Thursday, December 28, 2017

Wonderful pre Christmas skiing conditions.

Above are two photos of exactly the same place, the buvet at the Le Buet cascade. One is taken on Christmas day 2016 and one taken on Christmas Eve 2017 as we skied past. The skiing pre Christmas this year has been the best in years . The coverage being so good that it allowed me to ski descent routes I had never previously done, like Trappe Gulley. This starts at the Trappe Chair lift at La Flegere and ends up by the river Arve above Les Tines. This was a rare chance to ski with my eldest daughter Andrea who was fresh back from winning the 2017 Varsity ski race in Tignes.
Needless to say there were a few navigational challenges and cliffs to slalom around
The conditions were so good that our family friends Jeff & Faerthen flew all the way from California to take advantage of the conditions. Again the skiing at La Flegere did not disappoint.
On Christmas Eve,my middle daughter Florence joined us on her first proper ski tour and we headed up to the col du Beaugeant, high above La Flegere. The big challenge with this was the heat - It was so warm that the climbing up was sapping our energy. Added to which the col has some climbing at the top and then a long rappel on the north side
After the rappel it was skiing all the way. Even with the snow at the top being somewhat cruddy this caused Florence zero issues;
Christmas Day. After last years no snow we were determined to try and ski as a family on Christmas Day.
We skied at Les Grands Montets which was great apart from the snow which was bone hard. The wind had stripped the cover and conditions were shockingly poor, [at least in my opinion ] yet it didn't stop the girls racing down to a delicious Christmas lunch at the Cremerie.

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