Perfect. Snow and blue skies.
Pretty well perfect, although still a little icy at village level.
Third day. Conditions were almost perfect, certainly the best of the week. Most of the slopes were now groomed after the snowfall and had soft snow on top of a hard base. It was still a bit icy at village level.
For the lesson, we went to the second level, "Toura", for the first time. In the Good Ski Guide this is descibed as being "steeper than its blue rating would suggest". There are two chair lifts and two ways down.
From "Toura" there is a long run back to the village. The ski down from Toura to Les Cretes starts with a sweeping slope and then turns into a road with a wall on one side and a respectable drop on the other. It is necessary to keep speed on this section because the road flattens out. The route takes in the lower section of "Les Cretes" and a long zig-zag path down to the village level from which it is possible to traverse right across the slopes at village level to any point. Because of the U shape of the valley, all of the other runs to the village are much more difficult, graded either red or black.
Jenny managed one of the most spectacular falls of the holiday. Probably going a little too fast into the road, she hit the wall and ended up lying on her back with the tails of her skis stuck into the snow. One vertical and one horizontal, stuck into the wall.
 Looking towards the slopes from the café |
 Jenny arriving for lunch |
 The nursery slope .. getting rather hard |
 Looking across the lower slopes |
 Chris arriving for lunch |
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By the third day we were getting into a routine, getting together for lunch at the outdoor deck of the Kid Burger bar. Somehow cheeseburger and chips tasted pretty good in the open air with the sun shining and blue sky.
After lunch we all skied together for a while from the two drag lifts close to the café.
 Great view from the top of one of the drag lifts |
 Looking down the nursery slope |
 Showing the position of our lunch stop |
 Chris on the drag lift |
 Sue on the drag lift |
 Chris on the drag lift |
 Sue starting to ski at the top of the drag lift |
 "You're not still doing wedge turns are you?" |
 John on the drag lift |
 Mike in the queue for the lift |
 Mike on the drag lift |
 Mike on the drag lift |
 John on the drag lift |
 John near the top of the drag lift |
Last updated: 20 Nov 2003