That's better

It's amazing how life improves after just a few days. Since my last post we have received some much deserved fresh snowfalls. Perfect timing for the start of the Easter holiday period.


Today I received several texts from friends who were skiing in the fresh stuff up the mountain, one of them went like this; "I think I've died and gone to heaven...". "Enjoy, Freddie!" I replied. We've all been waiting for a while now for an improvement in skiing conditions; this has definitely done the trick.


Over the last couple of days I've taken some time off teaching to recover in time for the final holiday period. Although we missed out on the powder skiing today, Harriet and I still enjoyed the pretty conditions. We went for a Sunday stroll together up at Lac de Tueda within the Vanoise National Park, pictured above. We walked along marvelling at the scenery, chatted for ages, even one of us had a doze on the snow whilst the other took photos with Canon!



Harriet brought her friend along as well, called Fujifilm compact! We all - that's me, Canon, Harriet and Fuji - had a lovely relaxing Sunday afternoon.


After seeing all this fresh snow, I can't wait to be on my skis once more. I'm meeting up with Arthur and family again tomorrow morning, can't wait. It's even due to snow a few more times this week. Isn't life great?

Martin

Dramatic skies

Over the last few days we've seen some amazing skies here in Méribel. Last week we had countless "bluebird" days and rising temperatures, bright sunshine with rich blue skies and alpine sunsets. But over the weekend and the beginning of this week we experienced some mucky weather. However the precipitation didn't dampen Chris's spirits and enjoyment of his annual skiing holiday.

I've skied with Chris for many years, and I always forget how much he enjoys to hear different words and descriptions of the technical and psychological aspects of skiing. Here are just a few; commitment, patience, smearing, squashing, pressing, kitchen scales, assume the position, checklist, celebration, and the list goes on.......

Each of these words and descriptions will mean slightly different things to different people. The art of teaching is to find the perfect word or phrase to act as a trigger for an action. Trigger words can empower the brain, and distract it away from what it thinks is the the correct way to ski. Because of the mucky weather we benefited from empty pistes: note how empty the Altiport green piste is.

Chris progressed really well again this holiday. He now looks much more relaxed on his skis, and is more energy efficient.

The last two days have returned back to stunning spring weather, sunny and warm. However at the end of the week the temperatures are forecast to drop again accompanied by snowfall. Game on. Plus Harriet will soon be on her way back to Méribel for the Easter break. Life just keeps getting better.

Martin

The 2010 Coeur Blanc Challenge

At 06.30 hrs on Saturday morning my alarm went off after a full week's work, not nice. I immediately phoned my friend and ski instructor colleague Mike Harrison, "Uuurrrggghhhhh" he answered gruffly and loudly. We made this deal the evening before; we had to make sure that we were both awake at this time. Because a bus had to be caught at 07.30 hrs to take us down the valley to Brides Les Bains. Our "conversation" continued at 07.20 hrs outside on the street all kitted up in uniform and ski clobber. "Urghh, Urghh, Urghh" we continued in our sleepy gruff manner. We walked up the Tourist Office steps, jumped onto our skis and started to whizz off down the piste path towards the bus when..... "OH YIKES, a piste basher !?!?!". We slammed on the brakes just in time, the piste basher skidded to a halt within inches of us, staring right into our now wide-awake eyes. "Phew, that was a really close one" we shouted, trying to look brave at each other but failing, as the piste basher rumbled past within touching distance. I'm not exactly sure what the furious French driver was mouthing to us, I haven't covered swear words in my French lessons recently.

We just made the bus in time ready for the start of the bi-annual charity event down in Brides, the mighty Coeur Blanc Challenge. Each team had to try to ride up each of the Méribel lifts in a single day to raise money for the creation of a National Melanoma Information System.

I had been asked months ago to guide a team called 'The Bump Bashers'. They included an ex British army downhiller, a knee surgeon, a highly respected and consistent podium finisher in the 'Downhill Inferno' of Murren in Switzerland, and finally a very fast and determined 'Penelope Pitstop'. Oh, and Canon of course.

