Just back today from Courchevel 1300.
Splendid week: I was in a great chalet with Esprit. We had good
childcare and well-cooked food. The chalet was also only about 150
metres from the gondola station. The only minor issue was having to
wait an hour at Chambery for a later flight before the coach departed.
The skiing didn't go exactly to plan, in part due to my being
completely disorganized, but I did have a great week's skiing for all
that for once I actually ended up never using my full 3V pass; there
was so much to do in Courchevel and I generally wanted to be back for
lunch with Her Bossness, K.
I'd also originally intended to meet up with the Courchevel SCGB rep,
but due to various factors, I never actually got round to making
contact.
Instead, I went out with a small group from my chalet with an Esprit
host on the Monday. Snow was expected on Tuesday, so I decided to play
around in the powder on-piste alone. That day dawned with piles of
soft fluffy powder on the pistes; I took a few tumbles before I got
the feel for it again, but what a feeling!
With more snow expected, I hired a snowboard for Wednesday.
Unfortunately the temperatures had risen and the snow was a bit
heavier; still great though. Initially I was a bit wobbly; I hadn't
ridden a snowboard for about two years and unfortunately the second
lift I'd intended to take was shut. My first run was thus down a red
when I'd intended to warm-up on blues. I soon got back into it though
and bimbled across to 1650.
Riding up the Pyramide drag, I saw a nice run to the right that looked
powdery and deserted; great. I then found out /why/ it was deserted;
there was indeed plenty of powder on it: unfortunately it had a couple
of up-inclines. As I wasn't building up enough momentum to make it up
the up-slopes, I got a bit hot and bothered trudging through the
powder.
Thursday weather was fine; again I played around 1650 for a bit,
then progressed onto Piste 'M' and Combe Pylones at 1850, both
absolutely great with the new snow. This seriously boosted my
confidence with snow boarding steeper runs. 'M' seemed to be more
popular, which meant that it began developing slightly harder snow in
narrower places later in the week, but still not bad.
The rest of Thursday was spent playing around on the very easiest
runs, experimenting with stance, feeble attempts at ollies and riding
switch and generally just falling around.
The day ended on a slight low note when I tried taking Jean Blanc back
to 1300. I'd done it a few times (well, most of it; the bottom stretch
was shut) earlier in the week. This time it was deserted and I soon
found out why: the snow, with all lumps, ski tracks etc. had frozen
solid, with a thick layer of frost on top giving the illusion of
powder. It was like riding the inside of a freezer compartment
*before* the mummified bags of frozen peas have been chipped out.
After catching edges and falling a few times and spending a lot of
time on my backside, I ended up mostly side sliding to the
accompaniment of horrible grating sounds and more horrible cursing
sounds.
Back to skis for Friday; again playing mostly around Courchevel 1850.
Early in the afternoon I met up with people from my chalet and we had
a quick blast together.
Saturday I initially spent skiing easy greens and blues with K, then
again did 'M' and Combe Pylones (now my favourites) before meeting up
with the others from the chalet for a final blast. We found a piste
that I'd never done before: Roches Grise. Narrow at one point due to
exposed rocks but almost deserted and hence mostly good snow. It was
very bumpy but that just made it fun.
Later, we did look wistfully at Grand Coulour from Combe Saulire, but
having done it once, I still can't face that approach track. Maybe
next year....
We did a few more reds and one minor off-piste excursion, then sadly,
that was it. A last blast down Combe Saulire, followed by a somewhat
slushy Brigues back to 1300 and a couple of beers ended the week.
--
-Pip
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