Road trip

It's time to own up yet again that I just love skiing. I adore being in the mountains skiing with friends, and sometimes, just sometimes I miss those ski holidays from all those years ago. So last week it was decided that I would selfishly book a day off from work, so that Harriet, Rick and I could all go to Val d'Isere for the day and partially relive such times.

Our friend Phil G from Nottingham was on holiday over there. We drove over with our flask of strong coffee, a bag of pastries and a rendezvous at the bottom of a chairlift. What a great day, awesome weather although very cold; great snow, plus a naughty lunch of burger and chips. We even risked skiing down the 'Face' black piste which hosted many of the World Championship races last month, note the scaffolding for the spectactor stands in the photo above. I've never skied on such an awful piste for years: it was steep and very very icy. We even competed in our own version of 'The World Side-Slipping Championships', because there was no other option to side-slip however much we tried to turn effectively.

Thankfully that took place mid afternoon, so the only option was to then head for the sunny slopes and stop for a vin chaud. Boy oh boy, I was really in holiday mode, to the point of enthusiatically participating in exaggerated discussions on who won our championships, Harriet swears she won because one 'turn' resulted in at least a forty metre descent !?!

Earlier in the week I skied with Jan. Her goal was to try to gain more confidence in skiing away from the piste, whatever the conditions. The Spring sunshine had taken away the possibility of finding powder, so we really concentrated on fine tuning on-piste skills.

Balance and steering - especially patient steering with her feet - were practised off the side of the Mont Vallon pistes. Video was also used during the morning to help Jan see for herself the important effect these skills have, on both piste and off-piste performance.

We both benefited from great weather to be able to work in such environments. To be honest, last week was amazing. Day after day of bright Spring sunshine, without the snow being too affected, with my favourite sunsets to boot. This picture was taken looking down the valley with the Brides-les-Bains bubble in the foreground.

I also had a few sessions with Vadim from Latvia. He arrived at the beginning of the week tired after a heavy workload in the last few months because he works for the Latvian Central Bank. We concentrated on the importance on the role of the turning ski, instead of getting distracted by other factors. With this we were soon all over the mountain. Another great example of meeting wonderful people in this job within the mountains.

Speaking of which, the Dublin bunch from last week. Mary, Rohiyah and the others skied really well developing their confidence by practising the transition from snowplough to parallel skiing on the green pistes.

Next week looks as though the fine weather will continue but with cooler temperatures. I have very little of my own work so I'll keep you posted on what comes my way. Have a great week everybody.

Martin