We’ve had another fantastic week of blue skies and great skiing. On Tuesday we headed off with Wayne for another superb Alpine Experience morning, descending from the Grande Motte and then skinning to Col de la Sana. There were very few other groups around and we had a lovely ascent to the col. The couloir at the top was quite steep but we then had a lovely decent in untracked snow to finish in the Col du Charvet. Fabulous! Particularly since we then met with Jeavon and Martin for cold beers in the sun and lunch at the old Bar des Sports.
We spent a few days staying in La Daille, so on Wednesday we took Martin and Jeavon on the Tour des Fours. The ascent was lovely although the traverse to the col was icy – a bit of a challenge – although we had assured Jeavon that it would be ‘no worse than your average red run’! He looked very happy to be standing safely on the col with Martin and Jono, and even happier after the descent to the Refuge des Fours when Jono produced beers from his rucksack.
We had a lovely cruisy on-piste day on Thursday before a quick return to Ste Foy to get new brake pads for the car. Our last day with the boys was spent skiing all around Tignes, a fab lunch in Tignes les Brèviere and then farewell drinks at the Rosa Blanche in La Daille. Well it was farewell to Jeavon and Martin….. but not to Martin’s skis. Somehow he returned to England but his skis remained in the chalet in La Daille (how could that possibly happen?). We picked them up today and added them to our collection in the cave. An extra surprise was the bag of laundry nestling in the ski bag – fortunately we have plenty of PPE!
It’s been fabulous to catch up with friends and we’ve still managed to squeeze in some tours. Yesterday was the longest since last spring, a 950m climb up the Dome de Vaugelas in glorious sunshine with some lovely pitches of spring snow on the descent. Today was, thankfully, shorter but still very beautiful with a tour around Mont Roup in Val d’Isère. The short ascent was beautiful and we found we had the mountain all to ourselves. We’ll be skiing for a few more days and then our friend Sally arrives. She’s not so keen on skiing so we’ll be hiring ‘raquettes’ and doing some snow-shoe walks. We’ve never tried it before so it should be interesting and hopefully lots of fun!
