Ian and Natalie's Alpine Adventures and Other Tales

Another dull morning

2011-12-13T11:08:00.001+01:00

Another climb before work this morning followed by some lift-assistance (cheating) to get perfect powder on Col du Bassachaux.

This was the first proper powder test of my new Movement Ikis - i still need to learn to ski them but they are SO much better than my too-short and too-skinny Dynastar Altitrails.

The top of the Col was extremely wind-blown (and still blowing when we were there), but the snow of yesterday fell on top of the, now compacted, first fall of the previous week. So now we have a base and powder. Awesome.

This photo of Natalie with Lac de Montriond in the background is also awesome - even if it's skew - it was very cold and this was taken one-handed in an extremely strong wind.

Mont Chery

2011-12-12T20:15:00.003+01:00

So last Friday, before work, Emma (ski-racer and telemark skier), Craig (ESF ski-instructor), and Dani (champion Alpine skier (yes, seriously)), Natalie (winner, best-ski-style-according-to-me 7 years continuously, and myself (enthusiastic-but-with-no-obvious-other-skills) went for a rando up Mont Chery. Clearly i was well qualified to be on this expedition.

Anyway, it was a stupendously good morning and i took some photos. This was the hike up, doggies (left-to-right: Runa, Less, and Maggie) making this 25-30 degree slope look too easy.

And this was de-skinning at the rather spectacular top, after our 400m climb. That's Point d'Uble in the background, as if you needed me to tell you that. Scarlett is hiding behind Natalie's legs and Craig is actually busy de-skinning while i goof around taking photos.

Craig, gentleman, and did i mention, ESF ski-instructor that he is, then went to assist the ski-racer and race-champion with their own de-skinning. I'm still taking photos.

Left to right, we have Craig (still working for the ESF as a ski-instructor in this photo), Dani, Maggie, Less (the collies), and ski-racer and most-excellent-wearer-of-hats Emma. If you're not finding this entry funny you're missing out on the inside jokes. If you're in on the jokes and still not finding it funny... well i can't help you with that.

Finally, Natalie got bored of me taking photos - elle s'en va:

(And thus skied off). See why i say she has the best style? Anyway, so then we did some more photos:

May i present: Dani (did i mention also ESF ski-instructor?) and Craig). The acute bout of grinning may have been brought about by the view of Monn Blonn in the background. Either that or it was Emma yelling "reblochon" as loud as she could.

May i present Natalie, and myself. That would be a snowy Les Gets in the background. I haven't been up this early since 1999 - hence the leaning. And, finally, but certainly not least, we have:

Ski-racer and frequent-shouter-of-reblochon Emma with Natalie. Personally i think Emma's hat is the best hat i've ever seen. Anywhere. Ever.

So when are we doing this again?

First snow

2011-12-12T19:46:00.001+01:00

Ok, so this is a bit late, but this was the result of the first snow (lasting 4 days) that we had last week. This shot was taken at 09:00 and that rather large mountain in the distance to the right, surrounded by storm clouds, is, of course, Mont Blanc.

Click on this photo to get the full effect

By the way, you pronounce Mont Blanc "Monn Blonn". You do not pronouce the 'c'. Obviously - get right people. Sheesh. Anyway, so this was taken from the top of Mont Chery and the snowy hills in the foreground is the resort of Les Gets - pistes bashed and ready to go for the season.

Extreme Lawn-mowing

2011-12-07T00:49:00.001+01:00

The Portes du Soleil ski resort is set out over 650km of pistes and under the snow of most of those pistes is grass. In other resorts, at higher altitudes, you find that the pistes are made out of rock. Rock is bad because you need more snow to cover it. With a grass slope you need 10cm of fresh or just 5cm of hard-pack to be able to ski it (although this would be the very end of the season).

The other cool thing about grass is that you can shape it to bind to the snow better. So here, in November, they mow the pistes just before the first snow-fall. This makes the grass blades stick up and hold the snow better - clever huh?

Anyway, so we have a skiable slope in our back garden and last year, when i tried to ski it, i kept getting down to the bare grass as the snow slipped off the horizontal grass - not cool. So this year, i decided to learn from the pisteurs and also mow mine... Hence, extreme lawn-mowing:

Cool orange steel-reinforced boots - this season's must have extreme lawn-mowing accessory.

