Last days in France - Part 1

With our ski working holiday coming to a close we spent the last week cleaning the chalet, catching up with friends and trying to get as much skiing and boarding in as we possibly could!

The clean up itself was a pretty almighty task. The top 3 worst jobs would have to be;

1 - Cleaning the industrial sized overhead fan - it's amazing how much grease that builds up in this sucker after cooking for 18 people, 6 days a week!

2- Scrubbing the massive (40cm diameter) frypan. While we cleaned this everyday after use, it took 3 hours, 4 pieces of steel wool and a whole lot of elbow grease to get the bottom of the pan looking silver and shiny again. Same story for cleaning the industrial sized oven!

3- Cleaning out the grime from the inside of the commercial-style dishwasher. Not pretty!

But after a solid 2 day cleaning marathon, we managed to pass the chalet inspection by our bosses and were free to enjoy the rest of the week free from working!

Here are some piccies of our last couple of weeks in the Alps.

Em putting the finishing touches on our Friday night entree - "Goats cheese parcels with a reduced balsamic and apricot sauce on a bed of mesculin lettuce". How's that for a mouthfull!

The last supper - Gav eating dinner with a bumper 20 guests on our last night of cooking in the chalet.

Being the last week of skiing, it was time to try all those challenges that we'd been holding off doing through the season. One of those was the water jump - a 15m pool of water about a foot deep where the aim is to fly across, water ski style, without falling in and getting saturated. It was a 30 min ski home from the pool, so a particularly cold journey home if you fell in! The fact that the pool was also set up right next to a restaraunt so that people could laugh at those who failed only raised the stakes higher!

Gav midway across the pool, on his snowboard.

Nick (a mate of ours working for the company) successfully taking on the pool on skis.

Dave and Gav looking very stoked to have made it across the pool without getting wet!

Gav, getting some air in the board park .

First tracks on the Belcotte

After 4 months in the Alps there was still one mountain face we had yet to take on - the north face of the Belcotte.

Our chalet was named after this very mountain, and we saw it every day as we walked to work, often thinking about how good it would be to ski/ride it. It stands in the neighbouring resort of La Plagne and is rated one of the longest and best off-piste trails in France. It is also quite dangerous if attempted in the wrong conditions and without an experienced guide and had already claimed some lives this season.

And so it was with much excitement, but some hesitation, that we accepted an invitation to ski the mountain with one of our friends at the local ski school. Fred P (a local legend with about 25 years of local guiding experience and a squeaky clean safety record) kindly offered to take the whole Ski Hiver team on a guided morning descent of the mountain for free, complete with our own avalanche rescue beepers.

It takes about one and a half hours to get to the top of the mountain via a series of long cable cars and it almost went disasterously wrong for Gav when one of his snowboard toe bindings broke on the way over there! Fortunately he was able to tie it back together with a shoelace without too much trouble.

Despite being one of the last weeks of the season there was still plenty of snow and we were very blessed to have 25cm of fresh powder the night before to help us on the way! Pics below don't quite do it justice but let's just say, the almost 2000m descent, getting first tracks with not another soul in sight (apart for our group of 7) the whole way down was easily the best and most exhilerating run of our lives! It was an experience that we will definitely never forget.

Fred P, our guide for the day, giving us a few pointers before we started the descent.


Em carving up the fresh powder at the start of the descent.

Gav in action.

The team; Mel (our boss), Paul, Em, Nick, Dom and Gav taking a rest 3/4 of the way down.

Em

Gav, making first tracks down the Belcotte

The Belcotte North Face. The red line tracks our excursion, from 2600m down to 1000m!

Taking a breather at the end as the snow started to get pretty dodgy.

Feeling very stoked having just completed the run of our lives! The avalanche rescue beepers are the blue devices strapped around our chest. Having to wear this gear, combined with a quick run down on what to do in an avalanche, was certainly a good way to get the adrenalin pumping pretty hard before we took off!

Family fun in the Alps

It's been a while between updates unfortunately, but here are some belated photos from our last month in the alps. More to come soon.

The month of April started with a visit from Gav's parents, who came all the way from oz just to spend the week with us. Particularly impressive considering they had to share our tiny studio apartment with us for a few days before moving into a quirky french apartment where they had to deal with a serious water leak and a french plumber who couldn't speak a word of english!

Despite a 7 year absence from skiing the guys were straight into it and managed to time their arrival perfectly with a fresh 30cm dump of snow! It was a week filled with great food and wine between skiing and working, and both mum and dad seemed to be pretty stoked that their bodies had held up to skiing 7 days in a row with no real injuries!

Passing each other at Geneva Airport, Em's sister Natalie and her fiance Matt arrived straight after Gav's parents' departure. Nat and Matt stopped off to see us for 4 days as part of their own 5 week Euro adventure. Despite a 20 hour flight and 3 hour car trip from Geneva, the guys shook off their jetlag and we were very impressed with their enthusiasm to get straight onto the slopes for a bit of tobbogganing!

Having only skied for one weekend before arriving, Matt was very impressive with the ski's, moving straight past the traditional snowplough to high speed carve turns... albeit without learning how to slow down or stop! It was great to catch up with the guys and celebrate their recent engagement. Congratulations!!


Enjoying a picnic in the sun on the slopes

Em, Gav and Merv outside the Blanche Muree restaurant on the slopes


Spring skiing with a beautiful backdrop

Em and Merv in the chalet

Kerry and Merv showing off their style on the slopes, with Kerry in her funky new jacket!

Matt charging down the hill on the snowsurfer!

Nat and Matt on the slopes.

The Richter sisters at our local restaurant "L'Armoise"