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| Mt Blanc seen from the top of Le Bochard gondola |
A trip long in the planing for the Mills family who had travelled all the way from Creve Coeur- St Louis USA, did not go the way anyone would have wanted. After an hour of warming up on the pistes of Le Tour we ventured off piste where Mary strained her knee ligaments and her leg would not support her weight let alone ski.
There was no real option but for me to call in the PGHM Rescue helicopter - After the intial call to the rescue base in Chamonix, pretty much everything is now transmitted via What's App. The Police send you a message which you click on and they can get your exact GPS co ordinates.
They said that they would be with us in 20 minutes. However ... fifteen minutes later I got a message saying in fact the Helicopter had been diverted to a serious incident and would therefore be an hour at least.
Although the weather was good we were in fact on the north facing slopes and starting to cool down rapidly. So I made a second call to the Pistuers at Le Tour and sure enough they turned up with a rescuse sledge. They then strapped Mary into it and slid here down to a big flat area where they used a private helicopter to take her to Chamonix where she was met by my daughter Sophie and taken back to the hotel.
On our second day Paul his two daughters Emma and Sarah and his son Charlie skied with me at Grands Montets. We had a big day skiing every meter of the area.
Our third day [New Years ]was probably our standout day. An early start took us to Combloux, where as ever, there were still acres of fresh untracked snow where all our off piste descents were in solitude.
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| Balloons pass in front of Mt Blanc |
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| Descent to La Giettaz |
On New Years day I greeted Paul in the hotel foyer. "Happy New Year" I said .
"I wish it was!" He replied. Emma had had her brand new I phone stolen in the New Year crowds in the Rue du Moulin. They had spent most of the new year trying to locate it on the find my app. The app frustratingly shows where it is but you just can't get to the fucker who stole it.
So our first port of call was the Chamonix Gendarmerie . This was a real eye opener for me, because New Years day is a busy place for Chamonix law enforcement. For starters they are dealing with the fights ,stabbings, drunks of the previous night - but also the chaos the fire works cause. Fire works are completely banned in the Chamonix Valley, but the law is ignored on a industrial scale.
The reason for the ban is that it is impossible for the resuce helicopter to fly while dodging rockets. Plus the fire works cause a huge pollution issue so again the helicopter can't fly. Plus it drives a lot of the domestic dog population crazy and they all run off. While we were waiting at the Police station several very destraught people came into the Station reportung their dogs missing.
Frankly it was up-setting to see so many people so miserable. It certainly opened my eyes.
After filling in the stolen phone report we went to ski up at Brevent/ La Flegere, where we were thank full to be able to use the ski school priority lane to avoid the crowds which allowed us to do a lot of skiing
On our final day we headed through to Courmayeur . No longer did we have the big anticyclone of the last 10 days, because the weather had changed and the wind had started blowing really hard. A lot of the lifts closed in front of us, funelling the holidays skiers into the lower lifts which remained open. Fourtunaetly I had had the foresight to book the excellent restuarent La Chaumiere which saved the day.
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| Mt Blanc seen from top of Val Veny Cable Car |