Now all i need is the snow to cover it (of which there's about 1cm right now).

The Gathering Storm

2011-12-02T15:10:00.001+01:00

Well, at least i hope it's going to be a storm. Quite a lot of people are counting on these rather spectacular clouds actually baring snow. I can confirm that at 1000m, the first spots of rain fell at 14:30 this afternoon. This is the first precipitation in over a month. Come on snow!

Clouds gathering over le Roc d'Enfer

My French Education: Accent

2011-11-29T18:39:00.001+01:00

French is hard. It's hard to say, it's hard to hear, there are oodles of rules, and the fact that you can just run all the words together and put gaps pretty much where you like, means you need a multi-pass parser to read the previous sentence spoken to you into your head several times before you get what is being said.

Anyway, this weekend i hit a milestone. Someone (a French someone) asked me where i was from because he couldn't place my accent. That means i'm actually speaking fluently enough to actually have an accent. I bet a South African accent sounds rather weird in French!

Anyway, hooray for me. So far we've bought a TV, a car, and are now starting a business in French. We spent the last Sunday morning entirely with French (non-English-speaking) friends. I reckon another 20 - 30 years and i'll be fluent.

I must say i really like the language, despite its difficulties for an anglophone. It's so polite, everything rhymes, and the guttural R is the coolest sound ever made by a human. C'est vraiment genial!

Tignes in November

2011-11-28T23:47:00.001+01:00

This weekend, thanks to the combined team effort of some of our awesome friends out here, Natalie and i managed to get away to Tignes for some pre-season skiing on the glacier. It was an amazing weekend away, thanks to our excellent friends who gave us place to stay and looked after Scarlett and Runa for us.

Natalie at 3100m

The apartment we stayed in was the closest possible apartment to the funiculaire - literally 50m in a straight line. The snow at the top was surprisingly good and i've become surprisingly unfit during the summer - my salopettes were too tight!

At about 3300m trying my best to carve

The common problem for the last year has been that my old Bandits are ruined and so i've been having to ski everywhere on my Sultan 94s. They are way too big for skiing glacier ice and hard bumps, and quite tricky to carve - i have to get my new skis soon! I'm thinking Scott Aztec, but the jury is out... you know how good i am at making fast purchasing decisions.

Natalie, carving :)

I can heartily recommend Tignes - we've skied there in January, August, and now November. The snow is always good, the sun has always been out and we've always had an amazing time.

The downside is it is incredibly expensive. We spent about €150 on food for the two of us for 2 lunches and a small evening meal... incroyable.

The other downside is that you do rather feel like a beginner with all the amazing race-skiers around. The standard of skiing is extremely high. Most people rate resorts in terms of steepness and number of correct coloured runs to establish the beginner-friendly-ness of a resort. I think it's smarter to just look at the average skill level of the other skiers there. The skill level at Tignes in November is unbelievably good. It's worth going just to watch them ski and learn from their technique.

Having said all that the lady in the background of Natalie's photo above was a statistical outlying to the number of experts out there... i think i need to airbrush her out...

The Problem

2011-11-28T23:34:00.001+01:00

This is the problem with the snow in the French Alps so far this season:

Taken on La Grande Motte at 3150m yesterday

Let's hope it doesn't continue... What's happening now is what happened last February. There's a high pressure stuck over the Alps keeping all the weather away. Go away high-pressure i want some SNOW!

Tronçonneuse

2011-11-22T19:39:00.001+01:00

I got to do "Mountain-Man" things this weekend. Everyone should own a chainsaw - they are the most awesomest of awesome machines evA.

Doing stuff with wood and metal at 119 dB. Awesome.

Interestingly, the chainsaw cost €500, but the protective gear (chainsaw-gloves, chainsaw-sleeves (which i now wear to bed - they are so comfy), chainsaw-boots, chainsaw-trousers, and face-protector) cost about €400. Having said that, maybe it really isn't that interesting. Supposedly the trousers can block the chainsaw blade - i wouldn't like to test it - the trousers aren't as solid as the wood the saw can cut though with very little effort.

Anyway, we now probably have enough wood to get us through to end-January - then we will just freeze for the rest of the winter because heating your house in the moutains is just too expensive. Plus i'm a Mountain Man now so i don't get cold.

