-15C on our balcony this morning!

Very cold today but bright and sunny this morning. a bit cloudier this afternoon.   John and I skied through the trees and got a bit lost.  The trees' revenge was to dump  snow down our necks.  There was still plenty of off piste through the trees on Lanchettes which was great fun.   Now for the rugby.

balloons

Yesterday we skied with Gordon and Johnny and Jean-Marc from the Rond Point.   I don't think we skied any pistes except to the get to the lifts. We skied the front face of Jaillet down to Megeve 4 times, catching a bus back to the lift each time.  It was a fantastic day and the sun shone.There appeared to be a race or something similar of hot air balloons from the Flaine area as they were all landing at Praz sur Arly, just down the road from Megeve.  All the accompanying cars with trailers were following them, so the balloons could be packed up and transported back.
Today was John's birthday and we skied off piste again.   The snow was not so good where the sun had caught it which made it more difficult than yesterday.   However, we saw a mountain goat eating some lichen off the branch of a tree as we were skiing off the back of Le Giettaz down to Praz.  Carol, Gordon's partner, picked us up at Praz and we all had lunch there so it was a lovely day.

Disaster day

Wednesday was not a good day.  The skiing was good because we had fresh snow, but in the afternoon it started to snow very heavily and the visibility was bad.   2 of the minibuses slid into each other on ice on the Sylvanva drive.    One was the old VW  and it's battered anyway but the window now needs replacing.  The other was a rental vehicle which John and I swapped yesterday.   The side of that was damaged but it also transpired that the roof was badly dented.   We believe that ice fell off the roof of the Sylvana and caused the damage. So on Wednesday evening we had to borrow a vehicle from Ski Royal to get our guests to the airport. Anyway the vehicle situation is now sorted.  What a nightmare!
Yesterday we had some sunshine and fresh snow so the skiing was fantastic.

Skiing cancelled

Alex Perrinet rang us to say that the off piste day was not happening because the weather was too bad.  It was raining when I looked out of the window but it turned to snow so we decided to go out.  It was VERY windy.  I thought they would stop the chairs because of the gale.  I needed my face mask - frozen snow lashing into your face isn't fun.   But we had a great day.  We skied the off piste both sides of the Lanchettes button lift and then the stream down to the track at the bottom of the lift.  That was very hairy - bouncing round corners, not knowing if you were going to meet a sudden up or (even worse) a vertical down.  I don't know how I avoided falling into the stream.  My screams are still reverberating round the gully. We had lunch at the Radaz (John and I shared a tartiflette).  It snowed off and on all day so hopefully there will be some more nice snow tomorrow, if it hasn't all been blown away.  Two of the friends we skied with are off to Verbier, but said that they would not have had so much fun as they had today, as they wouldn't have been able to see.

Fresh snow

We woke up to about 6 ins of fresh snow and still snowing.  I went to Jaillet with Gordon and Neville.  We skied a couple of pistes which were lovely and then through the trees off piste to the road to Praz Sur Arly.  It was fun but a bit crunchy underneath lower down.  I finished early because we are skiing with Alex Perrinet, a mountain guide tomorrow and it will be a long day.  What a hard life!

cold and cleaqr

We skied from 9 - 5 with a stop for lunch.  Although there had been a sprinkling of snow only overnight we found some off piste pitches, particularly off the Epaule ridge.   We had lunch at the Gouet which was heaving.  People were even eating outside though it was very cold.  In the afternoon we found a perfect off piste field which was heaven.  Mostly it was wind crust or lumps of ice underneath the new snow.  I now feel exhausted and am going to have a cup of tea!

Saturday snow

It was snowing lightly when we got up so we got out early.  The off piste was not good, a covering of snow over rain crust and in some places the fresh snow was wind crust.  Still, we have been very spoilt up to now and it's good to try the challenge of skiing something difficult and staying upright.  It was very windy and all the top lifts were closed, as were the fast chairs, Mont Joux and Mon Rosset.  The sun came out in the afternoon but we had got cold and packed it in at lunch time.  More snow is forecast for tonight so maybe powder tomorrow??