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.

This is more like it

I don't know what they're feeding the clouds over Chatel, it's probably not legal, but the snow there is simply superb! Natalie and i managed to navigate our way down some off-piste where it was crusty, but gave just enough to be really enjoyable. There was one we're-not-insured-for-this-are-we moment on the off-piste as we had to take on a 2m vertical drop. i thought about it for a long time before taking the plunge, only to look back and see Natalie jumping off an even bigger drop! Any parents looking at this should not read the previous two sentences.


This is the view from our apartment window (with a telephoto lens). We love our apartment!




This is Natalie looking amazing in her new Bandit B2Ws (that's Lake Geneva in the far background):




This is me looking my usual spectacular self in my new Bandits, matching poles and i think a fairly complementary outfit. Yes, i'm a super-model.



Actually, i nearly broke both my knees attempting to cross an icy road while carrying all our skis. I was incredibly frustrated, of course, and just moments before the fall i noticed a split on the edging of once of my skis. Not a good start. Anyway, after scuffing my skis and mashing my knee, i wasn't feeling too good, but when i took the skis back to Morzine and Francois Baud's ski shop i was immensly cheered up by the fact that Eric (the ski shop owner) immediately noticed the factory fault with them and replaced them within 5 minutes. So let me take this opportunity to highly recommend the hire shop at the bottom of the Pleney lift in Morzine - awesome service!

In other news, what is wrong with the human male that they find it necessary to write their names in yellow snow using their own excreta. Is that Y chromosome generally crooked or defective?

Big snow coming tomorrow and they've predicted 1m snowfall over the Dolomites - hopefully there will actually be some powder next week!

Long day

Spent most of the day (yesterday now) skiing, which was fabulous, as usual. The pistes are getting harder as we're five days away from fresh snow now and the snow-cannon snow is just awful - slippery, sugary and generally yucky. However, on the upper slopes its still good except where various boarders* have scraped it off and left shiny ice behind. There's still plenty of fun off piste though where there's still a smidgen of powder (although crusty) left behind.

Got more new guests in now - a father with two children in tow. Tomorrow morning should be exciting as i try to get all six of our clients up to the slopes in time for their lesson at 10am.

Getting a bit weird not sitting in front of a computer all day and doing something that doesn't require an awful lot of brain-power. i've done a bit of IT tech support as is the norm but i have a nagging suspicion i'll be re-writing the website before long...

Anyway, video uploads to follow as soon as the batteries have recharged.

* Ok, some skiers may have contributed slightly to this too.

Right now

Had our first sunny day out skiing yesterday. Compacted, slightly icy pistes, but a gorgeous day. We're heading off with Jeff and Steve and John and Sheila this morning on their (Jeff and Steve's) last day before i take them to the airport later today.

Yesterday we were in our new chalet for the first time getting it ready for guests.

We're leaving imminently, so more later.

Steer clear of the yellowish-green snow

After a long much needed lie-in yesterday, we made it up to the slopes for a very short, high-speed ski. i think the altitude and panic and stress of the last few days really caught up with us and about 11 hours of sleep seems to have somewhat cured it.

Pity we couldn't have been out for longer yesterday because the conditions were excellent. Fresh, deep powder everywhere and no one around. We only managed to fit one run in (Bleue de Lac) but it was worth it. After that Natalie prepared the meal while John took me on a tutorial run to Geneva airport to collect some work colleagues. On the return trip we did a tour of the rapidly closing DIY stores of Annemasse in the rush-hour traffic in a dark, ice, snow, hail, and rain. It was... educational.

On the left is Natalie just outside the chalet this morning in the clear sunshine.

Today was fabulous, partly cloudy, compacted pistes with plenty of (slight-heavy) powder off-piste. We got a taste of everything today, steep mogul-skiing off-piste (off les Tannes); freshly groomed, wide-open perfectly flat pistes (Bleue de Lac); very steep wide reds (unnamed run down to the bowl of Avoriaz), and a very very steep narrow red (something like "Veuines"), which was the home run in the near dark and heavy fog. We tried to make it back to the carpark at les Prodains, but my excellent navigation ended up with us fording a steep ravine. Don't follow me anywhere.



We also went round to the new chalet today to help assemble beds and the kitchen, but unfortunately it was still a building site so we just had to go out skiing instead. We're going to try again tomorrow.


This is for you Paul :P.

This is me. I'm somewhere near Geneva looking very suave. Je suis chaud!

First day out on the piste!

We finally made it out skiing today after collecting our skis from Lavanchy Sports at la Grande Terche. After assembling all our new gear we only made it up to Avoriaz by midday.

What was the skiing like?

It. Was. Awesome! There were probably only 100 other skiers and boarders out there in total today. The visibility wasn't great in parts, but the snow. The snow was awesome. Fresh powder and we got to lay fresh tracks on the runs in the resort that are usually ice by the time you get to them.

There are only about seven runs open at Avoriaz and none of the connecting lifts over to Chatel or Switzerland were running. That didn't stop us having a fabulous afternoon bouncing around in the powder off Les Tannes (a red run going down from Avoriaz to Lindaret) or speeding down on of the only open run at the top (Bleue de Lac).

It was about -6C at Avoriaz, but i think it was a lot colder at the top. Can't wait to go out again!