Passage de Savolaire

2011-11-18T23:05:00.001+01:00

Last Sunday Natalie and i went our for a "short walk" above Essert la Pierre. Just like in the Sound of Music, the mountain kept calling us higher and we ended up at the spectacular Passage de Savolaire, which at 1997m leads to a narrow-ish couloir down into the Vallée d'Abondance.

Passage de Savolaire, looking down to Abondance

We're definitely going to be checking this out on rando when Winter gets here. It will have to be early in the season though as the climb is in full sun. The couloir down into Abondance should be awesome, as, at 5pm, there was still frost on the ground on the north-facing slopes.

About half-way up we passed Brion, which consists of one farm - apart from the lack of electricity and phone, this would be an awesome place to live - in the Winter you get sun until 17:00 and a perfect view of Mont Blanc over the shoulder of Nantaux.

At Brion, looking towards the huge mass that is Nantaux

Finally, at the top, just above the Passage, there's the tiny peak called Pointe des Lanchettes where Scarlett and Runa figured it was time for a break and some sun-tanning. We're definitely running into Winter now with it getting really cold in the shade. We'll absolutely be back here when it's covered in snow, and, incidentally, if you're climbing it and planning to ski into Abondance, i'd say the couloir to the right of Pointe des Lanchettes as you ascend from Brion would be the easier ski in - the route to the left is narrower and looks a lot steeper.

At the top of Pointe des Lanchettes

Eleven eleven eleven

2011-11-11T11:44:00.001+01:00

This is the real reason we moved to France and chose to live in the mountains - so we could do this:

Happy eleven-eleven-eleven, tout le monde.

Monza

2011-09-12T17:04:00.000+02:00

Never been to a Grand Prix before, so i figured Monza, since it's only 4 hours away, wouldn't be a bad thing to spend a weekend doing. This was the view from our seats at Alta Velocita C, right at the first chicane down from the start:

Schumacher and Hamilton battle for 3rd. Note smoke from Hamilton and the fact that Schumacher is only on 2 wheels.

I don't think there could have been a better place to watch it from - the rest of the circuit is extremely fast and you wouldn't get the time to tell the difference between the cars. That, and all the action happened here. The crash at the start, the battle for 3rd between Schumacher and Hamilton, and Schumacher's spin during qualifying.

I'm not sure i'd go to Monza again. The race organisation was extremely poor, although i've only ever been to this GP, i can't be sure they don't all have this problem. We had to walk about 7km from where we parked to our seats and the bus service itself was pretty random - if you happened to be on the right line you got (slightly) closer to the track. On the way out there was a dangerous crowd-crush where the marshals did nothing. The signage telling you where to go and how to get there was almost non-existent.

I got the impression that if i'd arrived by helicopter i would have been more welcome than just a mere supporter paying a fortune for 20cm of steel bench on a grandstand that wobbled.

So the sport was amazing, the sound of the cars unbelievable, but the full spectator experience offered by Monza could have been a lot better.

Via Ferrata - Chapelle d'Abondance

2011-08-07T10:00:00.000+02:00

There is an infinite* number of sports and activities to be done in the French Alps. It doesn't really make much sense when i tell people i want to be an Alpinist and then have to admit to an over-developed fear of heights. And there are a lot of heights to be found in the mountains.

Anyway so we recently took up Rock Climbing (Escalade). We've previously climbed indoors so we have some basic knowledge and have been learning to lead climb at our nearest wall which is just down the road at Bas Thex.

But so far, because we are beginners, we've not got much more than 15 - 20m off the ground, and although this is clearly high enough to kill you as much as you can drown in 2 inches of water in the bath tub, we wanted to get out of the tub and get some real exposure. Enter Via Ferrata - which is basically climbing a rock face which has been laced with steel cable and steel horse-shoe shaped rungs in the form of ladders. You clip yourself onto the steel cable with a specialised karabiner and cowslip which has a shock-absorbing system built into it.

I actually didn't realise it would be so vertical, or over-hanging in a lot of places, and i certainly didn't realise that the exposure would be so huge, for the entire trip. Anyway, it was definitely good for my heights fear - but as usual Natalie had no problem with it whatsoever and climbed it like she was climbing a flight of stairs!

* For large finite values of infinite.

