White Stuff

Thanks to the lovely people at Go-Go tours, Peter and I enjoyed a three days in the mountains last weekend. Yippeee.. a chance to try out my new gear on real slopes (Les Deux Alpes in France).

Going snowboarding on the first week of the season is a bit of a gamble. Peter was checking out the webcams a couple of weeks ago and was disgruntled to notice that it looked like a scene from 'The Sound of Music'. Luckily by the time we arrived it was winter-wonderland time, with snow as far as the eye could see.

After 18 hours on a bus we were ready to stretch our legs on the slopes, but the 100kph winds sweeping the pistes meant that all lifts (other than the nursery slope drags) were closed. Ah well, there was a chance to warm up on the baby runs and back to the hotel ('La Sherpa') to prop up the bar and thaw out. I was trying (with difficulty) to order in French, until someone pointed out that all the hotel staff were Dutch. I wondered why the barman raised and eyebrow when I ordered a 'chocolate chaud' instead of a 'warme chocolademelk'. There were further opportunities for my to speak my own (very bad) Dutch as I was the only 'non-Nederlander' in the place. Very good practice!

15 cm of fresh snow was dumped down on friday night (I couldn't help staring at the fat flakes falling outside the window as we sat down to some delicious alpine grub). By Saturday morning the outside world was muffled by piles of gorgeous powder and I couldn't wait to get out on the board. It was great to be up there at last!

On Sunday the snow conditions were nearly as good but the light was so flat it was difficult to see more than a few inches infront of your nose. I had a couple of moments of complete disorientation where I managed to perform a few impromptu acrobatic feats through the air, but luckily managed to make it down to the village without any broken bones. My new jacket kept me toastie warm despite the 'minus lots' temperatures and I was happy to discover that I'm not such a 'scaredy-cat' as last time I attempted boarding.

For pictures click HERE.