After skiing the Face du Bellevarde at the end of the morning yesterday Chris and I knew exactly in what sector we wanted to ski today. I opened up with a lovely run down the Fontaine Froide and onto the Epaule du Charvet, which was excellent. Due to lift problems there was a huge queue for the Olympique so we took the first chair and skied the bottom of the Banane (skiers left), which I normally only do in spring but it was very good and was impressive with avalanche debris. The queue was still off-putting so we headed up Solaise and played off the Mattis but it didn’t take long to verify that we really didn’t want to be on that side of the resort so we bussed around and finally braved the slightly smaller queue at the Olympique. At this stage I hooked up with Chris who was returning from his Tour du Charvet via TJ’s Shoulder and together we skied the Tour du Charvet via the Mont Blanc Couloir, which was fantastic with some lovely ambience thrown in. We then decided to finish the morning with a brilliant Face du Charvet and it’s rare when you can ski such ‘classics’ as the Epaule, Tour and Face du Charvet on the same morning. (see photos) Andreas and Ian were in the neighbourhood and I know Andreas skied the Epaule and the Banane a couple of times along with one in the gullies on the Arcelle and I’m not too sure where Henry ended up although he was around the Grand Pre early on.
I had a really good evening in the Danois was night as the Tuesday night band the Revolverlites (crap name!) are really good and they had the place rocking. The Danois has become my favourite bar in town as the music is always good and exceptionally so on Friday’s, Hendrick the owner is a great guy, and Alice and her bar staff are brilliant. And if you’re hungry the food is really good and the Viking Burger isn’t for the faint-hearted!
I’m off down the valley for a huge shop as the girls are arriving on Saturday with three friend between them. It’s going to be a fantastic few days and I’m really looking forward to it. (Much more than my poor wife who could really use a holiday away from teenagers!)
An overcast day is forecast for tomorrow but hopefully we’ll get enough light to navigate comfortably. Fingers crossed and stay tuned!
PS And the Banane is a ‘classic’ as well! Also had a couple of new skier today, Jim from Ireland and young Hugo from Australia to go along with Ruth, Simmo and Richard.