Confessions of a 30 something seasonaire or “Hello from Les Arcs”

A snowHead

bar shaker, The main run into Les Coches is the iciest run I have ever, ever done (even icier than the Montchavin run). Took one turn at top and slide about 1/2 mile down a slope. Never been back down it in the last 4 years.

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So, for a coward who hates ice, which is the best run to the VE from the La Plagne side??

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onaplateau, thank you for a super-useful question!
Mouth, thank you for the answer!
My 'Skiing in Les Arcs' dossier is building up nicely - though it is considerably outweighed by my 'Hiring a car in Geneva' dossier! Laughing

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Mouth, thanks, I'm reassured - all this talk of ice was going to keep me in Les Arcs for the week!

After all it is free

bertie bassett, I prefer the black pellee that comes of Pierre Blanche. Steep but not that hard. The long flat run at the bottom of L'esselet is a pain and doesn't make doing the run worth it IMO.

Agree with you though that Pierre Blanche is the better run to Vanoise than the run that heads of to Les Coches and isn't that icy. If it is going to get icy it will be below the Vanoise heading into Montchavin.

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Last night was messy - very messy! Was always going to get ugly when the air-guitar session kicked off in the squirrel at 19:30 with just a select crew present. Still once Gally warmed up his vocals, the place went off - crazy peisey was definitely the mantra. I sacked it off about 1am, as I had lessons the following day, but the hardcore kept going to early doors, some getting home as the sun came up from the 'after parties'

Definitely a little jaded when I got up, but made it up the hill in time for the start of the lesson, which was mostly focused on carving. This is something I've struggled with a little in the past, as I tend to skid my skis but with some of John's drills I was getting better by the end of the session. Post the session then I went and did some more practice on carving, and then went and found some bumps to play on as the plan for tomorrows lesson is basic bumps - so thought practice in advance was a good idea. Did a couple of runs down the 'natural' half-pipe down the side of plagnettes in the 2000 bowl, but didn't get much big air - more like 15cm rather than 15 feet!

Come 13:30 had arranged to meet up with a couple of ski-beaters at the top of the derby, one skier and one boarder. Made it their with 1 minute to spare, and then led them on a mini-tour around the mountain. Not going silly fast as the boarder was improving but we still had some fun down the reds in the 2000 bowl, including Ariandelieres and down Lac which was relatively tame even come 15:00. Back to the bottom of the derby around 4pm, and given everyone was a little tired then decided to call it a day. Interesting on the cat-track home a french guy did a number on my snownboarding mate, forcing her to crash stop to avoid him as he cut across her line on 3 separate occasions, so I gave him a little taste of his own medicine by taking the inside line on the right hand turn on the blue home and then not turning, until he got stuck in a pile of snow at the side of the piste!! Good to see that I'm doing my best for international relations Twisted Evil

Dunno whether it was because I was a little jaded after the night before, or the flatish light conditions, or just pushing myself more, but I fell over today more times than I had in one day on skis before - 3 times in total, once on bumps, once in the lesson when I crossed skis on a blue (numpty!), and once later in the arvo after doing a side-piste sortie and getting a little unbalanced. Still if you don't push yourself then you don't learn right?

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bertie bassett, thanks for that, i'm thinking of doing similar in a couple of years time and dont want to work either Very Happy

You know it makes sense.

bertie bassett Cheers for the pricing, I'm looking into doing this with my other half in a year or two so it'd be nice to plan it ahead.

Still proving to be a very entertaining thread, thanks for making my working days bearable.

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

bertie bassett, I second those comments and it does make interesting reading, however working through your ball park figures I reckon that you are budgeting around £30 per day spends for food and drinks etc, how this figure work out ok because by my reckoning and considerable intake, it does'nt leave a lot for apres?

Very Happy

Greg

A snowHead

A snowHead

Wednesday - quiet night in as a bit cream crackered..

