By 1130 we’d done 2 laps on the Grand Mur skiing the central gullies (that usually are too rocky) in top of boot deepness. He was happy and I wasn’t feeling too shabby either. By midday we’d skied 3800m of descent in only 3 runs – the beauty of the Grands Montets!

Bring on the holidays.

Instructor’s priority (you gotta love it!) got us two trips round in the morning on the top bin. The first was interesting as for the first time ever I was stuck in a cable car. Cabin 4 stopped when the cables crossed and we sat for 45 minutes as the liftie sorted it all out.

I’ll tell you, as a liftie, it’s not just all about sitting and eating doughnuts on the ride up and down, he really earned his money. Getting the hydraulic brakes off was more of a problem than we expected and his knuckles were shredded and bloody after pumping up to 200 bars of pressure on the tank under his seat.

Snow, a shade slabby on the Pointe de Vue side, so on the second trip round we tried Pylone.

Faaaast, smooth, wind groomed snow. Lovely stuff needing big skis to ride it well. I’ve rarely seen some of the bumps off the Hearse so smoothed with good snow either.

High lifts closed early due to wind, but who cared, it’d been a cracker

Yep, I know what you’re thinking……. before you knock it, try it , it’s tough stuff. The basics however are incredibly similar to alpine skiing. I’ve been show the ropes by the girls from Tracks and Trails Lindsay and Julia who have managed to explain it well.

Similarities are in ankle flexion, hips moving forwards, knees and little toe edges. Confused? Either come alpine skiing with us, or go cross country with them. I’ll tell you, there’s a lot of the elder people who’ll put you to shame in terms of fitness. On the plus side, there’s lots of fit looking people wearing tight lycra for you to happily follow around

For the record, I fell once at slow speed (on day one), descended at high speed and negotiated a sharp corner without making a fool of myself (the skis have no edges) and no, I didn’t wear tights.

Next step biathlon (if they let me loose with the gun……)

The first cold snap of the season’s just passed. -15 in the Bochard gondola’s meant -27 with windchill, cold enough to make anyone’s feet go cold!

What can we say though,conditions are great. Last week ended with a trip down the Vallée Blanche and a day in Megève, this week started with fantastic snow, tree skiing down at Les Houches leading to a couple of great days at the Grands Montets with a group of good skiers. The two days of fast descents rounded off with an adventure down the Jeuremaz couloir down to the car park in Argentière.

The foehn wind’s has returned so temperatures have really risen sharply with light snow forecast. It’s still a great time be out skiing before the February holidays.

Despite not having snowed for one week, it’s surprisingly good still. Ok we could do with at least one more dusting but there aren’t any rocks showing through on the piste yet.

Yesterday we were at Le Tour for a warm up day. That was sun affected on the Southern facing slopes (so hard and unpleasant underfoot), but venturing off-piste, we found some untracked slightly heavier snow on the ‘Garland’, Vallorcine side, but hiking the Arollette (repeatedly) doing the North facing couloirs from the summit down towards the lake was fantastic.
Today we’re at the Grands Montets. Chalky snow, semi hard bumps, fantastic grippy pistes. It’s great stuff. No-one around other than the French ski instructor groups and the buyers for next seasons Dynastar ski range.

Roll on the next snowfall.

The caption for the photo should be ‘you didn’t see it line this very often over the last fortnight’.

So, the final day of 2012 was a good one. The youngest group of skiers this season so far with the average age of 9 and only one or two week a year skiing . Where can’t you go with these kids?!

One run of the top of the Grands Montets (and they all carried their own skis for at least two thirds of the steps……), Remuaz and the Magic Forest. Being sensible though we downloaded to avoid the boyracers on the Pierre à Ric. Better safe than sorry!!

Happy New Year.