A Skiing Adventure...

Today we decided to go skiing. Wow, where to start with this story...

At the decision to go I guess, that's the beginning... It's been pretty cold all week, and there is snow on most of the resorts, but it's too early for them to be open. Because, as people tell me, a good piste has a solid base with a powder topping.

We were watching the weather and the resort conditions, and the first plan was to go to Verbier in Switzerland, but the lifts were closed yesterday due to high winds and the forecast was for stronger winds today, so they decided on Val Thorens in France, which is supposed to be a two and a half hours drive away.

So I drive over to St Genis at 7am, and we load up the cars with all the skis, poles and boots and get going. So there are two cars, five people and three GPS units. And we still get lost. Firstly because the unit in the car leading told them to get off the motor way and take a pass through the mountains instead of around. And then later our one tells us to ignore the sign pointing towards the resort and take this small, icy, unsalted, unbarricaded one lane village road. That was quite a scary drive, which we made it through and got to the lower resort of Les Menuires, which was all closed. So we started off to Val Thorens, but the road was too icy for the car, which didn't have winter tires. We go back and buy snow chains for it, but we couldn't use them in the end as the suspension of the car was bent and the chains rubbed against the support, which did not sound safe at all. So we end up calling the others, who had made it to Val Thorens with their winter tires and one of them stayed up there with all the gear, and the other came down to get us.



And we finally get to the resort. Which is absolutely gorgeous. At 2300m, it is literally on the top of a mountain, and there were ski lifts going as high as I could see, though they weren't running since the piste probably wasn't skiable yet. The lower slopes had snow machines so that the snow was good. And this was sometime after 12pm, all the delays added two hours onto the drive. So we decided it was too late to find ourselves an instructor and the other guys agreed to teach us beginners. We learn about putting skis on and snow plough on a gentle slope with no lift, so we also learn how to walk uphill, and then it's time to try out a real slope. We then get on a chair lift, and we're on it for what seems like ages, and it's beautiful, but also scary, because as high as we are going on the lift, we will need to ski down. Up there we learn about turns in snow plough position, about first leaning on your inside leg then your outside leg, and we make tight turns all the way down, skiing across the hill most of the time. The more experienced guys then go off to play and leave us beginners to fend for ourselves. And it didn't go so well. There was a small slope, which had a j-bar lift, which I fell off twice my first try. Once at the bottom in front of all the people lining up and once at the top. So I decide to give the skiing a rest for a it and just stand around. But that got boring, and I ski down the small slope and brave the j-lift again. Twice. *grins* Then I get talked into going onto the chair lift again, and that was a really bad idea, as it was late, and it was hard to see the condition of the snow, and I ended up just following the most experienced guy down, until we get to a fairly flat section and he tows me the rest of the way as I was exhausted.

Gosh, writing about this makes me tired. And this wasn't all that happened... so we walk to the car park while the others ski there, and wait for the car to get retrieved from the car park. And it turns out that while in the sub zero temperatures of the parking lot, the driver seat window has frozen open. Supposedly it was faulty before, but now it is stuck there, which seems kind of inconvenient, but the car is still drivable, so three of us get in the back, after getting all the poles and boots into the trunk, and the others slide the skis over the so we are balancing them very carefully between our heads and resting them on the passenger seat back. And this is down we head back down the icy road to the lower ski resort here we left the other car. On the way however, the car complains about low oil and overheating. The oil complaint is understandable since it has been a while since the oil was checked, but the overheating is worrying, maybe the water in the radiator didn't have enough antifreeze in it and froze. We figure it should be okay going down from the mountain as the engine won't be working too hard and hopefully the water would have melted by then. Which would have been okay, if that was the problem. But later on the drive, the engine is still overheating, but the water isn't frozen. So we drive around for a while looking for an open garage or even a petrol station. Which is very rare on a Sunday night in country France. So we sit in a deserted petrol station for a bit, trying to figure out the best thing to do, since the car isn't under breakdown recovery insurance with my friend driving it in another country. And we can't just leave the car there overnight and everyone pile into the other one back to Geneva because all our ski gear is in the car and the window is frozen open. After quite a while, we figure the best thing to do is to drive back to the larger town, Albertville, and for him to get a hotel for the night and try find an open garage in the morning. So we go back, passing a VW garage on the way, which is promising for the next day and he is able to check into an Etap Hotel. So while he is enquiring about a room, it starts snowing, so we high tail it out of there as we don't want to get stranded there as well. When we get onto the highway, the visibility is so bad with the wind and the snow that we decide to turn back, but there isn't an exit until a toll way, where there are other cars and where we have to pay. So we continue, following the lights of the car in front of us, until it clears up and we can all breathe a sigh of relief. The rest of the drive back, though it did snow on us again, and there was some heavy rain, was never as bad as the first part, and we make it back to St Genis fine, and I drive the van home and arrive just before midnight...

Phew. So it was a very eventful day. And one which I do not really want to repeat. I do want to give skiing another chance, but next time, we'll need to choose which cars we take more carefully, look at maps first if it's a new resort for everybody, and hopefully get more time on the slopes than in cars.