Thursday got up and made 1st lift (just) and skied across to 2300 lift to meet up for lessons with John & the others in the group coming from vallandry. We then headed off to the 2000 bowl to do some work on bumps. John is seriously impressive bumps skier, making even the larger and longer bumps (demos) look easy. He found some easier stuff for us to play on, and we all gave it a whirl - I tihnk I'd benefitted from the practice I'd previously done, but I still need to spend lots and lots of time bumping to get better. Then did the natural half-pipe (side of plagnettes) for a run which was fun. Tried the 'speed run' but it wasn't working - and why it's on virtually the flattest bit of the 2000 bowl, rather than something decent like on Ariandelieres I have no idea...

After lesson was feeling a little cold as was on a slightly lighter middle later and it was a bit colder, so headed home for a bowl of soup. Made an important discovery Super U's potage de legumes is actually pretty rank, compared to their tomato which is quite nice. Back out at 1pm, but the light was quite flat so it wasn't really an arvo for blasting, so I did some more drills and bits and pieces, and then found myself near the snow-park so had to go to see if anyone was pulling some rad moves. Did a quick run down the green jumps, which I found a little scary - not going to be doing the black jumps anytime soon, and then headed back over to the 2000 bowl, varet, gd col closed due to wind so I did some bits and pieces, and then sacked it off around half 3 as I wasn't really getting much out of the arvo.

Headed down to BSM for a bit of shopping, picked up some more wax for my skis /board - tricky though as it comes in different temperatures, so that's another decision to get wrong! Quite a few audis' buzzing aroudn the place, all pimped up with 'val despair world cup' logos. Then a quick trip to super U well it was quick unitl I go to the checkout line and completely chose the wrong one - at least 2x the checkout lady had to get up to go and check a price, which wasted minutes.. then someone had forgot to weigh they fruit at the fruit counter so had to go back and re-do it..grr..

Why can't the french do decent bog roll? The only stuff in super u doesn't really seem that good but the choice is pretty limited - so I had to break into the 'hidden' pack of andrex when I got home...

Still wondering about whether I want to try and get up to Val Despair for the World Cup - might see if someone else wants to do it on saturday - got a free day pass with my season ticket, so it might be fun to drive to BSM and take a bus up the mountain, then sack off watching the pros go past in a blur and actually head up the mountain ourselves. Also going to fit in a day trip to 'probably the bes ski-resort in the world' (tm snowheads) but need a bit more snow as it's now looking a little patchy given the recent heat wave..

decisions decisons...

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You can get free tickets & transport from Bourg to the World Cup at Val. You apply on line on their web site, the full detailed programme for each day is there. You just fill in your name & address and choose which day/days you wish to attend. It's dead easy, I received an automatic reply within minutes. You have to print out a voucher to present at the bus station in Bourg. If you have no printer , I'm sure the tourist office would do it for you, or chat up Will at Squirrel or Chloe at La Vache.

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After all it is free

rob@rar, what people were doing there... they were polling way more than was necessary in an attempt to get their speed up. I think they were in a class, it must have been working last week.

Saw someone else being pulled up by a skidoo over in what I think was Arc 2000 near the rickety 3 person lift, the lanchettes maybe, that brings you mid way up the Aiguille Rouge or something. Anyway, I think they were trying the speedy kilometer thing... looked like deadly fun!

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thefatcontroller, that's scary.

Deadly has a different meaning in Ireland... kinda like wicked or something in England... I didn't mean deadly in the real sense so that link is scary!

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anna_1104, Don't worry its ok I understood you, I'm a Northsider wink

Long moved but still a Northsider Cool

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Heh... you can never get away from being a northsider!

I'm a southsider through and through and darn proud of it NehNeh

Friday was a game of two halves - I headed out for lessons at 09:15 and we did some good stuff with John - quite flat light in the morning so we did some runs through the trees. 1st run was down ours, which was superly groomed so I just had to put the hammer down as it was empty and in great shape. Stopped prior to the junction and waited for the group to catchup - certainly an 'enthusiastic' first run of the day, as John put it. Then we did a sneaky run across the trees from Renard across to the bottom of bosses, and thereafter did some work on 'shadowing' where you follow the guy/girl ahead down the slope and turn when they do - this is quite a good exercise as it forces you to use the same turn rate / type as the person ahead rather than your standard turn mode. All in all a great weeks lessons and I learned a lot.