All the way through the day we were all trying to think of silly nicknames for each other for my blog. What else are you supposed to do when on umpteen lifts together? We ended up with 'No knees' for Johnathan. 'The Knee Doc' for Ian. 'Smooth Dorset Gold' for Cleeves and 'D-wee Stop' for Edwina.

It was a very different day for me, no snow ploughs, no plotting off-piste routes, no obligatory pauses admiring the scenery, no talking about technique, no coffee stops, no lunch stops (the chewy picnic was eaten on a chairlift, OUTRAGEOUS), and hardly any 'pee' stops much to Edwina's discomfort and disgust.

However, we all managed to survive the gruelling schedule and completed the epic challenge just in time before the lifts closed. Non-stop from the first of the earliest lift openings at 08.30 hrs down in Brides Les Bains until 16.02 hrs outside of the Hotel Yeti. My goodness that beer or two, sorry energy drink, hit the spot at the end.

Some interesting statistics have emerged from yesterday. Over £250,000 has so far been raised. Over 82 miles in total were covered by each participant. Seventy five people (amazing!) completed the event. And talking to Christophe, one of my colleagues down at the school, this morning: he said that the fastest speed his monitor recorded yesterday was 110 kmh, that's about 70 mph !?!

So the next time I hear people say to me that they never stop for lunch when skiing, I wonder if their day is similar to the participants of the 2010 Coeur Blanc Challenge?

A massive thank you and admiration to the organisers of the event, Rory Tapner and Pierre Taylor (pictured above). At least my alarm this morning was a little more respectable compared to yesterday, but the noise "Urgh" sneaked out again even louder when crawling out of bed. At least the Piste Bashers were parked up in their garages for the day when I bumbled onto my skis........

Martin

P.S. I've had huge fun with Victoria and Lexi today on the nursery slopes, with more to follow this week. Plus I can't wait to catch up with Chris again later in the week.

Effortless

This afternoon I skied with Peter and Val for the first time. They had only just arrived in Méribel last night, and were very excited to be here. At the start of the session I asked the important question, "What are your skiing goals for this holiday?". The answers came thick and fast. In summary they wanted to learn how to ski in control, without getting distracted, oh and to not get scared.

My philosophy with skiing is to try to keep things as simple as possible. We looked at positioning our bodyweight effectively down to the sweetspot of the ski. This helps with balance and speed control. I can't wait to ski with them again tomorrow morning where we will look at the quality of the turn.

I've also skied with Lisa twice this week. Lisa is currently experiencing a massive improvement purple patch with her skiing. Her control is visibly increasing daily. My job as an instructor is to try to find different words, phrases or descriptions of technique and psychology. And then find the appropriate pistes to practise. This morning she shouted out with a massive grin "Martin, it now feels effortless, this speed control is suddenly effortless, I don't believe it". "Great", I replied "So how can we trigger this and repeat it?". "I just need to remember the new 'f' word, effortless" replied Lisa. Earlier in the week I skied with Tim and Freddie.

After skiing miles and miles of normal pistes, they wanted further challenges. Off-piste with decent snow. With the current freezing temperatures and windy conditions, the best we could do was find light, fluffy skied out snow on steep off-piste gradients.

Freddie is an experienced piste skier, as is Tim who is also a fan of Heli-skiing in Canada.

We did our best with the conditions and relished practising in the different environment of off-piste compared to the prepared pistes.

The afternoon climaxed in the steep and magnificent 'Méribel Couloir' from the top of the Saulire peak as photographed above with Freddie skiing, and below with Tim. It's often very difficult to portray how steep a pitch is within a photograph. Believe me, most of the Méribel Couloir is STEEP.

Please notice that Freddie is proudly wearing his 'Coeur Blanc Challenge' silver and diamond encrusted badge from two winters ago, a veteran of the charity event.

