Spent last week in Les Menuires in the 3V .
Flew out on sat and arrived 8pm sat night. Drank a little too much and then got about 3 hrs sleep as the underfloor heating was rather too efficient.
Sunday . Sunny start so headed up to La Masse to check out the legs and the snow conditions. Was OK , off piste was rubbish though . A week of freeze / thaw had hardened up everything. After lunch the cloud rolled in and the light went flat, then it snowed .
Monday . Fresh snow everywhere , only a few inches but enough to freshen up the pistes . Link lifts closed whilst they blasted all the danger zones , but most opened up around 11am. Dropped into Meribel and had some fun up on the sides of the ridge dropping down towards Mont Vallon . Got sidetracked and went up the Cote Brun lift and decended under the lift on the powder . Its steep enough to raise the heartrate, but not enough to make you go wobbly.
A few laps then down to Mont Vallon . Again , straight off piste and into the powder . It was lovely 3-4″ and hardly anyone around.
A few laps of Mont Vallon then worked our way home on some cruisy blues and reds.
Tuesday Headed over to Corchevalski. Still pockets of powder around
but mostly tracked out. Covered some distance but didnt find anything worth repeating.
Wednesday. Sunny, so up to VT for some high altitude stuff . Was cold and windy but bright . Alot of the pistes were rock hard and any off piste was tracked out . Failed to get into the 4th valley as I was skiing with a boarder who was intermediate level , but had no confidence in letting the board run at speed so progress was steady at best.
Thursday. More snow up top , not alot but enough to make a difference. PLayed on the ridgeline between Meribel and Les Menuires , not dropping too low as it had rained lower down. Had some fun as the snow had come in late most pisted hadnt been bashed.
Dropped halfway down to St Martin de Belleville but the lower section of that piste was super hard and compacted snow. Light went flat early afternoon as the cloud moved in . so home for tae and cakes.
Friday . Rain . Pouring down from early evening Thurs , Snow level was around 2000m which is unusual for late Januaury . I wear a bin liner as a goth mini skirt when its like this . Gettin wet means getting cold , and this way I can use chair lifts to get up the mountain withoiut getting wet pants.
The links/lifts up high were closed to high winds ( 60 + kph ) so struggled to stay above the snow level. We ended up on MOnt Vallon again , as eventually they opened up the higher lifts , and they are cabins so offer some protection.
Lots of pwder everywhere but too dangerous for off piste antics. Vis was down to a few meters at times and the wind was horrendous. Stuck at it till about 1pm then binned it off. It was still raining below about 2000m
Learnt that new goggles have a tear off on the inside and the outside of the lens. Not me , I hasten to add , but the guy i was skiing with was always taking off his goggles and complaing that Bloc were rubbish . Till I offered to used the lens cloth thats inside my jacket.
” Why is the sticker that says ‘remove before use’ still stuck on?” I pulled it off and it peeled away looking rather alot like a condom, they worked alot better after that.
SkiFrance OK , food good, but needed 1/3 bigger portions more really. 3V OK but busy with transient people getting over to other areas.
Sorry to leave as it heaved it down all Fri night and was still coming down sat lunchtime. Roads well blocked due to mandatory chainage above 1500m
