Saturday December 7, 2024
These days are all beginning to blur into one. I've made the mistake of writing this the day after, meaning I've completely forgotten what we got up to ...
Team Black Diamond set off for a day of Ski Club repping. Or rather, we were going to take turns repping to see how well we knew our stuff and could help a group lead itself round the mountain.
We began the day in almost bluebird conditions, a shimmer of cloud stopping the best of the sun bursting through. But, once again, this was to be a day of two halves. We made out way to the in-between bit of Tignes-Val d'Isere and took in some serious lift time in the Val d'Isere sector of the region.
There wasn't a huge amount of interesting skiing, to be honest. It had been a few days since the list snow, and whilst pistes were in good nick - mostly thanks to the good snow manufacturing system - any off piste was still a bit shark-y and, by this point, wind crusted.
Wind crust is one of the least good things to ski through. It is so easy to catch an edge that it males turning nearly impossible, any pressure breaking through the crust making neither edging nor powder turns possible. We tried to find what we could off the Borsat chair with some success, but on a shallow pitch there's only so much joy we could scrape.
It was with some joy, satisfaction, and expectation, therefore, that the weather closed in after lunch. With it came snow, heaps and piles and mounds of snow that, as I write this around 36hrs later, still hasn't stopped.
A late lunch and a strong wind meant we made the call to head for home. The top of Tichot and Grattalu chairs were being blown around by gale force winds, so we tucked and ran as soon as we were off, visibility closing in by the minute.
But as we turned under the Merles chair, we found that the snow had already brought its reward. Just to the side and even on the piste, what was once tracked, boilerplate and rocky was now snowy, snowy and snowy. We were able to score some beautiful side hits and add the cherry on to what was already and excellent day.
Finally, we added another cherry on top. Merles was just about still open, so we piled on, braved the winds, and shredded our favourite run one more time. And if that wasn't enough, the run down Palafour back to home meant we could score some more powder, too!
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