Popped back for lunch around 12, and headed back out at 1pm without much of a plan. The visibility still didn't look great so went on a bit of an adventure over to 1600 so I could play in the trees there. Come 2pm the sun had started to come out so the vis was a lot better. Did mont blanc, arolles (x2) and cachette a couple of times before gently cruising back to plan-peisey direction. Come 4pm it was starting to get a little 'crazy friday' so I took the grizzly and did ecureuils from the top which was a little icy in places but good fun, as I'd only done it from the mid-station before.

Friday night was a later one in Jimmys which made a change, and was good fun.

Saturday - crappy visibility so sat in the pub watchting the action from Val D'isere. Will probably head out this arvo for a bit...

You know it makes sense.

and I did pop out around 1:30 on the board for a change. Had been snowing a bit - not much more than 6 or 7 cms, but it was enough to give everything a re-fresh. out with a couple of buddies and whilst we didn't go further than the top of the derby, as the light was so flat but there was lots of fun to be had around the edges of the pistes, and on some of the pistes themselves which hadn't been skied that much. I'd taken the board out but perhaps should have been on skies as I need to practice the softer, lumpy stuff on skis but the board was just to tempting..

Got back in time to watch England's 2nd try against the eyeties, and hear some of the tales of woe from people doing transfers - 4 hours to GVA in a car, and 3 back was one tale. 3 hours to mouties was another...

Still snowing albeit lightly with petit flocon, so an early night and 1st lift I think?

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bertie bassett, so how are the skis anyway?

A snowHead

Hi BB, glad to hear you're getting onto the bumpy bits and well done for falling over - just proves you're pushing yourself. Would love to come out again later in the season to take you down les etoiles, but work pretty mad Sad

so will review it in a couple of weeks.

I'm sitting looking out at a snowy hillside and it's started snowing again. Not quite as fun here as LA, especially when it's quicker to walk 5 miles to work than drive (I know - 'what's work?'). Mr '40-ish-going-on-4' was all for whipping his skis out and trekking up and down the hill for a few turns. In retrospect there probably was enough of a base, but seemed a shame to ruin PP sport shop's nice wax and edge job on UK snow! Had to make do with a couple of compost bags and made our own toboggan run. Didn't manage to persuade any of our friends with children to come out (too sensible and went to ballet instead:shock: ) but went for it on our own and had a great time - although my A is a bit bruised from the air that we got of the unintentional jump on our version of the Cresta! There was a family 'boarding' on trays - even made their own jump - impressive - although caught rather more snow than air!

Regretting not having a pair of x-country skis though - definitely the way to travel at present!! Someone turned up to work on Thurs with a pair - more sensible than a bicycle anyway! snowHead

Keep letting us know how the 'saison' is going - very jealous.

Anyway, local snow report:

base 10 cm - wet powder - crisp in mornings. Lots of fresh tracks to be had. Runs open ~2 (all blue). Vertical descent - 40m. Lifts open - none! Caution - cows on run. Run to resort open, but tough going over ploughed field!!!

A snowHead

Well I though I made 1st lift, but when I got there at 09:14 I found the lift had already been running for 14 minutes - I guess for the holiday period then they run the lifts a little sooner, but I didn't spot that being mentioned on either the piste map or in the petits journal. Really iffy visibility varying from 200 yds to 20 yds, but we got up and did some runs. Could get 'fresh-tracks' on piste for a few runs as they'd been based and then fresh snow had falled on top of the bashed bit - loverly.

Didn't go much further than the derby but found fun to be had around the edges and through the trees. Was out on the board for a couple of hours, but fell a little hard a couple of times on my right hand, which wrist I'd jarred on the Saturday, so come 11:30 I sneaked home for a coffee and a kit change to skis. Popped back out, and pretty much did the same on skis that I was doing on my board, down the edges of the piste and through the 'wider' trees. Pretty good fun really but hard work especially on the knees. The pistes were quite bumpy, but I seemed to gain a little more success that I had been previously by engaging the edge of my downhill ski a little more - a fault that John had picked up last week. I managed the couple of hours on skis mainly edge of piste without falling over, so I'll have to go and find some steeper bits to play on in the coming week!! Come the arvo the visibility had dropped further and after 4 hours my knees were feeling it a little, so called it a day to watch the footie.

