Meribelly!

When I arrived back in Glasgow prior to the Official Lads Bouldering Weekend, I had arrived back from Geneva and thus Brides Le Bain and thus Meribel and Les Trois Vallees, where I had of course been skiing with Madamoiselle Rogers.

It was an awesome trip. Great weather, good company, I skied loads and slept equally loads (I love the simplicity of this), we covered a vast amount of the Les Trois Vallees (including one day when I skied from Meribel to the far side of Courchevel and then back to the far side of Val Thorens). The only downside was the snow was quite icy which limited the offpiste options (too crusty) and made for some hard landings, but I'd take hard snow and good visibility over good powder and a whiteout.

HOWEVER as good as all that was, the highlight for me was how well I did with my legs. They might be fucked for walking uphill and running but evidently they are fine for skiing, despite how thigh-intensive that usually feels. I skied as well as I ever have - hard and fast (for me) all day every day, did all the blacks in Les Trois Vallees easily (although they are all well soft-touch apart from Le rather cool Grand Couloir), and had no more thigh pump than usual. Walking a few mins to the lift in the morning was tiring, but skiing all day was fine. \m/ yay \m/

There was another highlight too, the roaring success of my attempt to liven up my boring but very cheap and very functional Decathlon ski jacket with a pimp orange camo headwear combination (which was supposed to match the jacket but I'd forgotten it was more red than orange)...


...and yeah I know I need slicker goggles, I'll get some for next year. I had to order the beanie via express delivery from the University Of Minnesota, the only place I found doing a proper orange camo one, and I'm sure you'll agree it was worth the effort. Or maybe not.

Slippery white stuff.

[An exposition to compare and contrast two different sorts, one of which is distinctly more suitable for it's chosen purpose than the other.]

Had another day skiing recently - a day trip up to Glen Coe which is small enough (and was quiet enough) to get a good amount done in a single day. Pricey but a good experience. As well as quiet slopes, the main attraction was often very good snow - some of the unbashed pistes had as good piste snow as I've skied on. Some nice steeper bits and the excellently named "Haggis Trap" run were fun too. It might be small but the terrain is quite interesting. I think it would only be sensible to try to tick Nevis Range and The Lecht this season too. I'd also like to go back to Glenshee when I can see something.

Whilst lounging around on the dinky single person chairlift and letting my aching legs recover, I came to the realisation that Scottish skiing roughly equates to Peak District limestone sport climbing, in the following escalation of comparisons:

Dry slope skiing is comparable to indoor wall climbing - nasty, plasticy, unrealistic, but can be rewarding and good if well designed, and good mileage.

Indoor snow slope skiing is comparable to indoor wall climbing on feature panels - semi-realistic fun for a few times, but vastly limited with little mileage to be gained.

Scottish skiing is comparable to Peak Lime sport climbing - distinctly minor, poky, internationally insignificant and a particular laughing stock for those who have experienced the activity in Europe, suffering from overuse, relatively ugly, shoddy and badly placed equipment, and at the mercy (or lack thereof) of the British weather. BUT for all that, it's outdoors, it's the real thing, the actual movement is still good fun, and it's good relevant training for the greater ranges, whether that's Courchevel or Creag Dubh, Val Thorens or Torridon...

0

Zero - the visibility at Glenshee, measured in whatever unit you choose, it doesn't really matter, it was still too damn foggy to see let alone ski...

Although that didn't stop me amongst others, though it did restrict one's options and hamper one's style, not that I have much of the latter in the first place, although I am very proud of my £90 jacket and trousers combo from Decathlon, not least because after a day of marinating in the perverse blend of rain, sleet, snow, drizzle and mizzle, I was probably the wettest thing in Glenshee on the outside, but still tolerably dry on the inside.

Anyway despite pretty grim conditions it was more skiing, more practice, another resort checked out, another pretty easy last minute trip, and I got to see a gazillion red deer driving to Braemar SHYA in the evening. Look!

