Didn’t expect that

 

Today I returned from an unforgettable week over in Val d’Isere. I was working again for Inspired to Ski, alongside one of my best mates and fellow ski instructor Slippers Jackson. The weather was pretty awful for most of the week, ie only sunny for one day out of six. The rest of the time we were submerged in thick cloud which gave us heaps of fresh snow. Perfect for the type of skiers Slippers and I were with, powder bopping and bunny hopping grown up kids!?!

Our focus was to try to find enjoyable off piste conditions, which normally this time of the ski season would be locating spring snow before it melts, instead we had to deal with fresh powder everyday. Here is Slippers on the right checking that everyone’s ‘beeps’ are transmitting correctly before we dived down the north face of the Borsat in waist deep pow pow !?!

Pow pow, “What are you talking about Martin?'” I hear you ask. I couldn’t help noticing this winter on facetube that all the cool dudes were often mentioning pow pow. So in a desperate attempt to ‘stay down with the kids’, pow pow it is during the rest of this post. At least I still pull my trousers up to where they should be. Anyway, back to last week.

Every morning before joining up with our groups, Slippers and I would have a coffee together at the Gourmandine and plan our day ahead. Our goal was to always find the best pow pow of course, but also to select the appropriate terrain that would enable our powder hounds to have fun, stay safe and work on developing their skills.

But one of the challenges over in Val d’Isere and Tignes is the sheer choice. I’d name an area, but Slippers would make another suggestion, and then we would both say ‘but how about…’.

I took my camcorder along for three of the days, and later reviewed the footage each evening with my group to help analyse and discuss further how to improve everyone’s performance.

We also practised a ‘beeps’ search on the mountain, as discussed and described on an earlier post. But the highlight was skiing the pow pow all over the mountain. Here is Slippers ‘ripping a phat one’, he’s still got the magic !?!

We were dead lucky to receive the one sunny day, everyone was still buzzing last night about Tuesday. However the rest of the time was a challenge, ‘visibility is overrated’ was quoted several times during the week. Here’s Tony still enjoying the deep pow pow in the poor vis.

“Hey Tony, are you enjoying that?” Oh, no reply, how rude……. Hang on, he seems to be choking on the pow.

Last week was such an awesome way to finish my ski teaching for this winter, an unexpected treat. I’ve got just under two weeks left here in Méribel before returning to the UK. There’s a list of chores to deal with, however I’m hoping to go ski touring and share some time with Canon hunting wildlife during my chill down period. It’s great to have passion in life isn’t it?

Martin

P.S. The great thing about skiing in the deep pow pow is that if it all goes belly up you can have a very soft landing, depending on how fast you are skiing, as demonstrated by Big Dave.

 

Sorry Dave, couldn’t resist, bouncy bouncy.

Change of focus!

Last night I popped out for an hour or so, with Canon again and his friends. Why did I do this? Firstly I’d been cooped up in my apartment all day decorating and was struggling with ‘cabin fever’,  but also the smell of fresh paint was seeping into, well you don’t need to know where it was seeping !?! Plus, to be honest, I sensed that we were in for a possible belter of a sunset. Later whilst stood by tripod, Canon and all (oh and a hip flask), I realised that I hadn’t had a decent sunset photographic session for two months.

‘How on earth did that happen?’ I pondered taking another swig of very fine Bowmore whisky from my hip flask looking down the vast valley, whilst exposing away with Canon. Simple really, it’s called work. This isn’t a whinge and a moan, because I love my job with a passion. However, often every single ounce of energy, every minute of sleep (including late afternoon power naps) and every slice of pizza is needed to help me share this passion with those I ski with. This week I didn’t have any of my own work, likewise the school is much quieter as well, which meant it was a perfect chance for rest and recovery. Some of my (alpha male) colleagues would possibly moan about the lack of work. But to be honest, because I’ve been skiing almost solidly since the end of November, I’m quite happy to slow down briefly.

I’ve relaxed for several days now, caught up on emails, phoned home a few times, done some decorating, even had a sunset shoot with Canon. But it’s snowed this week. In fact it’s snowed a fair bit. Surely I should be heading up the mountain one last time?

These two photos (above and below) have been taken from my apartment again, showing the beauty of the mountains in winter. Why haven’t I skied the last couple of days? I’ve got one more week of work starting at the weekend back over in Val d’Isere, and I need to be on top form. I understand that my clients are at a high level, red and black piste skiers who want to venture further afield off piste. That means it’s going to be pretty physical, hence I need my rest now. But I keep looking outside at this fresh snow, it doesn’t feel natural to not ski in these conditions, knowing that 20 cm in resort means a huge amount more higher on the mountain.

I’ll be catching up and working again with one of my best mates, Slippers Jackson from Morzine, on Saturday. Can’t wait.  Looks like it’s going to be an epic week. Get the feeling I don’t want this winter to finish?

Martin  

Diplomacy

I’d like to introduce Phil to you all, a lovely chap who continues to make me giggle constantly. We first skied together last winter, with his wife and ‘kids’, so when I received an email from him recently to say they were coming to visit Méribel again over Easter, I very much looked forward to their lessons. What is it about Phil that makes me laugh so much? To be honest I can’t quite put my finger on it. During our first session last week he said, ‘These goggles are killing me, I need to buy a new pair’. Silently and swiftly I looked in the other direction, then chuckled and thought to myself ‘How about adjusting the straps and moving them away from bending over your earlobes, that might help!’

