{"id":2803,"date":"2021-12-20T22:10:19","date_gmt":"2021-12-20T21:10:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ginclub.website\/home2\/gentsinnyon\/?p=2803"},"modified":"2021-12-20T22:12:46","modified_gmt":"2021-12-20T21:12:46","slug":"mervyns-first-21-22-season-ski-blog","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ginclub.website\/home2\/gentsinnyon\/2021\/12\/20\/mervyns-first-21-22-season-ski-blog\/","title":{"rendered":"Mervyn&#8217;s First 21\/22 Season Ski Blog"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Blog for the GIN Downhill Skiing Section<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ski-day \u2013 16 December 2021, Villars<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>First outing of the 2021\/22 Ski Season<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The weather forecast last week was promising sunny clear-blue skies above 1,000m and so a hastily planned ski outing was proposed for that Thursday to profit from the recent heavy snowfall a few days earlier. In the event only David and Mervyn were available for selection, the other stalwarts either being in the wrong country (Steve, Rudi, Michael and Mark), injured (Peter) or otherwise occupied (Thatcher and Nicolas).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So Villars (aka David\u2019s back garden) was chosen for the inaugural outing of the season to test our equipment, our legs and the current covid restrictions*<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" src=\"http:\/\/ginclub.website\/home2\/gentsinnyon\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/IMG_5641.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-2806\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ginclub.website\/home2\/gentsinnyon\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/IMG_5641.jpeg 640w, https:\/\/ginclub.website\/home2\/gentsinnyon\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/IMG_5641-300x225.jpeg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 709px) 85vw, (max-width: 909px) 67vw, (max-width: 984px) 61vw, (max-width: 1362px) 45vw, 600px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Indeed we profited from perfect snow, cloudless skies and sunlit pistes, the only disappointment being the lack of lifts and runs open much beyond the Bretaye area. The morning was spent reacquainting ourselves with the effortless joy of mechanical transportation uphill and the somewhat more physical downhill slaloming and schussing.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"480\" height=\"640\" src=\"http:\/\/ginclub.website\/home2\/gentsinnyon\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/IMG_5640.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-2805\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ginclub.website\/home2\/gentsinnyon\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/IMG_5640.jpeg 480w, https:\/\/ginclub.website\/home2\/gentsinnyon\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/IMG_5640-225x300.jpeg 225w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 480px) 85vw, 480px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>A classic fondue lunch was taken on the terrace of the newly renovated restaurant at Col de Bretaye where our convivial table companions turned out to be the restaurant owner himself and a member of the Villars town council.&nbsp;&nbsp;Complimentary vielle prune was offered and gratefully accepted and David and his companions will be welcomed back on future occasions!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The post-prandial session was circumspect and cautious and we celebrated reaching the bottom station with a cleansing ale to toast this early start to what we hope to be a long and enjoyable ski season with aforementioned absent friends.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" src=\"http:\/\/ginclub.website\/home2\/gentsinnyon\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/IMG_5638.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-2804\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ginclub.website\/home2\/gentsinnyon\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/IMG_5638.jpeg 640w, https:\/\/ginclub.website\/home2\/gentsinnyon\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/IMG_5638-300x225.jpeg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 709px) 85vw, (max-width: 909px) 67vw, (max-width: 984px) 61vw, (max-width: 1362px) 45vw, 600px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>NB.&nbsp;&nbsp;*Covid restrictions were 2G for the restaurant (proof of complete vaccination or recovery) and masks on the telecabine, but not the chair-lifts it seemed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em><strong>Mervyn Pow<\/strong>e<strong>ll<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ski Leader<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Blog for the GIN Downhill Skiing Section Ski-day \u2013 16 December 2021, Villars First outing of the 2021\/22 Ski Season The weather forecast last week was promising sunny clear-blue skies above 1,000m and so a hastily planned ski outing was proposed for that Thursday to profit from the recent heavy snowfall a few days earlier. &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/ginclub.website\/home2\/gentsinnyon\/2021\/12\/20\/mervyns-first-21-22-season-ski-blog\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Mervyn&#8217;s First 21\/22 Season Ski Blog&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2803","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-skiing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ginclub.website\/home2\/gentsinnyon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2803","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ginclub.website\/home2\/gentsinnyon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ginclub.website\/home2\/gentsinnyon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ginclub.website\/home2\/gentsinnyon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ginclub.website\/home2\/gentsinnyon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2803"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ginclub.website\/home2\/gentsinnyon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2803\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2809,"href":"https:\/\/ginclub.website\/home2\/gentsinnyon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2803\/revisions\/2809"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ginclub.website\/home2\/gentsinnyon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2803"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ginclub.website\/home2\/gentsinnyon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2803"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ginclub.website\/home2\/gentsinnyon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2803"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}