31 December 2007

Aussois, France

The weather improved and today the sun was shining, and after yesterday, struggling to warm up, we wanted to head to some where, that was South facing, so we drove up the back road to Aussois. This was the resort we had been in for a couple of years recently.

Heading into the resort, and up to the car parking, we parked quite a way up the area by the summer pasture.

Buying the lift pass, we had to queue up for quite a while, but once on the hill the people all spread out.

We headed up to the high point, and slipped over to the back bowls .. From previous visits we knew that the bowls had plenty of sport.

We chose a couple of routes..  the simple straight down followed by the more "around the back".

We came back around the front looking for some powder, and found some above the refuge, as an enticement for lunch.

After lunch we went back up to the back bowls and experimented with the off piste routes below and to the right of the lift pylons.

Finally down to the van and back to the apartment. However not before we had an opportunity to drop over the short-cut by the cross, on the final section of the valley run - we had discovered the last visit.

Then into the bar for some chips ....

30 December 2007

Termignon, France

The weather was a bit overcast, but we made and effort to go over to the local lifts carrying the skis and made our way to the ticket office.

The ride up was very cold, and by the time I reached the mid station the wind was rising. On the second leg everyone was trying to hide from the wind, and by the time we reached the restaurant everyone was frozen.

Time for a warm drink, and also to experience the rotating eating room and the enormous log fire..

We did a couple of runs on the left hand drag lift from the bowl, before calling it a day and making our way back to the apartment.

the descent was very icy, and we alternated between care and headless charging. Another hot drink at the bottom fortified us for the walk to get back to the apartment.

29 December 2007

2007 Ski Trip, France

Sue had to go back to college early this year, as her term started before the rest of us... So Steph, KT and I drove over to France to Join M-J, Chris and Dom. We had settled on an apartment in Termignon, a little village we had been through a few times on the spring outings, and also with our stays at Aussois.

The girls and I travelled overnight with a short stop in a motorway rest stop North of Dijon, for a few hours sleep before the chill woke us up.

We were well ahead of the bow wave as we drove through the alps, and so arrived at Termignon in the mid afternoon. The village is not very large, and I did not really know where the apartment was, so we wandered around a bit, until we found it down one of the smaller roads to one side of the river.

In these days of mobile phones we knew that Chris and MJ would be late, as they had a problem with the car. so we settled for an early Pizza supper, in a bar close to the nursery slopes, and then waited for them to arrive. (they had the details for the apartment and the deposit).

It was dark before they arrived, but we waved them down in the main road, and pointed the direction to the apartment, down the farm track. The owners let us in as they lived upstairs, and we moved everything in. we had two large rooms and one with 4 bunks in  ...  as well as a massive day room ... it was a barn conversion, with really thick walls, the only problem was there was a lack of light in some places.

Trip Time Line
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|Arrive Termignon
Termignon|
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Termignon|
|Val Cenis
Termignon|
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