Despite the change of date of this week’s ski outing which was probably wise weatherwise, it was nevertheless unsuccessful in attracting a quorum, nay, even a single participant to sign up.
There were a number of apologies for absence proffered, mostly of an orthopaedic nature, but I suspect the perception of the prevailing skiing conditions – poor snow and potentially crowded pistes – also contributed.
Perhaps also the purpose of these ski outing should be clarified. We are no longer (if ever?) a group of thrill-seeking, dare-devil powder hounds, who are impatient to get the first cable car, think lunch is a Mars bar on a chairlift and ski until the pisteurs clear the slopes. No, we are pleasure-seeking, mountain-loving, epicureans who just enjoy doing it at a high-level and where the uphill effort element is largely removed from the equation. Hikers and snow-shoers take note! Sounds to me like the criteria for a perfect day out with good company.
Next outing is provisionally scheduled for Thursday 22 February. Let’s see what the weather gods will have conspired to provide by then.
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.
In the event, six intrepid members of the biking group assembled at the Divonne Lake (ice-cream shack) starting point: Bill, Ivan, Mark, Mervyn, Paul and a late-entry – our man from the mountains, Peter T.
Several apologies for absence had been submitted exhibiting varying degrees of justification (no names, but you know who you are!).
Monsieur Météo promised to be benign – warm, dry and no wind. So, it was agreed to accept my proposal of a ride through the open fields to the relative shade of the Jura hills up to the 888m point on the infamous Barillette ascent. It wasn’t long before Peter (then Ivan Ed.) took over the lead as we headed onwards and upwards. We suffered varying degrees of pain and fatigue as the gradient increased from a modest 5% up to a more daunting 10.5%. e-Paul once again demonstrated the clear advantage of bike battery technology over raw lung and leg power as, with the mere touch of a button, he showed at least one fit-looking young interloper a clean pair of heels (or in this case, pedals).
The team at 888. It’s all over now..Plus that guy again
The investment of all that time and effort on the ascent was rewarded by a swift and exhilarating descent down the sweeping bitumened bends, where Ivan demonstrated impressive slaloming technique, to Gingins and thence to Trelex and finally Prangins.
This passed not entirely without incident as, no sooner had bits started to fall off Mervyn’s bike, than Mark decided to do a mini-Nathan and part company involuntarily with his machine. Thankfully only pride suffered a minor injury this time.
A table with seven places laid out awaited our arrival at Les Abérieux restaurant down on the lakeside at Prangins.
Beers were swiftly ordered and consumed before the mystery missing diner – our BLeader, Stephen, no less – made his welcome appearance, fresh from 15 minutes “re-education” on a stationary exercise bike. Now that’s solidarity for you, in the “I share your pain” sense!
BLeader makes his appearance in time for beerStudents of menus
Lunch-time banter covered the usual old chestnuts plus a intriguing discussion, initiated by our resident man of letters, Paul, on what constitutes the toughest sport. Cycling uphill in the heat of the midday sun, notwithstanding, other candidates ranging from mountaineering, ultra-marathons and competitive saunas were proposed. The common denominator seemed to be utter madness.
Time to roll home
With that we dispersed and wended our ways back to our various starting points in the Terre Sainte and beyond.
Vital statistics: 44 Km, 580m deniv. 3hr in the saddle (+2hr lunch)
Author: Mervyn Powell, faithful member of the peloton and frequent lanterne rouge.
The skiers’ prayers have finally been answered and the frustratingly capricious weather pattern this winter began to normalise at the end of last week. This meant that the much-anticipated inaugural outing of the 2023 skiing season could actually take place.
On Friday 20 January three stalwart GINtlemen (Mark, Steve and Mervyn) and one honorary guest (Alun) convened on skis for a warming coffee high above Champéry at 10:30. There had been several absentee messages received, few of which constituted a convincing excuse, to wit: dog matters, passport problem, lack of ski fitness, can’t ski when the day starts with an F (because we normally do it on a Thursday!)
A fine morning’s skiing under sunny blue skies and on freshly prepared, near-empty pistes and some adjacent powder fields got us back in the groove and hungry for some mountain fare at one of Steve’s favourite haunts below Avoriaz. Beers, croutes and tarts restored energy levels and enabled us to indulge in a further few hours of piste-bashing before bidding farewells and returning to the various car-parks around the Portes du Soleil from where we each started our skiing day.
No record of distances or denivelation, but it seemed like a lot. All in all a good, if belated, start to the season with hopes for many more days like it. Sadly only thought of photos at end of day, after Alun left.
Two likely ladsAnd again, with the photographerFair comment, seen in café where we met
The Dave Knewstubb Memorial Outing (2nd outing of the 2021/22 ski season, 1st in 2022)
As is customary at the beginning of the year an outing was planned from Champéry to get our ski legs back into some shape on empty long wide sunlit pistes, enjoy superb views and good mountain food and drink a toast to absent friends, in particular, Dave Knewstubb who loved this place
And so four of us (Thatcher, Michael, Stephen and Mervyn) set off early from our respective homes, thanks to Thatcher’s excellent taxi service, for a rendezvous with David at the Champéry télécabine soon after 9:30.
We were pleased to see that the entire Portes du Soleil domaine was open and decided to splash out on the complete PdS day-pass. The seniors were granted a token discount while the super-seniors (75+) paid a mere Sfr 24.
Booted and stretched(?), we clipped on our skis* and set off into the sunny white yonder – direction Les Crosets and the frontier ridge above leading to Avoriaz in France. Well, that was the plan, which always works until you get punched in the face. Or in this case until a ski unattaches itself and throws the hapless wearer to the ground with a heavy bump. Poor Mike may not have adjusted his bindings* quite right and he decided it was best for him to sit out the rest of the day. Nothing dramatic like piste-side first aid nor helicopter evacuation this time, just hot coffee. We later learned that a lunch of pizza and 3dl of pinot noir was effective medicine.
The remaining “four skiers of the apocalypse” bade farewell to Mike when safely back at the top of the cablecar and set off again. There were no further incidents and a well-deserved tartiflette lunch was taken in Steve’s favourite rustic resto near Les Prodains. We returned to ski the sunny Swiss slopes and met up with Mike in the car park at 4pm as planned.
Thatcher delivered us home safely to complete a day of, shall we say, ups and downs?
