it, i could see it was awful.

So it was a day of practicing carving and tight turns. The brilliant thing about Tignes Summer Skiing is that it is all above 3000m so it's always snowy. We considering skiing at Glacier 3000 (in Gstaad near Saas Fee) but i think it it closed. There was no snow at all below 3000m in Tignes so i can understand why Glacier 3000 might be closed.

Anyway so it was totally awesome and i would go again in a flash. I love living in France!