Last week saw us take on our second attempt at skiing, this time in Meribel, in heart of the Three Valleys area in France. We had a fantastic time, especially after our lesson with Claude on the first day, which gave us much more confidence to tackle all those red runs!
We arrived at Chalet Isba, along with another group, who were all really nice, and were greeted with chocolate brownies and an introductions to our accommodation. We went and hired our gear, and readied ourselves for the onslaught.
We had a mixture of weather during the trip, however most of it was conducive to skiing, so it was all good. Monday we started slowly, and carefully, before our lesson with Claude who gave us heaps of tips (most of which were counter intuitive, but actually worked really well!). Trying to lean down the hill when you're hurtling down at speed is kind of hard to come to grips with! After the lesson, we decided to go up to the top of the mountain ridge and ski back down, however when we were completely whited out, and could only see a couple of feet in front of ourselves. Getting down was a little nervy, but we made it nonetheless.
The next day we were greeted with a perfectly clear day, so we went back up and realised the view we were missing. (See below) This was what it was all about. We had a massive day, skiing right over to the far side of Val Thorens, and up to 3000m. We had to hustle to get back to catch the last lift back into Meribel (which had to be via a blue run as we were still a bit nervous!) To cut a long story short, my legs were on fire, and I was just about to collapse under my own weight. I couldn't keep up with Fee, and then to make matters worse we took a wrong turn down a red run, and became completely lost. I thought we'd missed the last lift, but soon realised that our wrong turn had actually taken us back into Meribel...I can't tell you how relieved we were!
Now this is where we have the French lesson. Desparate (and I mean desparate!) for a drink, so at the end of the last run, we pulled over at a piste-side cafe, and my best French ordered: Je vu dre du cokes sil vu plait...(i would like two cokes please)....the waiter however, misunderstood, and instead delivered to our table two croques! A pair of toasted cheese sandwiches was low on the priority list! When we told him the error, he looked like you'd just told him his mother had been hit by a bus, and with only enough money to cover the food, we paid for the croques and held on until we got back to the chalet.
Wednesday, which was my birthday, we decided to take easy, so we got a couple of massages in our room, and then drifted over to courcheval for a gentle afternoon on the slopes. It was the chalet staffs night off, so we went for dinner, and had our first taste of snails and frogs legs, along with some of the best steak and duck.
Thursday saw another great day, and also saw us coming down the Combe Vallon, one of the best pistes in all of the three valleys. This was a real achievement for us, especially Fee, and it allowed us to really enjoy the best of the area.
Friday we had the Satski, which Fee got me for Christmas, which was like a little GPS screen which tracked our movements for the day. Unfortunately it was really windy, so we couldn't get up to Mont Vallon again, however we made it over the ridge to Courcheval, and really had a ball. In some parts, we were nearly blown off our feet in what we later learnt were 80 - 90kmh winds, but we found some excellent spots out of the breeze and in the sun. Over the day, we covered over 34km skiing, over 6000m of decent, and had a top speed of 68.8kmh.
Friday night and Saturday we had heavy snow, and went out in the morning looking forward to the day. However it was much harder than we thought, with nearly half a foot of snow over the piste. Everything we had been taught early in the week went out the window, and we found it quite hard work, so we pulled the pin at lunch time, and consoled ourselves with a visit to the Grand Marnier Crepery. It was a tough day!
All in all, we had the best time, and found it quite hard getting back into the swing of normal life this week. We're already thinking about next years trip! When we eventually come home, we'll definitely be organising the long awaited 'Ski Trip' in Oz or NZ.
Above is Lake Annecy in France, on our way back to Geneva.
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