Skiing

Back from a week in Val D'Isere. Only 10cm of snow during the week (compared to the promised 150cm) but it meant for days and days of clear blue skies instead (our beginners loved this). Snow good but packed and down to ice in various places (doesn't bother me so much any more).

Weather came in the day we left. 5.5 hour transfer to Chambery (instead of 3 hours), another 5 hours waiting in the airport and then told that the plane wasn't coming in. Bused to a good enough hotel in Albertville (some of the Jet2 Manchester flights spent the night in a cold sports hall near the airport with the Red Cross providing emergency blankets/etc) and then tried again the next day. Got out at 3pm after an hour on the tarmac as they argued about hold baggage counts (ended up being a paperwork error).

MiniGB loved her first week of skiing (just morning lessons) and, by the end, she was able to do the nursery button lift (not just the travelator in the kids snow garden) although getting off usually resulted in her losing both skis and ending up in the snow bank at the end. Made me a very happy dad going down the nursery slope with her snow-ploughing between my skis (that's hard work on the thighs!)

Top speed was, oddly, on the top section of Diebold (a blue) but then that's probably because of the good sight lines, time of day (lunch so almost completely clear) and easy run off. 20kph down on a few years ago but I didn't want to do anything stupid on a family holiday. Will break the 100kph barrier again on upcoming boys trip. Double M into Val Claret is a good one for speed too but didn't manage to get over there with enough time to go up that way.

Did Face/Stade-Olympique at least once a day (usually on my way to collect wife/daughter from ski school). Was lucky and got to do Trolles into Tignes a couple of times when the barriers weren't all the way across the slope to prevent people from using it as a speed run. Other nice runs:-

• Arcelle (the red down to Le Manchet)
  
• Plan/Piste-M or Rhone-Alpes/Combe-Martin
  
• Orange all the way down to La Daille
  
  

Not so nice stuff:-

• Santons was hideous at times, shame as I used to love this run last time I went there (10 years ago)
  
• Epaule de Charvet looked like it was last bashed in 2005 and was waist high moguls, slow progress and hard work for an average skiier like myself but got it done.
  
  

Stuff I'd wish I'd done:-

• La Grande Motte (Les Lanches lift from Val Claret), lovely up there
  
• Le Fornet (the unbashed black Foret is supposed to be lovely)
  
  

Less than 3 weeks until I go to Austria (Lech) on a 4 day boys trip. #fml

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