Skiing in Italy

Oh, Courmayeur, how we love you. What a fantastic place to ski with the family. Lovely big, wide open runs, lots and lots of cute little restaurants and cafes with great food, really friendly lift operators (they all zoom behind the lift to hoik up any small ones, making it very easy on the parents), lots of 'Grazie's and 'Prego's - what's not to love? We treated ourselves for once to a proper lunch at a restaurant - not something you want to do too often here given the prices - but it was worth it, and the girls amused themselves by hurtling down the little adjoining slope on one ski - real hot-doggers. 

 The team

 Lunch out in the sunshine

 With view

 Lots of Italian sunbathers

Lunch is an extended affair here - one guy even brought his slippers to wear!

 Setting off

 Snack on the slopes

Romey enjoying some hot chocolate

February Holidays

The cousins

Goodness, where to begin? You will note that today is a Monday, which means... yes! The girls are back in school after their two-week break and I finally have a chance to draw breath and do an update on our holidays.
The first week is now just a blur of ski camp for the girls (three girls, three different drop-offs and pick-ups, thank you, ski school) and, unfortunately, a sick Zoe at the end of it. Yes, the gastro got her too. But the second week my sister Lindsay and her two girls, Sophie and Romey (sadly, her boys had to stay behind for school and Alan for work) came to visit and we just had the most amazing time. Toby was very brave because he was outnumbered 7 to 1, girls to boy, in the chalet.
And the skiing was FABULOUS. We managed visits to most of the hills in the area - Les Houches, Brevant, Flegere, Courmayeur and Le Tour - and aside from the first day, it was sunshine and blue skies all week. Here's a few of the highlights of the girls enjoying their time with their beloved cousins.

Morning 1 was a mandatory trip into town for coffee and croissants. Romey and Anna had very cute little cups of frothy hot chocolate, and thought the whole experience was so terrific that they expected it to be repeated every morning of the holiday. (Not to be.)

Sisters (can you tell?)

Cheers

Day 1 skiing was at Les Houches, on the only snowy day of the holiday, and there was such thick fog on the top of the mountain that you couldn't see where you were skiing - literally. It was a bit hectic and stressful because of the cloud and the crowds and the icy conditions (the two weeks of holiday in February are probably the busiest time of the year in Chamonix), but we still had some fun.  Partly because a stop in a cute chalet for Orangina, hot chocolate and tarts was on the agenda. 

Sharing a chocolate tart

Anna and Sophie (with the Orangina - a real treat on French holidays)

Lindsay and Romey

Day 2 was skiing at Brevant and Flegere, just behind our chalet. The skies had cleared, the sun was out and the views were amazing. The five older girls skied really well together - clearly Anna and Indie's skiing has really come on during their year here. Zoe was voted 'Most Improved' by the end of the week - wee trouper, she was doing parallel turns and hockey stops by the end, and we managed a lot of skiing all together. Not bad for a 4-year-old!

Sophie, Anna & Indie

Anna

Indie, with a bit of product placement (again, a BIG holiday treat to have a soft drink)

Sophie, doing her own product promotion

Whoo hoo

Views from the very top

 Ready to go

 Lindsay and her girls

We also did a x-country ski with all the girls on the first afternoon, but the real treat was the couple of skis that Lindsay and I fit in on our own. Stopping off for a cheeky coffee at the nice little cafe on the piste just completed the Chamonix experience.

 It was incredibly warm in the sunshine

 It's a hard life

Still to come: our incredible day skiing in Italy in Courmayeur - now officially my favourite place to ski.

TRANSJURASSIENNE 2012 -
by Guest blogger Tobes

Lycra



The second full w/e in February has always been set aside since I arrived in Canada, it is when the Canadian Ski Marathon is held. 160km over the two days with the night out camping out in-between, our year in France would mean it'd be the first year I'd miss the event ... but hang on a minute, that very same w/e the French hold their longest and most famous cross country world cup ski race -The Transjurassienne.

Not only did they offer and an Ultra Marathon event where you could race 50km of classic on the Saturday and 76km of skating on Sunday but due to a Siberian North Easterly they put on some veritable Canadian weather ... it was as if I'd never left home ... -19C with 60km wind put us around the -30C mark at the start line ... both days!

THE SIBERIAN NORTH EASTERLY

I've always been in awe at the casual way the Canadians cope with the cold ... but chapeaux off to the French .. perhaps not so nonchalant, but they do do it in lycra, mostly of the neon variety!!

