A quiet day on the hill

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The day dawned with some high cloud over the mountains but this soon became a lower and more persistent bank of cloud over the ski area. However, we set off as usual to get onto the runs and see what the day brought.

The first chair lift is on the beginner slopes and we use it to gain some height so we can ski to the closest gondola. It has been working well this week doing this quick up and down and saving a walk in ski boots. However, we have noticed that there is a sped gun on the slope to stop people speeding in the beginner area. As there are no classes, and very few skiers at all, when we go through we all are getting sad faces on the monitor! I was measured as travelling at 30 mph in a ski school area! Now this speed gun has become a challenge.

We headed up the gondola and rather than cutting across to the wide run we have used as our morning base in previous mornings we stayed in the central area and skied combinations of runs off the four man chair. We also went up to the top of the resort on the button lift but the wind was higher up there and the snow was passing our goggles horizontally. More worryingly the chair lift kept stopping. This is usually a sign of beginner skiers on the chair lift but only the hardy few were out so it was more likely to be a mechanical issue with the chair lift so after a while we headed over to the usual morning area.

We had a drinks break at the café when we got there and then headed down the runs to the gondola. At this point the sun came out for the first time and we had a wonderful run on great pistes all the way back to town. Before we did the full run down JJ and I took a button lift alongside one of the shorter runs. Then we all went up the gondola and onto the chairlift and took a couple of runs on our favourite rolling run in this part of the resort.

We crossed back to mid-mountain and skied some more runs off the four man chair including (for two of us) a run all the way back under the chair lift over the bumps. After the last run down from the top of the chair lift JJ and I took the button lift from mid-mountain before joining Ruth in the pizzeria for lunch. On one of these chairlift rides we saw some others using the off piste area, so JJ and I were trend setters as very few folks are trying the off piste out at all. In the pizzeria you are assigned a number for the pizza as they are cooked to order; we have been given 49 for the last three days! We have now had three different pizzas and they have all been great. During lunch the snow got slightly heavier so we decided to only do a few more runs and to finish slightly early to give ourselves time to recover before the last day’s skiing.

We headed down to mid mountain, JJ and I off piste as usual in this area, but I had a wipe out with both skis off and I was stood up to my ankles in powder. I had become lazy in my turns and sat too far back coming over a slight ridge. No damage to me, just hurt pride having done this under the chair lift in full view of those heading up the hill. Then it was down to the bottom of the four man chairlift which goes from the town to the top of the hill. This was the ninth lift JJ and I had used today and, apart from the magic carpets and button lifts in the beginner area, we had used every lift in the resort.

We took the black run back to the bottom of this lift so JJ and I could enjoy the moguls at the side of one of the stretches and Ruth enjoyed some challenging pistes which are in near perfect snow condition having been freshened up by the snowfall at lunchtime. The sun was coming out again as we did this run so we headed back up the chairlift to the top and took the run back to the town and finished close to the hotel.



A slightly early finish but still many miles skied and many runs enjoyed.

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