 

Anyway, enough of that. We had a brilliant couple of sessions, where we spoke about finding the perfect position to stand on our the skis. For some people finding this balance point, or as I call it the 'sweet spot' of the skis, is the Holy Grail. Whilst working away on our balance, and tweaking other aspects of our technique, we made the most of the conditions and ventured all over the massive Trois Vallees ski area. We visited one of the highest peaks, the Cime Caron in Val Thorens at a lofty altitude of 3,200 metres, and played around on red and black pistes in Courchevel as well. Both Di and Phil have an academic Mechanical Engineering background, so it wasn’t unusual to be on the receiving end of some very technical questions. Phil would often say to me ‘Am I being stupid, but………?’ And then he’d look at me like this !?!

 

My diplomacy was being tested to the limit. Ok, granted I’m being a little cruel, a cheap joke as many people would say. The Evans family were fantastic fun to ski with, I’ll look back on our sessions with fond memories. Thanks for the Mutzig beers at the Barometer bar before you left at the weekend, I’ll look forward to seeing you again in the future, with or without new goggles !?! Good luck Phil for the interview you have this week, but please please leave your ski goggles at home. Speaking of diplomacy and the Royal Protocol I mentioned last week….. Nope, too early for that just yet.

 

Thankfully the weather has changed since my last post. The blistering heat of a false early summer has moved on, replaced by a few small cooler weather fronts with the odd snowfall as well.

 

April is often the start of the high altitude ski touring season. My work hasn’t quite finished for this winter so I’m not part of this just yet. However I can’t help but notice other mountain visitors taking full advantage of the favourable spring conditions.

 

The temperatures have dropped as mentioned earlier, with the odd fresh snowfall, which mean the super fit ski tourers are in their element. These athletic types are the ones who happily walk/skin up hill for a couple of hours or so, in order gain some fresh tracks in often inaccessible areas by ski lifts. The photo above was taken looking across to the Glacier du Borgne. There are no ski lifts anywhere near this area; the tourers here have rightfully earned their fresh tracks.

Ok, here goes with the continuation of the carrot I dangled during last week's post. For those of you who don’t know me, I’m not exactly one to bang on about myself, I just try to enjoy the mountains and get on with sharing my passion with whoever I share my day with. So when one of my ski school directors told me about my next booking, I got extremely nervous. Do you remember how you felt on the morning of your driving test? Do you remember how you felt on the morning of your wedding (for those of you who are married)? I could continue with this theme, but you get the picture. I had one of those very nervous moments again in life last week when I realised I was about to ski with a member of the Royal Family. I was booked to ski with HRH Prince Edward, also known as The Earl of Wessex. Granted, I’ve had the pleasure of skiing with many captains of industry in the past, including the odd ‘Lord’ and ‘Sir’, even several Olympiads as well. In fact even my father-in-law is a Knight of the Realm. But this seemed completely different somehow. I’d never skied with a Prince, what would he think of me? What should I say? Would he like how I skied? Me, nervous? YOU BET.

I didn’t need to worry though. I was soon put at ease and prepared in advance by one of his ‘people’, a lovely chap called Jim who I got on with very well and was also a great skier. Jim explained that the Earl liked to ski fast, on the tails of his guide's skis, and loved carving. You’re not kidding !?! We had two brilliant days skiing blasting around the mountain. We had the odd official duty to attend to, plus spending time with his family who were on holiday. Here is a sneaky photo of the Earl during a prize ceremony at the British National Alpine Ski Championships, in his white puffa jacket.

 

I completely chickened out of asking him to have a photo taken of us together. It just didn’t seem to be the right thing to ask. But it will be always etched into my memory…… the son of a carpenter (Dad) and PA (Mum) from Sussex gets to ski with HRH Prince Edward in the biggest - and best - ski area in the world. A very very humbling experience.

Live with passion everyone.

Martin

Spring Fever

I’m very lucky with where I live in Méribel, the apartment is perfectly situated close to the pistes, in the middle of town, but also with some gorgeous views looking down the valley. This time of year the colours down on the south facing mountains seem to change daily. Spring is on full throttle at the moment, the longer hot sunny days accelerate the melting of the snow and turn the south facing aspects from winter brown colours to green. Each morning when I wake up, I look down onto the village of Villard,  above Les Allues, just as the early morning sun lights up the small hamlet.

Oops, there I am banging on about the scenery again, just like my previous post. Back to skiing, last week I taught a small multi-national group of beginners. Let me go through the list; Connor from Dublin (who sadly doesn’t feature in any of these photos due to a niggling injury on his last day), Sam from England, Galayna from Malaysia, Vanessa from Australia and finally Ung from South Korea.

It was brilliant fun introducing them all to my favourite sport of skiing, we kept it relaxed and simple, and took it one day at a time, starting on the nursery slope, then progressing to a green piste when we were ready. The mountain has been very quiet recently, which really helped us all progress rapidly without being terrorised by whizzing maniacs.

On the final day you could see them all grow in confidence and really enjoy the experience of skiing. In fact on the fifth and final day I asked them all if they thought they had become hooked on this new type of holiday? Before I even finished the question I received the answer, it was a resounding YES. Job done as a certain celebrity chef would say.

It’s so nice being able to share their experiences of fun and progression. Starting off as wobbly jellies of stress, quickly evolving into confident snow-ploughers. It’s often sad saying goodbye to people at the end of their holiday, especially when you realise you may not see them on skis again in the future.

Both last week and this week has seen the British Alpine Ski Racing Championships taking place here in Méribel on the Olympic race piste. There’s been some awesome ski racing on view, and there’s certainly been a buzz each morning whilst the racing has taken place. More on that perhaps during the next post.

Plus as a Private Ski Instructor in Meribel, I’ve recently had, and will continue again later in the week, an incredible experience. Let’s just say that I’ve climbed another rung on the ski instructing ladder. However I don’t want to get too carried away on my blog, because I need to check the Royal protocol again at the end of this week and find out firstly if I can say anything, and secondly what I can in fact say.

Have a great week.

Martin