Lizzard Loving the skis, thanks. Definitely seem the business on piste, and I'm enjoying them in the easy off-piste as well. Might tryout something a little fatter later in the season, and I'm going to need to look at more of a twin-tip as my switch is coming along well

Jomo Disappointed to hear that Mr. 40ish going on 4, didn't ski in the UK, particularly when he had them in the cupboard - a bit of a shame, wax and edges notwithstanding. Perhaps it's time to invest in your own touring setup too... Still if you want to come out again and ski some hills with lifts then you'd be more than welcome. The 2 groups of visitors I had booked in over the next couple of weeks, have canned it for various reasons, which is a shame. Still hopefully some of the 4k crew is keen for the end of the season, finances and holiday permitting..

Same plan tomorrow, but might try to make the 9am lift.

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Didn't make the 9 am lift, as feeling a little under the weather, but got out around 11am on skis, but very rapidly started feeling dodgy - stiff joints, nasty headache and more. Went for a quick blast around the 2000 bowl, hoping it would clear things up but it didn't seem to help so after about 60 minutes headed back for home. Coming to the top of the derby I bumped into a bunch of mates, so I had to do a few runs with them, and it was quite fun doing more off-piste than I'd done before on skis. Could only manage 3 runs however before I headed home and went for the cup of tea, dvd and duvet on the sofa option.

There's a lot of lurgy amongst the seasonaires of different types around in resort at the moment - from the general lurgy which I had, to gastric flu, through to bronchitis - I guess it's the small community, the alcohol abuse and the shared accommodation (well for the workers), plus the personal interactions Twisted Evil

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So tuesday, I didn't go skiing.. wasnt feeling upto it, so caught up on season 1 and 2 of spooks on DVD...

Wednesday feeling a bit better so got out around 11:30 for a couple of hours, not skiing that well as I'm still suffering a little but was good to get some fresh air. Recent light snowfalls had refreshed the pistes, but the Aig Rouge was closed and they were still blasting as I headed out. Did a few runs off the derby to warmup (well to prove how badly I was skiing) and then I looked across at 1800 which looked like it had better vis, so I headed over to do some runs off the vagere. Did golf several times and it was in fabulous condition lots of loverly soft lumps around the place, and no icy bits inbetween. Then headed back to the derby for a couple more runs before heading home..

Tonight is 'bin bag fancy dress in the squirrel' which should be good fun, provided I feel up for it...

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I am eagerly awaiting the next instalment.

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I fear the bin bag fancy dress has done bertie bassett in!?

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NateDoggUK, that's too much local knowledge!!

Sorry for disappointing the keen readers of this blog - there's not been that much to post as I left the resort on Thursday, to head home for a few days, back out this thursday for the back end of 1/2 term madness.

As I was flying home and then needing to rent a car from LGW, I was wondering whether you could get them with chains or a winter pack - judging by the snow-lies.com then LGW was in for a few cm that evening. Still I decided not to worry, and booked through Holiday Autos on Wed evening. On my confirmation email they said, please print a copy of this voucher and give it to the carhire desk, so I spent a 'happy' 45 minutes chasing round the resort on Thursday morning looking for a printer. The one in the pub was broken, so head down to the tourist office to print a PDF copy from their PC's. Pas de probleme said the madam on the desk, so I paid my 3 euro to get a usage voucher and headed upstairs to log-on. (tech bit warning) Quite a nice 'internet cafe' setup, was running a flavour of linux & KDE, but rapidly mounted my memory stick and gave me an option to view the files - I wnet for the print and off it go spooled 'downstairs' so they can charge 20c a page for a print-out. "ce ne marche pas" said madame. Oh drat thought I. We gave it another go but after a wasted 30 minutes didn't manage to get the print to print out. Oh well though I - I'm sure I can just cowd00 it / blag it /show them the thing on the laptop if really required - besides if the booking is electronic why do I need to give them a print-out. Although I've got in the doo-doo with Easyjet before when I got lots of 'computer says no' and it was only when I showed them a printed copy of the reservation than comuter magically said yes.

