Bonneval ski area, France

As is usual for us the first day would be "lift served" as we investigate the snow conditions, the slopes and also the off piste behaviour.
We set off on foot up the village to the lift caisse and buying a pass ..  unfortunately I had miss-filed my bag of used passes so we had to buy new ones .. but this would not be a major issue as there was no queue.
The temperature was low and not predicted to be above 0 deg all day, and a slight wind, getting stronger higher up ...  I had 4 layers on for the first time in many years, and it was still getting through sitting on the first lift  - a short run up to the original mid station.

A short run down to the next chair, and we got up to the shoulder of the mountain and the wind arrived, down again for the next lift - a drag up with several steep sections, before a simple run down to the top chair.  by now we could see some sunny patches, as the sun moved around the peaks above.

down the valley and around to the col d'Iseran - around the corner

Up tot he border, and the route to the Caro hut Bryon and I had taken earlier in the century.

The final ride on the chair had shown some excellent hard packed off-piste with moguls below the lift, which then ran into several crisscrossing tracks with off-piste short cuts ...  an ideal way to test out Lloyd's skiing ability as this was his first time out with us.

the snow was much better than expected and we had several runs down with some sections getting technically more complex.

On the last run before lunch - this was to be a diagonal return picking up the off-piste as much as possible, M-J lost a ski on one section and suffered from a bruising to her ribs caused by her transceiver biting in. This would impact the rest of the week, and will generate a think about positioning of the device in future.

we dropped down to the only restaurant on the slopes, but once inside this was really disappointing  .. no frites and lukewarm drinks .. so we hurriedly finished off and dropped to the bottom where we picked another more suitable location to stop.

After the refreshment, there was time for a final blast from the top to the bottom - M-J accompanied by Dominique chose to sit this out, and Lloyd took the pisted routes .. to my chagrin i made the same error as M-J in a very similar place but without the bruising (except to my ego).

the final sections down to the village, Katie and Lloyd took the kiddy trail to play with the piste side adornments, whilst the Steph, Chris and I charged down the direct route.

then a zip down the road (including the "escape road" missed yesterday .. and through to the lower village, across the learner and toboggan slopes.  Back to the chalet for tea and relaxation.

day tracks.