Saturday was Day One of the 2010-2011 ski-season! Natalie and I went out and bought our season passes: EUR 1224 (ouch, plus insurance at EUR 112). We get the Saison Indigene pass which is quite a bit cheaper because we live in one of the communes connected with the Portes du Soleil (St Jean d'Aulps). Considering one week's skiing is EUR 232, 600 for the whole season isn't bad at all.
Then we headed up to Les Prodains (the only lower-level lift that was running) and took the chair lift up over the Arete des Intrets. It took us 30 minutes to find parking because everyone in France, remembering the last two weeks of constant snow-fall and perfect clear blue skies on Saturday, had the same idea to go skiing at Avoriaz. All three carparks at Les Prodains were full.
Natalie on the famous Bleu de Lac blue piste with Avoriaz in the background.
We nevertheless managed to find freshish powder that had been quite well tracked out but still fun on the Arete. We had a quick burn down to Lindarets. I was slightly disappointed with the quality of the piste bashing. It always seems to get so badly churned up in Avoriaz for some reason, turning normal blue runs into mogul fields. Other resorts seem to manage to keep their pistes perfectly smooth all day so i don't know why Avoriaz often has gnarled up pistes.
Me in the powder on the Arete des Intrets which was unpisted but which is normally a black run.
Anyway, after taking out a second mortgage on a chocolat chaud and a coke in Avoriaz (EUR 6), we headed home down the deserted pistes of Le Crot. All in all it was a brilliant first day.
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