So after pfaffing for a good time, I eventually got home and got my kit on to hit the hill. The snow was in good condition and the visibility was ok but not great. I was still not 100% but better than I'd been earlier in the week, and was quite looking forward to a good 3 hour blast before heading down and heading home. Well that was the plan dunno whether it was the seeting 2 blood wagons before I'd skied my 1st run, the iffy light or the tiredness/illnesss I was feeling but I really was skiing like a muppett. To say that the va-va-voom was missing was an understatement, the Va-Va had never been their all day. I was doing some 'edge of piste playing' and quite enjoying it, but on my 4th or 5th run, launched myself too quickly from piste to off-piste hit a bump and went flying, skis on way, poles the other. Muppet! Oh well nothing damaged so I got up and brushed myself down and collected my bits and bobs, clipped in a skied back onto the piste. Got 300 yds down the piste and was picking up the carving pressure when pushed hard for a turn and off popped the ski..and over I went again, this time going about 20 yds down the hill on my face. Luckily no real damage was done, other than too my ego and a boarder came down and collected the ski I'd left uphill. On reflection I guess I possibly hadn't engaged the binding correctly, perhaps my pants which were a bit long had caught in it giving the appearance of being closed when it wasnt. I then decided that 'if it's not working don't force it' so went home and called it a day.

I then set off down the hill a bit later for the drive to Lyon. It's funny how people have 'favourite airports' - I know Rob@Rar is a GVA man, but for some reason I seem to prefer LYS. There's no real reason for it, other than I've always quite liked the motorway blast up via Chambery and the 21:05 Easyjet flight to LGW seems to be designed with me in mind - you could ski to 5 and pretty safely make the flight, even accoutting for time spent parking at the airport. Interesting that the car park long stay (P5) courtesy bus drops/collects right outside terminal 3 (easyjet) whereas the courtesy bus for the hire car desk doesnt - hopefully that anomaly will be resolved when the new terminal 1 opens later this year. Still I had some time to kill so after checking in and dropping my bag I chose to go upstairs in Term 1/2 and have some dinner. The Olympic Lyonaise Cafe seemed to serve reasonable food and a burger was around 12 euros IIRC, but not as nice as those in resort.

An uneventful flight home, marked by the pilot commenting on how it was snowing at LGW but hopefully not sticking as us 'brits' were rubbish at clearing snow. Luckily it didn't seem to be and we landed on time, but whilst picking up the hire car, the desk was mobbed by people who's flights had been diverted from Standsted as the runways had all been closed. One guy was there at 10, having tried to leave Edinburgh @ 5pm and was delayed. Unfortunately for them there were no spare cars available.

So a few days at home, catching up on the jobs, paying a few bills and seeing friends and then back out on Thursday morning for the second half of the season.

I trust everyones having good times on their trips / holidays...

After all it is free · Last edited by After all it is free on Wed 18-02-09 9:49; edited 1 time in total

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By concidence, we too have come home for a few days to avoid the mad Parisians! We're back on 26th Feb. My favourite airport is Chambery, in spite of my mate's grumbles! It's nearer than Geneva or Lyon, and is ideal for us pie eaters from t'North - flights to M/c, Leeds & Newcastle with Jet2.com, and no charges for parking, and no traffic jams, either! My mate was really unlucky - 3 years ago - Air Traffic Controllers' one day strike on a Thursday. This year, French national strike - on a Thursday! Twice, he's been caught! So the moral is, don't travel on a Thursday... By the way, the new Motorway to Geneva is now open, cutting the journey time by 30 mins, at least.
For future reference, if you need a printer in Peisey, the following have one -
Christophe at Le Solan, a great lad.
Muriel at La Vanoise, not the flying handbag, the hotel! She is very helpful, also.
If you're really desperate, PM me, I live near La Ferme resto.
We must meet up when you get back, enjoying your blog immensely. especially the spills and late nights...

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Confessions of a 30 something seasonaire or “Hello from Les Arcs”

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