Chamonix

Well we decided it was time to go back to France, so on Friday a few weeks ago we got on a plane to Geneva (after almost being too late to check in!! Mental note: when you fly EasyJet, get there early, or you don't fly!!!). Geneva is of course in Switzerland, something I didn't actually remember until we landed and I thought - hmm, weren't we meant to be in France? Luckily I had booked our flight to the right destination and we caught a bus to Chamonix (France). We arrived, checked in to our (quite comfortable) 2 star hotel and then went for a wander around the town of Chamonix. There is a lot of money walking around that town! Lots of fur coats and people looking far too fancily dressed than necessary. Oh well, we looked like actual skiiers and that's all that mattered to us! We bought Angus some ski boots, picked up our lift passes, hired some skis (and poles) and got excited about spending the next 8 days on the slopes! Yay!

We decided to spend the first day skiing on Brevant/Les Plaz which is located right next to Chamonix. From our hotel we walked (up a big hill!) for about 20minutes to get to the cable car. We rode up and the views just got better and better! It was a good morning of warm up skiing, we saw some people gliding down the mountain with paragliders attached - a very cool way of getting down the mountain. It was really really warm - about 15degs on the slopes, at least 10degs warmer than Edinburgh!!! So the first few runs were nice and crispy but then it started to get a bit slushy. We didn't mind as Angus was getting his ski legs and I just enjoyed getting into it and the views that were so lovely! We had an unfortunate discovery mid morning... We had been organised and bought baguette, cheese and tomato to eat for lunch (our traditional French meal!) and had stopped to take the camera out when I realised that the bag smelt awfully cheesy (and my camera for that point!) Given that it was 15degs and that the cheese was quite soft to start with meant that it managed to get a bit spread over the bottom of the bag. Not very cool. We had lunch a bit later sitting on some rocks at the top of Les Praz looking over the very beautiful Chamonix valley, in the sunshine, with jackets off and feeling like we'd be getting sunburnt if we stayed too long! We later on saw some other young people sunbathing up on the rocks above the ski runs! Amazing!! We found some good bumps later in the day to keep me busy and it was fun.

We decided however that it was a good idea to search out some lessons for Angus and a group for me to ski with. We landed upon Ski Fun Tours which sounds a little tacky but was in fact great. On the Sunday morning we were picked up and driven to Grande Montet where Angus was in a group of 2 (which shrunk to 1 in the afternoon - private - lesson bring it on!) and I was in an advanced group of about 6. It was excellent. Angus learnt lots and I skiied some great slopes! We managed to skip the queues and ride all the way up to the top of Grande Montet and ski down the Glacier Argentiere which was simply stunning - good steep slopes with lovely lovely snow and some bumps and, oh it was just lovely! The thing about skiing in France (and possibly generally in the Alps) is that you really need a guide - because otherwise skiing off-piste means that you're not covered by insurance or the ski patrol won't come looking for you. And off-piste is actually anywhere that isn't a named run, even if it's within the general whole ski-area-boundary. And also when you're skiing on a glacier where there are crevasses (many people only ski on the glacier when wearing a climbing harness and carring survival gear) and big patches of blue ice to watch out for on the slopes, you basically can't ski on your own (unless you're a bit silly), so the guide was the way to go!

