We’ve had a house full of lively guests and some beautiful sunshine, interspersed with overnight snowfalls, resulting in a fantastic few weeks. Ray and his daughter Lily arrived a fortnight ago and we headed off to Ste Foy. We had sunshine and empty runs making for a great first day before spending the rest of the week in Val d’sere. There we met up with old friends from Cornwall – Nick, Kate, Rhea and Isla (Lily’s good buddy) – and had great fun skiing together in Le Fornet. In fact the snow was so good that Jono and I peeled off to ski the Pays Desert. The powder there was so good that we couldn’t resist another ski tour to Col des Fours the next day, stopping at the refuge to have a picnic, leaving the girls to seek out ski jumps and their parents to enjoy blue skies and sunny lunches.
We rejoined them later in the week, catching up with Nick on the beginners’ slope where he was teaching Lily to snow board. She picked it up really well, even managing to go up on a lift by the end of the morning, and had a big smile on her face despite several bruises elsewhere. We all met for lunch in the sun with Jono showing off the special effects of the 360 degree camera.
Claire arrived that evening to join Ray and Lily, and had a lovely and well deserved few days skiing with family and friends. Jonathan and I dipped out for a morning to skin through the Villaroger forest to Arc 1950 where we found variable snow conditions as you can see in the picture below. We came home to find that Anna and Alex had arrived and were already installed, beer in hand, in the Monal. We all had a wonderful day skiing together in Ste Foy with lunch on the terrace at 1580 soaking up glorious sunshine and fabulous views.
We waved fond farewells to Ray, Claire and Lily and headed off with Anna and Alex to spend most of last week skiing in Val d’Isere. The half term crowds were a little less although French half term is spread over all of February. We had another great ski from La Rosière to La Thuile, made all the better by good snow, blue skies and what has become a regular tradition – an amazing lunch in Italy. The only downer of the week was heavy rain on Thursday up to 2000m. We didn’t fancy skiing in the rain so we walked for an hour in pouring rain up to restaurant Goyet in Le Pré. Thank goodness for umbrellas. We had another great lunch and another hour’s walk home in the rain, finishing off the afternoon with Scrabble!
Anna and Alex headed home via a few gastronomique stopovers. And we’ve had a few days skiing in Val d’sere. We had a superb day today skinning from Col du Palet and over Col de la Grassaz. We were the first to do the tour after the recent nights of snowfall with Jono breaking tracks on the ascent. Ours were the only tracks apart from those of a lone skier heading in the other direction and several furry animals. Lucy, Wilton and Alice join us this evening so fingers crossed that the weather forecast improves.
It all looks wonderful. Joie de vivre.