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.