Alpine Skiing

Saturday, February 3  &  Saturday, February 12 - Sunday, February 13 2011

Yes, skiing, not snowboarding.  Since Ang taught Dave how to snowboard a few years ago, he has pledged his love to snowboarding and vowed to never need to ski.  Despite that vow, Ang has relentlessly pressured Dave into trying skiing again (he had a less than stellar experience earlier in life).  She skis & snowboards and felt strongly that Dave should have the joy and flexibility of doing both, as well.

But the past few years Dave has been minding his own business and enjoying snowboarding, not bothering anybody.  Yet finally, he weakened and decided, “Ok fine, we’re in the Alps, when is a better time to try out skiing?” 

Additionally, Ang became the proud owner of some skis crafted more recently than 1995 (she’s been skiing on the same pair since 7^th grade… when we took them into REI for a tune-up a couple years ago, the technicians laughed and told us they hadn’t seen Salomons with that underside pattern in years-- haha).  So right before moving to Geneva, a friend happened to be selling a pair of skis which were the perfect length for Ang.  (Thanks again, Tracy!)  Ang has officially entered the world of “shaped-skis”.  Woohoo!

So, it made perfect sense for Dave to try skiing while Ang tried out her new skis!

The first experiment was the first weekend in February.  We went via the Geneva Ski Club at Le Grand Bornand, in the French Alps.  As a side note, the snowfall in the French and Swiss Alps this year has been pitiful – therefore lots of man-made snow has been needed.  Le Grand Bornand was no exception.  If you have to find one good thing about the lack of precipitation, it’s the fact that the days are amazingly clear, sunny, and the views are extraordinary. 

 

Another bonus of skiing in the Alps is the alpine restaurants and delicious beer on the top of the mountain.  Ang missed out on the last ski trip (needed to work that weekend) but was not to be denied this time out. 

Aside from the less-than-desirable snow conditions— we both gave skiing two thumbs up.  The mountain had a lot of variety of runs, Ang really enjoyed her new skis (as far as she could tell in the icy/slushy conditions) and Dave only had two big falls.  In fact, he did incredibly well on his “first” day; he was skiing down the red slopes by noon (Europeans define red runs as in between blue and black) and even tried a couple jumps (kind of).  Who knew skiing could be this fun – we should do it again! :)

Have we told you about the Geneva BuyClub yet?  If you’ve heard of Groupons in the States, it’s pretty much the same thing.  A business puts out an offer through the BuyClub, usually 40-60% off the face value of the item (which is often a restaurant, service or entertainment).  These offers are distributed via a daily BuyClub email (which we subscribe to).  So, when we saw that the ski lifts at the world-renowned Chamonix ski destination in France were selling at half-off, we decided to jump all over it.  So did 3 other couples at Expedia—and we all organized a trip for the weekend after Le Grand Bornand. 

There are a couple ways to get to Chamonix from Geneva.  It’s about 45 minutes away by car, but obviously you need a car to do so.  Otherwise you can take the train and get there about 2 hours later, which we did.  We left early Saturday morning and arrived ready to hit the slopes around noon.

Yes, Chamonix was also a victim of lack of snow, but also offered stunning views on a clear day (looks fake doesn't it?).  We know the burning question on our ski-enthusiast friends’ minds—how do the slopes at Chamonix compare to the rest? ...Honestly?  Hard to say—there are numerous ski hills in the Chamonix Valley, and we obviously only experienced one of those.  But comparing that one piece of Chamonix to what else we’ve experienced so far?  We would rank it below Le Grand Bornand and Dave would even put them both below Megeve.  Crazy to say?  Maybe.  Maybe it was just the conditions though because at Chamonix we didn’t really venture away from the blue runs due to the comfort level of the group we were in and the ice patches.  Don’t get us wrong; it was still a great time.  Maybe we’ll try it again next year and give an updated report.  

Unlike our other ski trips, we decided to spend the night in Chamonix and make a weekend out of it with the group we traveled with.  The next day we decided to take a train up to Mer de Glace, the largest glacier in France (7kms long and 200m deep).  An added attraction to the glacier is the ice caves that are carved each year for people to walk around in (man-made).  The train brings you to a lookout point to view the expansiveness of the glacier and how it curves around the adjoining mountains.  As we took our photos and looked closer, to our surprise there were people skiing down the glacier (click on the upper-right photo to zoom in)!  What?  We looked it up later; apparently it’s a popular tourist activity to ski the famous Vallee Blanche.  Hmmm, maybe next time—although we imagine it’s not cheap.

The ice caves were quite impressive as well.  But before you get there, you must take a gondola ride down and then descend an additional 350 steps.  (As you can see in the photos, the Vallee Blanche ski route ends at the ice caves and the worst part would seem to be lugging all your ski gear back up the 350 steps!)  There’s just something about being inside a glacier, looking at the ice and particles of rock buried in the walls that were frozen there thousands, if not millions, of years ago.  Interesting to think about.

Of course no Alpine peak would be complete without a restaurant / hotel at the top.  This particular one, The Montenvers Hotel, was built in the early 1900’s and its rooms are open in the summer months.  They do however serve food year-round and we had some delicious cream of vegetable soup, and of course the traditional Alpine beer.

As we sit and write this post on a sunny, 60-degree afternoon in March we realize that skiing opportunities this year have probably come to an end.  It was fun while it lasted and enough to keep us looking forward to a (hopefully) better winter next year…