Author: Mervyn Powell

6th annual Dave Knewstubb memorial ski outing

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.

The Dave Knewstubb Memorial Outing (2^nd outing of the 2021/22 ski season, 1^st 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?