The next Coeur Blanc is going ahead this Saturday, the 13th. I'm delighted to be guiding a team on this challenge again, called the Bump Bashers. Basically, each skier has to use all of the 53 lifts in the Méribel valley in a single day. Sounds easy, you must be joking. Please see website http://www.coeurblanc.eu/ for further details. The chosen charity this winter is for Melanoma Research. If you would like to make a kind contribution to this very worthy cause, then please follow this link, www.justgiving.com/bumpbashers

This will be one of the few times this winter where skiing will not involve the 'f' word, effortless. It will be knackering. I'll report on the event after the weekend.

Martin

Snowshoeing part 2, and Mrs Bean !

Some of my regular readers of this blog may remember that Canon and I were invited to Chamonix at the start of this winter.

A great friend of mine, Joy O'Flanagan, has recently started a Snowshoeing guiding service in the Chamonix valley. I went along for a day of fun, on snowshoes, and took several photos. Joy was really keen to get some photos for her new website.

Just before I went to London last week, she emailed me and proudly gave her new website name, http://www.mountainbalance.com/ . I think she has done a great job with the website, and of course I'm dead chuffed to have been able to help with some of the photos.

I wish Joy the best of luck with her business.

From one extreme to the other now. Méribel and Courchevel today hosted the 'Valkyrie Freeride Contest'. We had some extreme skiing and snowboarding up at the Rocher de la Loze peak.

This afternoon after work I went up to the summit with Canon and had a nose around. I tried to take several photos, but soon had to stop because of frozen hands. The main reason being that it is unbelievably cold at the moment. I tried fumbling around with Canon wearing my mittens, but of course that didn't work.

There were a couple of TV camera crews up there also getting frozen solid. Here goes with a few shots, it's "spot the crazy skier" competition.


The last few mornings I've had such fun teaching Anna and Mrs Bean. I'm hiding R*th's real name, but she openly described herself as the wife of Mr. Bean. The amount of times Anna and I just burst into tears when she bumbled around. The list would be too long of Mrs Bean's adventures, but let's just say that many times each lesson unusual things happened. Often I would be talking to Anna and Ru*h about technique, when she would suddenly start sliding backwords downhill with genuine fear on her face. Both Anna and R*th progressed really well over their short weekend break. I can't wait to (I hope) see them again next winter.

It looks as though the cold weather is here to stay this week. I'd better get another batch of logs delivered to my apartment for the open fire.

Martin

The Big Smoke

On Tuesday I flew back to the UK to visit Harriet in London. It was also my first trip away from the Alps in all of my twelve winters. My mates Canon and tripod came along for the ride as well.


It seemed strange looking down on the green fields and white cliffs of the south coast from the plane. Since late November I've been dizzy with the sight of, and being in the presence of, the awesome high altitude mountain peaks and deep valleys of the French Alps. I wasn't quite prepared for the experience of landing in the middle of the capital city.


If anyone has landed at the tiny London City Airport, they will know what I'm talking about. The plane just suddenly drops from the sky skimming over the towering buildings of London. It feels as though the plane flies through tall buildings en route to the runway.


The very next morning I had some spare time with Canon to wander the streets and over the bridges of London. I can't deny that my super relaxed mountain mindset got in a pickle when exposed to the hustle and bustle of the city, some would call it 'shoulder barging'. Plus, coming from the mountainous landscape environment into the urban landscape took some adjusting to.


However, it was fun seeing the Millennium Bridge with St. Paul's Cathedral in the background. And walking through the bustling City district, gasping at the huge office blocks.


At one point I walked around a street corner completly lost with an 'A to Z' map book in my hand, when I realised that above me stood 'THE GHERKIN'. Damn, trust me to forget my compass !?!


One slight problem though, from when I landed on Tuesday my throat became sore, sniffles appeared and even poor Canon developed some malfunctions. Quite bizarre. However, it was amazing to be with Harriet again briefly. But of course time flew by way too quickly.


I was soon back on the plane again to return back to Geneva and then Méribel.


However, as I was driving back up the mountain this evening in the car, my 'man-flu' symptoms receded. And I'm sure I heard Canon burst into life unexpectantly as well. Is it something to do with the difference in altitude and quality of air?

Some exciting news that I'll post over the weekend regarding snowshoeing. I've just received an email from a friend in Chamonix, it's related to a post I wrote last December.

Martin