We skiied Grande Montet a second day, and we skiied the face which is under the cable car, and is very steep (about 40degs I think) and can only be skiied in certain conditions - it was great! Really excellent snow and nice and steep, I really enjoyed it! Angus had a private half-day lesson and skiied the morning on his own. On the Tuesday we were doing the adventure day. I'd heard a bit about skiing the Vallee Blanche, but I wasn't terribly excited. It involves a walk along a ridge that has basically sheer slope either side. Wearing all your ski gear of course. I was very nervous about the prospect of this. But I was convinced (damm peer pressure) by my friends in the group, and Angus was super keen too. He went with an intermediate group before me, and enjoyed himself but unfortunately was skiing in the cloud most of the time so didn't get to see the beautiful views. My group went up later - we all dressed ourselves in our climbing harnesses and taped our skis together so that we wouldn't drop them, and then loaded up into the cable car. At the top we put on crampons (on the bottom of our ski boots) and were all tied together in a long line by Pascal (our guide) and with hearts racing headed (or were herded) towards the ridge. EEK! I was pretty nervous but it wasn't too bad. But we couldn't see - i think if it was a clear day it would have been harder! The walk down the ridge was challenging at times, I was certainly glad to have the crampons on! It took about 30mins, and it was really really cold up there too, and because we were at the top of the ridge the wind was blowing a gale!! But we made it to the platform ok and could detach ourselves from each other and get ready for the ski down the glacier (about 20kms). It was pretty easy, just a few big bumps. Then we stopped and the clouds started to lift, and then they were lifted - the views were stunning! We were standing on a massive glacier surrounded by mountains covered in snow and ice and there were lots of little glaciers coming down onto the big one we were skiing on! It was really beautiful! We kept skiing on, taking a few breaks to pull out the camera (I bought a new bag so that I could carry my SLR up with me, boy was I glad I did that!!). The skiing was lovely, but the views were really why we were there! We had lunch in a refuge on the edge of the glacier. After lunch it was one big bumps run (right next to the glacier flow) before the long run out. It was really fantastic! At the bottom we walked up about a million steps (oh we looked in a hand-carved ice cave too!) with all these tourists coming down that didn't feel the need to give way to a skiier walking up carrying skis and trying not to trip over in ski boots. Hurrumph. It was a hell of an experience, and I would definately recommend it to anyone visiting Chamonix!!

The next day we went to Italy and skiied the resort called Courmayeur. It was nice and Angus & I skiied together and met the others for lunch. Then we skiied another French resort on the Thursday (big danger of avalanches because of the high temperatures so we only went off-piste on a couple of runs carefully chosen by Pascal!), and on Friday it was back to Grande Montet. The weather had changed a bit though, and there was fresh snow up on the glacier and more coming! After lunch the advanced and intermediate groups skiied a run together on the glacier and it was very challenging - visibility of about 30m and at times it wasn't obvious what the terrain was doing or even which way was down! I was at the front of the group after Pascal and it was really fun - lots and lots of fresh thick snow! Angus really enjoyed himself too! Falling in that sort of snow is just good fun!

There was a group change on the Saturday, and we were sad to see the group we'd skiied with change, but the new guys were good fun too - 3 Irish brothers who were particularly funny to ski with! It was raining heavily in the valley and we were not optimistic of a good day ahead, as the gondola and cable car were closed too. But we did a couple of good runs before lunch (Angus was in our group too, keeping up very well, but still falling over lots!) in good fresh snow which turned to wet concrete about half-way down the mountain! We had an early lunch and then - very luckily - the gondola was opened! Yay, that meant the top half of the mountain was now accessed, though not the glacier at the top (too windy). We did some really great runs - fresh snow, most people staying on the runs so the off-piste was all for us! Unfortunately there was a guy in our group who had no concept of control and tried, on seperate occasions through the day, to wipe all of us out! He was pretty amusing to watch, but not that great to ski with! The weather came and went all day, and one run was cloudy/sunny/blizzard/snowing all in one run! Like melbourne weather but a bit more extreme ;-)

So the week was a great success - we found two favourite restaurants in Chamonix, one Italian, one Japanese, and ended up going to them both 3 times! We went with the 3 brothers on the Saturday night and laughed so much we both thought we might die! They were so loud, raucus and funny it was incredible! We got asked at least 3 times to be quiet by other tables and I thought we might get asked to leave the restaurant! We haven't had such an amusing evening ever I think!!

I had a bit of a hangover on the way home by I deserved it and at least I wasn't skiing! The trip home was uneventful and we were back in our little flat here in Edinburgh by about 2:30pm. A great holiday ;-)