Snow and ski - Back from Flaine

And a splendid couple of weeks it was. The only downside was the fact
that the 'Flaine micro-climate' seemed to have been switched off. Must
be the Recession or something.

It snowed moderately heavily as I first drove up the mountain road but
not enough had settled on the road itself to require chains.
Unfortunately, although this deposited 2-3 inches of powder on the
slopes, I soon found that it was on top of lumpy hard snow (apparently
there had been rain up to 2100m about 10 days before) so it wasn't
particularly spectacular to ski or board on beside the pistes. That,
plus a few mm deposited as showers of a fine snow 'drizzle' over the
next couple of days, was pretty much all we got for the rest of the
fortnight. The upside was clear, sunny days.

Cold weather for the first week kept things reasonable and the last
few days of the second week really warmed up, so the increasingly hard
snow softened-up nicely but became heavy lower down. On the last
couple of days, as I was playing in the Jam Park a lot, it became
stifling waiting in the queue for the TK Aujon drag in heavy
snowboarding kit.

Nevil, the incumbent SCGB Rep, organized an off-piste morning on the
first Thursday. I was definitely the least experienced of the group
and had a shock on the first run: I'd been expecting a relatively
gentle warm-up so the guide could assess our abilities; in fact his
'assessment run' took us down a couloir to the right of the DMC
(looking up the valley). Not in itself a problem - I'd done it last
year during the later stages of a Freshtracks course, but he then
asked up to cross a snow ridge that led to a significantly steeper
pitch - out of sheer nerves, I slipped and sat down, then, having
completely lost confidence, side-slid rather than turned past some
rocks then did my first turn and was OK after that, though it rather
dented my confidence for the rest of the morning.

The rest of the areas were within my capabilities, being again mostly
places I'd already been last year. Apart from the confidence thing,
all very pleasant and our guide even found us some real genuine
powder! I didn't bother with 'serious' off-piste after that; I figured
conditions weren't worth the expense.

I did several of the blacks several times; the Lindars Nord chair was
open this year so I got to try Agate for the first time. I also got to
see into one of Flaine's infamous 'holes' from the chair; it wasn't
fully covered by snow. Erk. Really, really to be avoided.

The upper blacks were generally fine; Diamond Noir caused the usual
butterflies but was actually fine with pleasant, grippy snow in the
couloir itself for most of the fortnight. Aigle Noir was slightly
crunchy on the top pitch and worse on the bottom pitch; the middle
wasn't too bad. The long Onyx run was lovely much of the time; the
lower gully was a bit hard. Fallen blocks of snow piled along a
section of the drag were a reminder of avalanche dangers.

The Gentianes run was... crunchy; I did it once but null points for
style. I also tried Veroce, thinking it would be softer in the warm as
it was low down. Boy was I wrong; it's not particularly steep or long
but the moguls were very icy and unpleasant. Didn't bother again.

Favourite was probably Combe de Veret; I even took the snowboard down
it a couple of times, though on both occasions sat down a few times.
Err, to admire the view, obviously.

The final day opened warm and drizzly; the drive home was in a mixture
of overcast, hazy sun and, approaching Calais, occasional torrential
downpours.

Thus ended this year's snow holiday.

Roll on next year...
..
--
-Pip