So after my last post I suffered from what I think was a combination of altitude, jet lag and way too much rich food and vin (preceded by cocktails). Either that or French gastro which is a poor imitator of Starship rotovirus. I managed only 1 hour skiing on Tuesday morning before retreating to sleep. Still managed a 3 course lunch however (1 course was soup and another was a yoghurt). Decided I was cured by dinner where I managed 2 bowls of French onion soup, pasta, salad and dessert.
Anyway enough about food. Nic and I decided that we are too good for our group. Sure we sometimes still do step turns and are not always 100% in control (and according to our instructor my arms flap like chicken wings when skiing) but we do not fall to pieces when confronted with moguls and off piste skiing.
Went to Les Grand Montets (our 3rd ski field this week) and went right to the top in this gondola that ascended over 1200m. The top station(picture above), Nic has just informed me, is higher than any point in the North Island at 3233m! We climbed up a platform to take (more) photos of mountains and were quite breathless. The black run from here was beautiful. No Ruapehu style ice that you would expect but it took about 15 minutes for our group to descend 200m and from there on there were very frequent stops. Glad the 79 year old wasn't with us.
The views were stunning – looked out to a mountain that was the meeting point of the French, Italian and Swiss borders.
Yesterday we skied at Balme (me left looking towards Switzerland)– a mainly intermediate level ski field. The schedule for the day was to finish at 2pm. Unlike NZ where if we were having the weather we currently are having we would be at the skifield waiting for the lifts to open, our start time is 9.30 and we usually aren't skiing until 10-10.30am. So we had packed a lunch and left the group at 1.30pm and got to do some beautiful runs off a chairlift that is right on the Swiss border. Caught the bus back to town with no problems.
After getting the seal of competence from our instructor we have signed up with a guide (you have to have one of these and frankly the idea of crevasses makes me agree) to take us down the Vallee Blanche - a glacier with a 22km run that starts from 3800m at the Aigule du Midi!
We will let you know of our injury free survival.
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