Snowboard Shopping

2011-03-03T11:13:00.001+01:00

This weekend Natalie and I went snowboard shopping. Yes yes, we've taken up the evil sport but ya know what? It's actually kinda fun. That must be why all these "moron boarders" do it! Anyway, shopping for the boards was equally fun. We could not, of course, make any decisions without our consultant snow-board gear experts, Runa and Scarlett:

And no... we did not get boards with any obscene graphics on them... Pah - snowboarders!

Learn to Ski

2011-02-27T19:08:00.001+01:00

If you really want to learn how to ski, i recommend skiing with the 9-year-old son of a ski-instructor for an afternoon. My goodness me, i have never skied so fast or done such crazy things in my young life. We followed little Mick, age just-turned-9, and currently 4th fastest in his ski-club, down the stash in Avoriaz/Lindarets. It was the first time i'd attempted any features and i still got dirty looks for only doing the baby "table" (like a rail but wider).

Next we were blasting down very mogully runs in a whiteout skiing by feeling our way with our knees only and watching Mick take 2m of air at the side of the piste. After that we just had to bop down 45 degree mashed potato powder over rocks and roots. Exhausted, you get to the bottom, only to be greeted by Mick who got there several days ago wondering what took you so long.

Thanks for a brilliant afternoon Mick - sorry we were so slow!

I love France: Reason #1, Exhibit B

2011-02-23T15:18:00.001+01:00

More Mont Blanc, this time from the top of the Aiguille du Midi at 3842m.

Note the teeny climber dude to the far right, about to casually climb a ladder onto the viewing platform with a 1000m drop to his right.

Reasons why I love France: #1

2011-02-02T01:18:00.001+01:00

Mont Blanc

As seen from the top of "The Elephant". I continue to be amazed at the fact that the Vallee d'Aulps at St Jean d'Aulps probably has the best view of this magnificent mountain. The mountains part for a perfectly unspoilt view of it which is unbelievable considering how far away it is and how difficult it can be to get to see it from anywhere in the Chablais. This photo was taken on my iPhone just after sunset. This is about a 35 minute 300m vertical run from our house, which is down there in the clouds, just to the left of the shot.

Snowboarding

2011-01-30T20:01:00.001+01:00

Despite many promises, my long awaited next post has just failed to materialize. There are many half-written entries begging for time to be finished but that time is as elusive as the snow has been in January. Anyway, just a quick one. We tried snowboarding for the first time today.

After years of dissing snowboarders, actually... I'm ashamed to say it was really fun! We were padded like American Football players with impact shorts, wrist, knee, and elbow guards. That didn't stop me mashing my shoulder, however. After 4 hours including a 2-hour private ESF lesson at La Grande Terche we were able to make linked turns on the nursery slopes at the top of the Terche. As with skiing, it's actually easier when it's a bit steeper.

I'm not entirely sure what my aspirations as a snowboarder are just yet, but we're definitely going again. I'd like to get to the point where the whole resort is open to us on boards so it's always an option if the skiing conditions aren't up to it. Mostly it's just good to be learning something new.

Catchup

2011-01-04T21:31:00.001+01:00

Many of my readers (ok one reader) have been wondering if i've been buried in powder for the last 3 weeks. Sadly not as there IS no powder. We haven't had fresh snow since the- ... since i can't remember it's been so long! Like since forever man! Anyway, i did note down 12 titles on my iPhone so I can remember what I have done every day. I'm happy to report that our of my EUR 612 lift pass i've currently spent about EUR 450. Can't wait til it's all finished up so I can stop skiing the resort and get out into the Back Country! Anyway... in-order but very very late updates to follow shortly...

10/11.3: Ski Test: Dynastar Sultan Legend 94

2010-12-15T01:50:00.001+01:00

Day Three of our ski season coincided with the Avoriaz Ski Test. Nice of them to think of us. A Ski Test is where you can, in exchange for a blood sample, your family history to 6 generations, and you own head (on a plate), you can try out any skis you like. You get an hour and a half to go and do whatever you want.

The ski test stalls in Avoriaz

I have been itching to try out the Dynastar Sultan Legend 94s. I'm an intermediate skier and have been on Rossignol Bandit B78s for the last three years. Nothing wrong with the Bandits but I am beginning to think that their "all-mountainness" means that, yes, you can go anywhere and they can do anything, but also that that means that they don't do anything particularly well. They aren't good carvers, i find them wobbly on hardpack, and just average off-piste.

