Tue 12 Jan – evening
Adam and I stay rather too long in Les Rhodos and so it is late when I start to make our pizzas. I discover, to our amusement, that the pizza base mix has a use-by date in the year 2000. Only ten years out of date! I have a go regardless. Sadly the base doesn’t rise at all and we eat pizza biscuits at 9.45pm. Suffice to say, I have not pleasantly surprised Adam at all although he kindly says that they are ok.
Photo of me in my new jacket.
Wed 13 Jan
It is snowing really heavily this morning!!
I take it easy in the morning at home, using the time to do some Pilates and worry about the strange clicking noise my hips and knees are making. I decide to eat an early lunch at home to avoid the indigestion suffered yesterday.
I learnt a new French word yesterday. Galipette. My tumbles down the mountain are galipettes. The direct translation is somersault. But Terri and the French men in my class find it very funny as apparently this French word has a double meaning (I bit like finnochio in Italian which I learned about in one of the Tales of the City books and used in India with Luca, the Italian volunteer I met there). I’ve now looked Galipette up and its other meaning is: fornication!
I do one run before my lesson today and take a steep but short off-piste slope to practice my turns after yesterday’s disastrous falls. The snowfall has softened the bumps nicely and I ski it quite well. I have mentally changed my attitude to my lesson today as I know that it was fear yesterday, which was crippling my skiing. I also hope that due to the snow and poor visibility we will have to stay low, in the trees.
When I meet Terri we have a new addition to the class, Vaughan, but two others have not come today so we are still only a small group of three students. Terri says we have to stay in the trees and that there will not be any steep cliffs today. Hurray!
Terri leads us a merry dance through the trees around Linderets and twice we head off the right at the top of the Linderets chairlift (most people go left as there is no piste to the right). The snow is thigh-high powder in places between the trees and it is still snowing.
I am turning on time today and it is Julian who is the main galopetter today (thank goodness). We make first tracks through the trees and whoop a lot as we turn and jump through the powder. There is no one else here – Terri has been skiing Avoriaz for 30 years and really knows the secret areas, it is fabulous.
On our 2nd to last run Terri loses a ski while skiing a steep slope which ended in a jump with a hidden lip. It is the first time I’ve ever seen an instructor crash and we all find it very funny (Terri is fine!). I stupidly take the same route and also lose a ski, so the others find another way round to avoid more crashes.
Last run of the day is through The Stash which is a freestyle playground with rails, jumps and walls to play on. I had thought it looked really dangerous however I ended up skiing down a wooden plank (!), doing a few jumps and skiing through the wooden hut in the middle which has a steep approach and descent. We were all whooping like crazy!
Vaughan says this has been his best lesson ever and asks if he can join our afternoon class from now on. It is definitely better with a smaller number in the class, the morning class has 9 – 12 people and they are constantly waiting for people so don’t do nearly as many runs as us.
It kept snowing all day but it was quite wet snow and I returned from my lesson soaked through.
I make chicken fajitas with rice, guacamole, salsa and soured cream for dinner. Adam was a bit hesitant about a Mexican dinner but he really enjoys it and says that this dinner has surpassed his expectations (at last!).
Thur 14 Jan
Today Terri says he will give us a lesson we will never forget. Sounds ominous! We head up the Fornet chair, a chairlift I have taken many times, however this time we then walk in our skis up to the mountain ridge and pop over the back of the mountain. There we find fresh, untracked powder and proceed to practice our powder turns all the way to the bottom. It is blissful (between falls) and I do not do as many galipettes today at all. It takes us quite a while to reach the bottom however then we have a very long cross-country ski around to the Nyon gondola. Definitely more of a trip for skiers than boarders, unless they want a long walk.
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