Explore europe in a campervan

Quite a lot of it and just as forecast. It was great to wake up to a white car park, white trees, heavy with new snow, but not so great to wake up slightly worse for wear and, unfortunately, miss the first day on the mountains covered with fresh, untouched snow. Let’s face it - we never would have got up there before anybody else to lay the first ‘whitelines’, but as it happened we didn’t make it at all.
The previous night was quite a late one spent in the van of Mike and Gwyd with Tanc and Jibé – their French friends who are also staying for the season in converted vans, and with Sirius – Tanc’s very laid back dog. It was a good night and the beer helped us overcome the language barrier to discuss the merits of van-dwelling in various countries. Tanc lives in a converted German postal van and we eventually understood that Jibé hopes to travel to England in the summer - further than the car park where his van is stationary now as he doesn’t have a licence to drive it yet!

The next day we were more than ready – or so we thought. The change in weather hadn’t just brought us new snow. As we ascended the mountain on the first chair lift admiring the new scenery we were reminded that there was a price to pay – we were going to get battered by the weather. The first piste just to get to the next chair lift was not soft powder as we’d hoped. Where the weather had been so warm and damp previously the snow had become slushy moguls – bumps created mainly by skiers. This surface had frozen solid and the new snow was just a thin layer blowing around on top of the ice. By the time we reached the top of the second chair – at 2466 metres the wind was blowing frozen snow from the surface into our faces, visibility was pretty poor and, once boards were on, it was difficult to stand up!

‘What an ideal day to check for snow-kiting’ we had thought, before setting off, so we headed around the mountain towards Switzerland. This piste is relatively narrow and, in a couple of places, had been reduced to about 2 metres across where the snow had drifted. I think I’ve mentioned I’m cautious at the best of times and I didn’t enjoy the journey at all – having to scoot (when you take your back foot out of the binding to push you along like skate-boarding on flat areas) against the wind. The bindings on my board were already both frozen – which has never happened even in cold conditions before – one was difficult to do up and the other wouldn’t come undone! The chair lifts we had reached were, unsurprisingly, very quiet. Once we were on we covered our faces with scarves to get a bit of protection from the wind. The intention was to have a little look from the top of this mountain for any kites. It was no surprise that we couldn’t see any – we certainly wouldn’t have been kiting in these winds, even on the safety of dry land in Poole.

Conditions for the rest of the day were harsh to say the least. The snow felt better in some areas where it hadn’t been blown away, and the boarding was much faster. On the way down an exposed route back towards the Avoriaz area it felt like kiting without the kites. IF you could manage to stand you only had to open your body to the wind to get traction, but mostly got blown straight to the fence at the other side of the run. I removed my board and walked! After the Swiss excursion we stayed mostly on lower runs which were slightly less windy. Stopping for lunch the spot seemed sheltered from the wind at first, but taking a glove off to try to wrap my frozen-solid scarf tighter around my face was a big mistake and within seconds my fingers were hurting from the cold. It was a real reminder of how you have to dress appropriately and be careful about not putting yourself at the mercy of the mountain. For the first time we were finished before ‘closing time’ on the lifts and headed back to the van to warm up.

Pleasingly the following day was a different story. Although cold, the sky was clear of clouds and vividly blue. The wind was calmer and there seemed to be more time – no need to frantically get going as soon as you get off the chairlift to prevent digits freezing! We took a couple of different pistes and saw some fantastic views – it seemed as though the mountains continued forever into the distance. The more pleasant weather had brought many more people out onto the mountains, but even a few lift queues wasn’t enough to spoil a great day of boarding!

This entry was posted on Monday, March 10th, 2008 at 10:15 am and is filed under Diary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.