Here is the blog of the third GIN ski outing of the current season – though you wouldn’t know it from the absence of the two earlier blogs!
Skiing is getting to be as unpopular as underwater chess. Apologies for absence this time ranged from the frivolous and feeble to the downright mutinous with talk of a breakaway B team?!!
Nevertheless, two of us, myself and Joe, a welcome young new addition, drove early to Champéry and were soon basking in glorious sunshine at 2000m. The perfect conditions above were not quite matched by those underfoot. There was still plenty of snow cover but the pistes were hard packed and very icy early on and those exposed to the sun soon got soft and heavy. This didn’t seem to deter a surprising number of other skiers. This “working from home” lark is getting out of hand.
A mid-morning coffee stop and a late lunch provided welcome respite from some serious piste-bashing around Champéry, Les Crosets, Linderets, Avoriaz and Plaine Dranse. The Domaine des Noirs above Avoriaz was closed (too icy?) and the Swiss Wall didn’t look very inviting, but that still left plenty of other options. The Welsh ski team (Dragons) were strutting/sliding their stuff but thankfully didn’t need an additional veteran.
We were off the mountain by 16:30 and the return journey was thankfully reasonably trouble-free.
All in all, a ten hour day but no idea of distance or denivelation skied. Must do it again.
Great stuff Mervyn. Keep on bashing the pistes for us all🙏🏻🤗👍🎊