-18

Small numbers!! Bit cold even for bouldering although I bet my usually sweaty paws wouldn't be much of an issue. Even so any boulders around Aviemore (where it apparently reached the aforementioned temperature) were buried under 2 feet of snow. Thus the only sensible plan was to go skiing at Cairngorm Mountain, taking advantage of the currently-better-than-alpine snow and the novelty of the last minute weekend trip - even manageable (although typically expensive) by train:

Definitely the end of the line.

Scottish skiing....small, badly organised, and COLD. But fun for all that.

Things I liked:

1. Snow is good this year.
2. Red runs were fun for cruising.
3. Resort's tiny enough to be easily tickable in a weekend.
4. Ski hire decent value.
5. Lift staff mostly friendly.
6. Easy to get chatting with fellow punters.
7. Very easy to hitch up to the mountain station.
8. Some services at the top ran smooth.
9. Very easily doable in a weekend or even a day.
10. Old Bridge Inn - good beer, great food, nice staff, eye-opening waitress.

Phone home?? Unfortunately we had lots of time to do that on the first day.

Things I disliked:

1. Rubbish cock-up with snowclearing on the first day that left everyone stuck in a 3 hour traffic jam despite them having 4 weeks of this winter freeze to practise getting it right.
2. Lift pass disproportionately expensive - near Alpine price for 1/6th the area.
3. Lift system slow, crude, and badly connected.
4. Arctic death freeze winds on t-bars / buttons.
5. Resort's tiny enough to be easily tickable in a weekend.
6. Good looking harder slopes closed.
7. Everything (including kit hire) somewhat dated.
8. Not much provision for storage at hostel nor hire places.

Basically this year, snow good, infrastructure still unreliable - BUT being able to ski all day, get the last lift up, the last run down, hitch back to Aviemore, sort kit and hostel out, buy food, get the train back to Glasgow, stop for a quick half between stations, be unpacked and in bed at 10:15 on Sunday is pretty damn cool. As is simply skiing itself!!

Incidentally my legs did okay, got tired quickly on individual runs, but lasted well throughout the day. So that's cool, I might go again soon.

Here's some more photos.

Skiing.

It was a good trip, and an interesting trip...

Les Arcs (the area, not Arcs 2000 which is a bit grim) is great. Good and very varied slopes, lots to do in whatever conditions, and easy to get around. Lots of woodland runs and an inspiring focus in the Aiguille Rouge, with a classic 7km black/red run with 2km of descent from 3200 to 1200m - did it without stopping first try and my legs nearly fell off :).

The view from Aiguille Rouge on the last day, with the 5% of the entire resort that was above the cloud...



On the other hand, the snow was pretty challenging this trip. There hadn't been a dump for a while, so the first few days were pretty icy mogul fields. Then there WAS a dump and it became fresh powder obscuring ice moguls. Eventually this settled to good powder / good pistes, and poor visibility. But still there was plenty of good fun to be had. Aside from the Ag Rouge, the highlight was being the 3rd person down (after ski patrol dudes) a freshly groomed isolated red run just as the swirling mist cleared to the morning sun. Perfect fast cordrouy, ace :).

I learnt a few things this trip:

1. I haven't magically improved since the last time I went skiing, over a year of, errr, no skiing at all. Funny that.

2. It takes me a few days to warm into it but after that I can keep going well.

3. I'm still utterly crap at jumps despite liking doing them. This was partly the hard snow, but also I realised that when I was better at jumping, it was when I was regularly visiting a dry slope and practising every couple of weeks. Haven't done that for years so no wonder I'm not so good now!!

4. Despite doing running recently and being a bit fitter, I still find my legs are neither strong nor bouncy enough. Should do some more weights I guess.

5. I like powder a lot more than I did previously. Had never really got into it before, but after the ice moguls it came as such a refreshing change that I got into it this time, especially the steeper stuff. This is good.

Overall I think I'll do some more practise before going next time, to set myself up a bit better.

It's all good tho...

3/12

Bloody hell another month. Not much comment on this one really. Some climbing was fun at the end of it. Oh and there was snow.

And this month starts with snow - I'm away skiing now for a week. Very excited!!" Very syked for skiing!! Les Arcs 2000 in a 40% discounted all-in chalet!

That's all for now.