Les Houches, France

First outing on skis for at least a year...   everyone was tentative, and apprehensive...  we chose to go to Les Houches, as this was deemed to be the gentlest place to start out. and stretch the leg muscles.

The weather was not brilliant with cloud down around the top of the lifts. The pistes them selves were a bare in places, and as was usual for Les Houches, whenever I have been there, large patches of very hard packed almost ice ... plenty to get the nerves going.

These days our skiing was not great - we could get down most things, but it was never pretty and involved lots of traversing. There was definitely no parallel skiing and lots of snow ploughing.
We skied a good amount of the day and covered most of the mountain, before finishing, ready for a big feast back at the apartment, and preparation for tomorrow and the new adventure.

We had arranged to meet Brian in the Bar Nat. (national), the traditional place of the time to meet up with guides. After the introductions we went over the itinerary for the next 3 days, and also discuss what we expected to achieve and also our impressions of our capabilities. We also discuassed the equipment we had and what we needed.

Over night it snowed heavily which would add to the fun on the following day.