They were 800 of us who set out for the 50km classic style Marathon on Saturday  ... the plan ... take it EASY ... I have an even bigger race on Sunday ... how naive can a man get ... EASY is not a word that should ever be associated with marathon, -30C  and gale force winds ... let alone all 3 at the same time .. but somehow I slide over the finish line some 4 hours later into the village of Mouthe ... but between blinding flashes of neon zooming ahead and the Siberian gusts giving it their best I did manage to stay warm an enjoy one of the most beautiful skis ever .. alpine villages, winding forest tracks and open terrain.

START OF THE 50KM CLASSIC

THAT'S ME A FEW KM'S BEHIND THIS PHOTO

MOUTHE

Pete and Leslie had managed to persuade a bunch of friends to come over for the event, Scott and Lucy had made all the way from Toronto .. we were 10 in total ... but there was only one fool who had entered the Ultra,  the others were skiing either the 54km or 30km on Sunday. My butt was saved by Pete and Scott who drove to the finish line to pick me up and take me back to the hotel, just enough time to have a quick bite and wax the skis for the next day.

Finishing 50km classic

Two wrongs make a right

I had not planned my lift to the start very well, we got lost among the spin drift and road closures so I missed the 8am start. Oh well I'd just start out late and see if I could catch anyone up! I got there at 8.25 to find everyone on the start line ... ready to take off at 8.30. I had also got the start time wrong! Yippee, now to see if my luck holds.

THE START OF THE 76KM SKATE

WATCH OUT FOR YOUR POLES!!

This start was with 2-3000 others, during the first 5km I must have skied passed 20 broken poles, tactics were elbows out but poles in, but the wind was back and even angrier than yesterday and I was finding the going pretty tough. After nearly 3hours of battling I had only covered about 25km and on cresting one hill I realized that after 4 hard strides and pushes I was in exactly the same spot ... I had hit my wall, zero energy, shaking and shivering and with frost nip on hands, nose, forehead and worse of all my privates. It was time to pack it in but as I turned tail I realized that I was only a few km form the next rest stop ... maybe there'd be a bus to take me to the finish there.

ENCORE DU VENT AU PIF

For the Commonwealth

They were great, they delivered me non-stop tea and biscuits as I tried to stop shaking and warm up, after 15 minutes I had even managed to cajole my head round to thoughts of heading back out, but the lady in charge was insisting I went to the medics and wanted to take my bib number. (I wasn't looking good) I managed to persuaded her I was on the mend and just needed to warm up. When I shyly explained about my privates she dashed off and returned with a copy of Le Matin (newspaper) which unceremoniously joined my insufficient 3 pairs of underwear.  There was still 45km to go but I knew the next 8km - although uphill - would be out the wind in the forest.

There were some 4300 skiers entered for the various races that w/e .. only 160 were doing the Ultra and there was only one Brit/ Canadian, so with thoughts of Queen and Commonwealth onwards and upwards it was.

Tobes heading up and warming up.

I'd love to take credit for gritting out the next four hours but it must all go to that most fantastic human body, with a litre of hot tea, half a dozen biscuits, a few raisins and not forgetting Le Matin newspaper the remaining kilometers were skied by. If my car had been in that kind of state it would have been in the shop for months and cost a small fortune.
I'm already looking forward to the Canadian ski marathon next year! I'll be the one in the pink and yellow lycra.

Indie in Miniclub

Indie's ski teacher sent through some great photos of Indie's class today. That's her above, doing a bit of hotdogging in the ski park! 

Indie - second from right. Getting some air

Indie on the left - ready for some ninja action

Indie at the bottom, looking for the best reception

Still in the Deep Freeze

So the cold that continues to grip the rest of Europe is still here, but we have been promised it will return to more seasonal averages by the end of the week. In the meantime, the girls' two week holiday has started (what's that, I hear you say? Surely they just HAD two weeks off? I know, it feels like that to me too...) and their ski camp starts today and runs for six days. And then my sister and my two nieces are coming for a week. Hurrah! 

Toby is away this w/e doing his ski marathon - the Grand Jurassienne in the Jurasse region - he did the 50km classic yesterday, and today he's doing 70km of skate. It was going to be about -20 at the start with a strong wind, so I hope he gets on OK. Expect another guest blog soon, with more tales of his derring do.

Of course, as soon as he left, both Anna and I came down with the gastro bug that's been doing the rounds of the girls' school (Indie had it last week). What joy. Still, everyone feeling more chipper this morning. Indie's probably going to be the only one going skiing this afternoon since Anna is still recovering and it's just too cold for Zoe (they don't move quite as much at 4...) so not the greatest start to ski camp, but hopefully tomorrow we'll have them all back on the slopes. Toughening them up, as Toby would say...

In the meantime, we did get some good sledging in on Wednesday. It was just down our driveway, but snow is fun, no matter where it is.