Forget the date - something wrong with their camera!!
Somehow, we actually managed to make it back to Araches after our long day of ski touring in Italy, shower, shave and change into clean clothes in time to join Lucy Sellick's sister (Georgina) and husband, David, for a casual curry dinner. G&D have rented an apartment in Les Carroz, just up the hill from us. Sans les enfants, they have enjoyed a tremendous week of good snow and glorious sunshine.
We must have been running on over-drive! Limbs aching and noses glowing from 3 days of snow & sunshine, we wolfed down Dave's delicious curry. G&D must have wondered "who" or rather "what creatures" they had invited to dinner!
As the night wore on, there was some vague plan hatched over the second bottle of wine about catching up for a ski with G&D around mid-morning in Les Carroz. At the time we must have felt invincible to make this suggestion. I certainly must have forgotten all about the grinding ache in my knees, blisters on my feet and a general light-headedness from too much the sun. Of course, that's what did it...too much sun!
Needless to say that by daybreak next morning, our grand plans of the night before had evaporated, leaving only the aforementioned sore knees, feet and heads! Not only that, but my feet were so badly blistered I couldn't put on normal shoes, let alone ski boots! We feel a little badly that we didn't get more of an opportunity to ski with G & D. We hope they will forgive us!!
So our day was spent with the usual domestics and a very early night. But all through the day we reminisced about our trip to the Mario Bezzi Refuge. Here's some more reflections on the trip!
2/ How cool! Mario Bezzi has his own monogrammed crockery!!
The funniest thing is that, Mario, does, actually look a bit like a marmot!
Christophe our Guide
Christophe is an excellent guide. He pushes us just enough to make us feel that we have achieved something without taking us beyond our limits. He is very safety conscious and explains why he is making a particular decision at a particular time. He is keen to share information with us but even more admirably he readily seeks out information from others he respects. His interaction with the Mario Bezzi, an old man of the mountains, was delightful.
He has a wicked sense of humour and the patience of a saint. Apart from having to nurse me up some of the more exposed parts of the mountain, he was also forced to listen to my tortured attempts at the French language. I figured, since we were going to be spending 3 days in close quarters, I had a perfect French tutor on hand.
However, Christophe quickly developed two very effective techniques to encourage silence from me. First, if my attempt at french conversation was getting too long, he would subtly increase the pace of skinning, slowly pulling further and further away from me. To keep up, I would have to markedly increase my leg speed, by which time I was huffing and puffing so much there was no chance of any further witty repartee.
His second technique was a lot less subtle. As I struggled to find the correct words or pronounciation he would initially feign interest and then suddenly drop his head making loud snoring noises. Hint taken!!
3/ A Christophe speciality: Crushed Crisps for lunch?
Another Christophe classic, was his choice of touring food. He had endless supply of pototo crips and would offer them to us at every opportunity. Take it from us, pototo crisps are not ideal ski touring food!! OK, I will concede that they're light, but if the packet doesn't burst from the reduced air pressure, the contents resemble oatmeal by the time they have been shoved repeatedly into a pack.
And the very last observation about our fearless leader, Christophe, is his habit of donating head torches to Refuges throughout the alps. At the Colle di Giasson, he was rummaging through his pack to discover that yet again he had left his head torch at Refuge Mario Bezzi. I am not completely sure about the exact translation, but I did understand that over the years, he has left 36 head torches at various refuges and mountain bivvies around the alps. He used to be sponsored by Petzl which covered the first 20 or so, but obviously (given the level of swear words) the "freebie days" are long gone!!
But all jokes and observations aside, we would seriously rate Christophe as a guide. He has a "nose for the snow" and we've thoroughly enjoyed our touring with him on this trip and also our first trip closer to home. We have been lucky to have found him as our guide.
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