Tuesday

A successful day, the Skiworks course in the morning, with Emma Carrick-Anderson explaining to me all the things that I know are wrong with my off-piste skiing! (I'm not low enough, I'm tryng to ski parallel...). She did say I had improved by the end, though!

Rob and I skied down to Les Brevieres for lunch (a very good Tarte au Beaufort et sa salade verte).

No photos from this morning; we were too busy skiing.
So here are a couple from this afternoon.

Mont Blanc from Toviere

La Grande Motte

The course starts in Val d'Isere tomorrow, I expect we'll be over to le Fornet.

Stats

Ski distance: 40.9 km (+lifts 27.2km)

Vertical descent: 7397m

Max Speed: 72.1 km/h

TIgnes

I met the Snoworks folks and have been allocated to Emma Carrick-Anderson's off-piste group, but, due to my own stupidity (reserving a lift pass starting on 1 February, which took a while, and a call to someone in the data-centre to fix!), I ended up skiing with another chap who had also messed u his lift pass in the morning, and then skiing with Ewan's "All Terrain" course in the afternoon.

Rob and I went up la Grande Motte


Here's (a slightly weird) Google panorama from the cable car station at the top of the Grande Motte.



And, to prove I really was there...



And, for anyone who is interested. SkiTracks reckons
Max Speed: 70.4 km/h
Ski Distance: 35.2 km (+24.4 km on lifts)
Descent: 6474m
Max Altitude: 3505m (though that's a GPS height, which is ~50m above the French Datum)

I'm looking forward to the Snoworks off-piste tomorrow (now that I have a working lift-pass!)

Les Arcs

A mixed drive down

• 30 minute delay on Eurotunnel 
• Missing the exit to Magnant (and so not getting to Le Val Moret)
• Unpleasant rain down through France on Friday

But

• A decent hotel in Chaumont (where I saw the Tour d'Arse)
• Some wonderful views of wind-turbines standing above fog, and chateaux d'eau also above fog.
• The excellent, view of snowy Alps at Chambery

After arriving in Bourg about 4:30 on Saturday, I stayed at the Hostellerie, the dining room is as great as ever, and the "chariot de fromages" should be in some "liste de la Patrimone de la France".

The view from my room looked like this, this morning.

Here's the funicular arriving in Bourg 

 

And here are some views from the Aiguille Rouge.

And, for those who will be with us in La Rosiere next week, here's a view over to la Rosiere.

And, since you enjoy coffee pictures, and French humour

Enough for today... (though I did do a single run with 1800m of descent!)

Last day in La Rosiere

Making Tracks

Alison and Henry were snow-boarding today, so I went over to Italy, where the weather was excellent, there was new snow, the Argillien lift was open, as was Maison Carrel, and they even had pistachio ice cream in the cremerie.

Pistachio Ice-cream

Petit St Bernard pass with clouds rising from France

Looking into France

More Pictures

Excellent "Dream Turnip"

Vue sur la Grande Motte

Encore un vue sur la Grande Motte

Maison du Tourisme

Pictures from La Rosiere

Now in La Rosiere, with Jo (and a chalet to ourselves), Alison, Henry and others are all slumming it in hotel La Roz.

Alison's chocolat chaud in the pass

Jo walking to Roches Noires
(with le Mont Pourri)

View up the Isere valley and of le Mont Pourri

Tignes, SkiBug, Snoworks

I am in Tignes this week staying in Skibug's Chalet Sauterelle, which I think I first stayed in on the first Inmos ski trip in 1981. Paul and Lorraine's hospitality is impeccable!

When I arrived here on Saturday, I discovered that another couple in the chalet were booked on a Snoworks back-country course. They had just finished another Snoworks course, and were very positive, so, a few emails and texts later, I was booked on the course too.

Given the poor state of the weather and the snow, our guide/mentor/teacher Nick  has been doing a great job keeping us moving around the mountain and finding pockets of powder, despite many of the real back-country routes being un-skiable (at least safely...).

Making tracks!

In the Charvet gorge

Entering les Pays Deserts

A well deserved demi de pression at the

end of the day.

p.s. Google's "Auto-Awesome" created the panorama above on its own when it backed up the photos from my phone.