Specifically, i've found that i'm sinking in powder and I need to put a lot of energy into the turn to get it to happen. As I said, i'm only intermediate (and a very aggressive skier) so this is certainly down to bad technique but at the same time, i think a fatter ski is going to help.

For those still reading who don't have a clue what i'm on about the numbers in the ski name indicate how wide the ski is at the middle of the ski. My current Bandits are 78mm across the waist and the Sultan 94s are 94mm at the waist (the waist being the middle of the ski). Fatter ski equals more float in powder. More float in powder equals awesome skiing experience - like flying down a mountain just a few centimeters above the ground at 30kph.

So anyway, we eventually found the Dynastar stall and i asked about the 94s only to be told that they had four, but that they were all out on tests. Just before starting to weep, a man appeared next to me (clad in golden armour which shone with a light from within - Armor +6) and presented the lady at the stall with a pair of skis. Not just any skis but Sultans. Not just any Sultans but 94s and not just any 94s but 178cm (length) Sultans.

Incredible good luck as that is the perfect length for me. After getting my hire card (which actually was very straightforward: drivers license and credit card) i was clutching the 94s only moments later.

Eagerly clutching my Sultans

The label said "Come On Ski", so we did heading over to Fornet. The variable conditions we've had here over the past two weeks were actually great for my test. I found ice, steeps, some shallow powder, bumps, and nice groomed pistes as well. Each ski is only 16mm wider than my Bandits but the difference is incredible. Even on only a very light dusting of powder you're riding much higher. And even on crusty stuff i found that i was on the snow as opposed to in it like i am on the Bandits.

I have a lot to learn and clearly, this being the first fat ski i've skied, the skis are much better than me, but that's the point - to learn something new. I found that they are much more stable than my Bandits. They have wider sidecut of the Sultans at 18m vs the Bandits with 16m. Even though these are really off-piste powder skis, i found them much more fun to carve on the pistes. Bumps were more difficult and I couldn't really do my whippy turns that i can do on the Bandits on moguls.

Natalie off-piste on Fornet. I really like this part of the PdS.

The biggest test was going back to the Bandits after and hour and a half on the Sultans. My Bandits felt weak and whishy-washy after the power and stability of the Sultans. I think I adapted to the Sultans pretty quickly. I realised immediately that these were a totally different beast. On powder I found myself being super-aggressive as usual, but these didn't like that at all. I needed a much lighter touch to carve a turn on the powder. I can't wait to try them in proper deep stuff.

As Natalie said, the fact that I noticed the difference was a good sign. I'm not really good enough to ski these yet and I'll have to take it easy at the start, but I think they will be an excellent 2nd ski for me. Father Christmas, are you reading this?

PS. Avoriaz did a great job keeping the resort open on Saturday. Heavy rain has decimated the snow all over the Portes du Soleil but they managed to groom some great pistes and even build the Arare snowpark. The snow has started again today, so it's still looking like a very good start to the season.

Catered Chalets

2010-12-14T18:42:00.001+01:00

This is going to be a weird post. With all the major humanitarian problems the world suffers with I can't see that there will be a lot of sympathy for my little rant here, but anyway, this has been bugging me so...

Chalet holidays are too cheap. Since moving out to France we've met a lot of chalet operators and not one of them can actually afford to live out here the whole year round purely on what their chalet generates in the Winter. And yet they all continue to make a loss and do oodles of other jobs to compensate and carry on living their Alpine lifestyles. I think this is madness. There are about 100 independent chalet operators in Morzine. They're all in close competition with one another and they all charge about the same amount.

Peak weeks are about 500 - 600 EUR and low weeks are about 400 - 500 EUR. For that you get 7 nights accommodation, breakfast and a 4-course evening meal. So that's an average of about 70 EUR per night per person. A four-course meal at a restaurant (and a lot of chalets serve very high quality food made by professional chefs) would set you back at least 30 EUR. And there's usually free wine. So let's say it's 50 EUR a night to stay and 20 for food. Most places now have en-suite bathrooms, saunas, and outdoor hot-tubs. All this for about 70 EUR a night.

So now, my question is, where can you stay, anywhere in the UK, for 60 GPB a night with breakfast and supper included? You can't even stay in a Travel Lodge off the M25 for that money. The last time i stayed at a Travel Lodge off the M25 (which was recently unfortunately) i don't recall seeing the hot-tub and sauna either.

