Les Contamines

Today, I again went skiing with the Université de Genève Sports Universitaire. I again signed up for the intermediate class, but this time, since so many beginneers had signed up, all the skiing instructors had to take them, and we had to find people to ski with.

Luckily I recognised a couple of people on the bus who were also left hanging by the lack of classes, and we orgnised to ski together. We ended up getting split up, as was bound to happen with random people skiing together who had different levels. We also were able to take a shorter lunch break, which was nice, but also got back to the bus too early as we were worried that we were going to miss it since we didn't know the ski out of the resort.



The day was very cold, with continual snow on the lower slopes of the resort, but we were able to catch some sun at the top, where the view was amazing. The upper areas of the resort were above the tree line, where everything was just covered in snow, and the pistes were wide and well groomed, which made for lovely conditions, particularly with the fresh snow.

It was so cold though, that my hands and feet would freeze on the chair lifts, and we were able to see the six sided shapes of snowflakes as they fell on the empty seats and didn't melt. The fog at times made it hard to see far into the distance.

Skiing-wise, I think I'm getting better, but I really need to learn how to stop confidently without using snow plough. This would make me much more comfortable about going fast and using more parallel turns. I understand the theory - do a parallel turn, but with more force, however have never been able to do it consistently. Something to practise next trip... as well a heap of other things, but I think this one shold take precedence over all the others...