Basically I just don't get it. Your lift pass is about as expensive as your accommodation. Why do chalet operators willingly make a loss and their lives so difficult? They could charge double and it would still be value for money: 140 EUR for 4 star accommodation with breakfast and supper? Last month we paid over 200 GBP for Natalie to stay in a random 4 star hotel in London for one night - no breakfast and no supper.

They are driving themselves out of business. It's not even cheaper to stay self-catered. We've tried both and there's really no super-cheap option. Possibly Caravaneige would be cheaper. Caravaneige is staying in a caravan in a campsite in the snow.

So... what am I saying? I think i've even confused myself here. What I'm saying to my non-chalet-operator readers is that you should stay in a (good) catered chalet or hotel because it's unbelievably cheap! Most chalet companies have a lifespan of about 5 years - and then the owners give up and run self-catered apartments or just pack up and leave. It's also really only the English that do catered chalet holidays. The French, Dutch, and Germans stay in small hotels or self-catered or in the aforementioned campsites. I suspect unless something changes (like the Euro plummeting) that the traditional English catered chalet holiday could be coming to an end.

As I said, not really earth-shattering. I don't expect this post to be on CNN or anything, I just think it's strange to willingly make a loss and work so hard just to be out in the Alps. When you read on the operator's website that they love the mountains, I can attest that, and this (sort of) proves that, they really do!

Slackcountry

2010-12-13T21:40:00.001+01:00

I recently learned a great new phrase: "slackcountry". Slackcountry skiing is, as far as i can make out, lift-assisted backcountry skiing. Back-country skiing is skiing off-pistes where there are no chairlifts. So, for example, in the Portes du Soleil we have le Vallee de la Manche. This valley runs from the tops of the Fornet valley down to Morzine at the Nyon cable car. You can get a lift right to the top of Fornet and then climb over a little ridge and then get about 4km of unspoilt (i.e. no lift-pylons) off-piste skiing.

This run most definitely falls into the slackcountry category. I think other qualifying slackcountry skiing might be where you use a lift for a portion of the climb, and then skin up (walk up on skis) the rest of the way. And although it's not pure randonee, I think it's an excellent way for Alpine skiers to get into Randonee skiing by skiing close to the relative safety of the resort.

Having said that, all off-piste is dangerous and you should always hire a guide with transceivers. Especially down the Vallee de la Manche. This valley is notorious for avalanches and you should absolutely only ski it with a qualified guide. We skied it for the first (and so far only) time with a chalet "ski-host". He had no transceiver and was leading a group of poor skiers down it in unpleasant conditions. Not very smart but at the time we didn't know any better. Spend the money, get a guide.

Natalie and the Swiss Wall

2010-12-11T01:32:00.001+01:00

This deserved a post all of it's own.

Again those pesky Dents du Midi ruining the shot. If it's not blatantly obvious by the title, this was taken at the top the Swiss Wall looking over into Switzerland.

The Swiss Wall: Summer Edition

2010-12-11T01:31:00.001+01:00

Every ski resort seems to have at least one feature which makes it (in)famous. For the Portes du Soleil this has to be the Swiss Wall. The Swiss Wall is an itinerary route from France at the top of the Col de Chavanette which you access at the top of the Fornet valley down into Switzerland (although I think the top of the Col is actually technically in Switzerland as well) at the beginning of the classic blue cruiser: Ripailles. This links you up with the Les Crozets ski area.

It has a reputation for being dangerous and there are various rumours that several people a year kill themselves on it. As far as I can tell, this is total nonsense (although i do know of deaths on The Wall, but not in the "Lemming-like droves of people hurling themselves onto the rock-hard moguls" that the hype would have you believe). If the run was that dangerous the Pisteurs would simply close it down or mark is as out-of-bounds. I'm pretty sure though, given the extremely wide variation in skill level of people i've seen skiing it, that many people do hurt themselves on it - but this is true of any run if you're going too fast for the conditions or the slope is better than you.

Last year we witnessed an English mother and (we presume) her daughter who can't have been more than 10-years old. The mother was screaming at the child to make a turn and get down the mountain. This was at the very top, the most scary part where it's probably 45 degrees. There were huge moguls like normal. The mother was probably 25m further downslope from the child screaming (angry screaming) to get a move on. When the child finally made a turn, fell, and slid down face first probably 15m bouncing over the moguls, the mother simply said sarcastically: "Well that's one way to do it".

The person should have had her lift pass taken away. It's really quite unpleasant when you see parents yelling at their kids on a ski holiday (this was not the first time). The worst part was that when the mother herself made her next turn it was clear that she had no idea how to ski herself. Neither of them should have been on that slope. I heartily recommend that you ski it the first time with someone who has done it before and can show you the way. I also recommend that you don't take young children down it. You do ski children skiing it, but generally you can tell that these children live here and probably first donned a pair of skis aged 2. i.e. better skiers aged 7 that I will ever be.

Anyway, this post was supposed to be about the Wall itself, not crazy people skiing it.

Natalie at the top of the Swiss Wall showing off the Dents du Midi

This summer Natalie and I walked up the Col de Chavanette to take a look at it without snow. I thought my keen and massive audience would like to see how it looks in the summer. While out walking in the summer i often ponder various slopes, mentally rating them from "totally skiable" (meaning i probably couldn't ski it) to "definitely skiable" (meaning i would try to ski it and fail miserably).

This is the very edge of the precipice, looking down on what would normally be huge moguls.

So what is The Wall like in the summer? It is very steep - you can't walk straight down it , but I think it would distress people dreaming of one day saying, as I proudly did several years ago, that they finally skied the Swiss Wall, that in the summer cows graze on it and that our dogs ran up and down it like it was any other playing field. Worse, there's a track you could probably drive up on in a Fiat Panda - ok maybe a quad-bike.

Looking back up to the top from skier's right. In the second shot (which you can click on) you can see me dangling my pole to give you an idea of the steepness. I bet some very clever person can determine from the aspect and resolution the inclination of the slope... and post it as a comment! I tried it with an on-screen protractor and got about 42 degrees. i.e. Steep.

I tried to take photos to allow me to actually measure the angle, but i think the ground inclination is definitely 40 - 45 degrees at the top, as previously stated. 50 - 55 may be pushing it. However, in the Winter it is covered in huge moguls which definitely change your skiing inclination. There are also massive boulders and the jeep-track i mentioned earlier cuts deeply into the hillside making 2-3m vertical drop-offs in some places.

Here i've lined the base of the camera up with the slope to try and convey the steepness (i think we need a word like stepth in the english language).

We scrambled all over the top of the wall looking for good photo opportunities. This one is taken from slightly further over to skier's left and i'm wandering down to take a closer look at the jeep tracks.

This next photo is taken from the edge of the lip at the top. This is the part where people normally chicken out. Ok, that's not very nice and not at all in line with my rant about unsuitable skiers skiing it.

*Ahem*, this then, is where sensible people who know their own ability make the decision to go or not to go. The nasty thing about the wall is that you can't see it until you're on it. The crazy-bad-skier-mother who was screaming at her child told the child that she was "just" afraid and that she could ski it. Fear and confidence are the only things holding people back with their sking. This moron-bad-mother-skier didn't seem to get the fact that the fear was the problem, and that she wasn't doing much to help her daughter not be afraid.

And since the dogs did not stay still long enough for me to prove that they were bounding all over the Swiss Wall like it was a flat meadow, here they are:

Scarlett on the left, Runa on skiers right. Dents du Midi wouldn't get out the shot.

And finally. This is the last sign you'll see in France before attempting The Wall.

See you on it this season!

10/11.2

2010-12-08T15:14:00.001+01:00

Day Two of the 2010/2011 ski season! This time we headed out with Craig, our friend and neighbour who is a BASI 4 ski instructor who's passed all the crazy French tests to be able to teach here. For example, one of the tests involves you being critiqued on your technique by a team of extremely exacting instructors by video. In another test you have to beat (or come very close to) a high-ranked FIS champion skier down a slalom course. In a nutshell, he's an amazingly good skier! We also skied with his Dad, Arnott, and two other friends: Beverley and Alison who are respectively massage therapists and run their own transfer company.

It was an incredibly advanced group of skiers. Everything happened twice as fast as normal. We skied entire pistes without stopping once. It was amazingly good fun. I learnt a lot too, just by skiing behind Craig and watching his carving technique and the way he bounced down the moguls. Hopefully his wife Dani, who is also a ski instructor and former #1 British ski champion, will be able to join us next time. It's quite cool being way out of my depth!