Hey! Who Stole the Snow?

1/ What happened to the snow? We were only gone a week!!

Hey! Who stole the snow! We have only been in Italy for a week and look what happened to our Grand Massif while were away.

Apparantly, speaking with Hubert & Marie, every day this last week has been sunny with temperatures in the high teens and early 20's. The snow has been positively pouring off the hill!! It's like someone has turned the dial from Winter directly to Summer! But Rick and Liz have warned. Don't be fooled! In past years there has always been a late dump of snow. I'm not sure whether I believe them though. It has been such a strong winter, I think it's only fair that those poor hedges along our lane get a chance to stand upright and stretch their limbs!

We have a few important tasks to resolve this week. Firstly, according to our car contract with Peugeot we need to arrange for its 10,000km service and secondly we need to figure out how to get home all the stuff we have accumulated over the last 5 months.

But the day dawned sunny and warm and the weather forecast is for rain for the rest of the week. The thought of wasting such glorious weather messing around with car dealerships and DHL couriers held no appeal. Even Graeme reluctantly agreed. I think he was secretly looking forward to a day off the skis. Hard to imagine isn't it?

Procrastination seemed like the best plan, and so we headed out for a ski later in the morning. Unless you like slick, icy groomers, there is absolutely no point being first out on the hill at the moment. The best skiing is between 11 & 2 when the snow pack has softened but not completely deteriorated.

2/ Graeme about to head into the Ger Bowl

The most amazing thing about our visit to Araches, is that we still have loads of runs and areas that we haven't yet skied in our local Grand Massif area. We are at a loss to understand how this could be. What have we been doing all season???

3/ The Ger Bowl

One of the best areas in Flaine is the Ger. With only black runs (navy blue by NZ Standards), the Ger bowl is serviced by an old poma but it's rarely open due to avalanche risk. While we have skied in the valley a couple times as a ski tour, we've never lucked the lift being open.

Time and time again, we wanted to ski the Ger, only to find that it was closed. In fact, we started to get a bit of a complex. Everytime we'd go away, it opened, and by the time we returned - it had closed!!

Finally, today...the Ger was open. And for a magic 3 or so hours we pretty much had the bowl to ourselves. North facing, the snow softened to a lovely spring corn around midday and we enjoyed lapping every possible line until the melt went too far and the snow turned to gloop and it was time to head home.

Tomorrow....we'll definitely get to those admin matters!!

4/ More Ger!

Livigno, La Skieda and Finding our Feet.

1/ Livigno Village - spread out in a narrow strip along the valley floor

Livigno, is a township of about 5000 permanent residents. Situated at 1800m, Livigno is one of Italy's highest habitations. The town runs north-south along a narrow strip in the middle of the valley floor. It has obviously developed this way due to the constant threat of avalanches which can pour down from the 3000+ m peaks on either side.

Starting life as a small & struggling agricultural community, Livigno is now a major tourist destination. Through some quirk in history, Livigno enjoys a tax-free status. This means, petrol, alcohol, cigarettes and luxury goods are all cheaper here than in Europe. Add to this, reliable skiing in the winter, beautiful summer hiking and the fabulous Italian food and hospitality and you have all the ingredients for a wicked tourist destination.

2/ The wonderful old wooden houses

Most of the buildings in the village are brick and stone, but a few of the ancient wooden cabins have been restored to their former glory.

The ski resort has 2 parts. East of the village is Carosello 3000, the larger more developed area and to the west, Motollino. Both sides are connected by a free bus, servicing the whole of the village. But both areas are big enough that you can easily spend the whole day without having to cross the valley.

It was still snowing lightly this morning with low cloud obscuring the mountain tops. Despite the weather we were excited to get out amongst it and be part of this La Skieda Festival.

The La Skieda Telemark Festival first started in 1993 with 53 attendees. This year there were over 1200 telemark skiers registered, such is the popularity of this festival. The organisation is massive. Part festival, sales conference, film festival, huge party and sporting event, La Skieda has something for everyone. If you want to see a really neat website about the event - click here. Every year there is a theme and in 2009 it was a "Fairytale" theme with an emphasis on reducing the impact on the environment.

The township of Livigno, on its own, has a strong history of telemark skiing and everyone seems to embrace and passionately support the La Skieda festival. Even our landlady Genni is a keen telemark skier. She and her boyfriend Fabio have taken the week off work just so they can attend the festival!

To get our bearings, we spend the morning testing the greatest selection of Telemark equipment you could possibly wish to see on the Mottolino side of the hill. All the latest boots, bindings and brands of telemark skis! Graeme was in seventh heaven, tearing up and down the slopes trying all sorts of the latest telemark gear. Meanwhile I was coming to grips with the concept of 7 days on the "misery sticks" as I call affectionately call them!

Today's La Skieda events included a ski tour (which unfortunately was cancelled due to avalanche danger & weather), a classic ski race hampered more than a little by the poor visibility and ski testing. This evening is the opening of the Livigno Film Festival, followed finally by a "Fire Party" with free food and drink in a forest venue up the valley.

Confessing to a "Nana Nap" after the trauma of my first day on tele's, we made the opening film of the Livigno Film Festival late afternoon. The opening film was the "The Fine Line" an interesting film with great photography and ski footage, but also some rather sobering images and commentary about the increasing number of deaths and injuries from avalanches.

Back to the apartment for a quick bite to eat then off in the car (sorry environmentalists!) to find the Fire Party. Located at the southern end of the village, a magical pathway, lit by laterns led us deep into the forest. Arriving at the bonfire, the party was well underway. But at this early stage, getting to know people is proving tricky due to the language barrier. So many of the people are from Livigno and neighbouring villages. They all know each other. We are very much the newcomers! We have our ears tuned to pick up on any native english speakers. But so far, no luck.

It has snowed on & off today and the snow is still coming down even more heavily tonight....looks like another powder day. Can we really take anymore of this??

4/ The Fire Party

On the Snowy Road Again - And an Italian Mud Derby

Excited about the trip to Livigno but as always dreading the thought of driving there! It's Saturday and I'm sure the roads will be clogged! Fingers crossed we won't get lost and it won't be as chaotic as during the last school holiday period! We left Dana to lock up for us and we headed off at 8am to hopefully make Livigno before dark.

1/ Lost in a Blizzard!

So much for the wishful thinking!!!

Do you need snow in your resort? Well, let Andy & Graeme know and they will plan a road trip to your area. Why, why, why does it alway chuck down with snow whenever we want to go somewhere?

Penny the GPS, is seriously in our bad books. The route she planned for us, over a high mountain road turned out to be closed during the winter! But to discover this inconvenient little fact, we had to drive through another pass at 2330m in a full blizzard and white out conditions. The snowbanks on the side of the road towered over us almost engulfing the 10m snow poles. Visibility was down to about 2m as the howling wind drove snow over the road. Eventually it was all too much for Pepi and we began sliding all over the road. Poor ol' Graeme had to get out and put the chains on. After surviving all this, imagine our disgust when we then learned that our road was closed and we had to go back the way we had come. Oh the joys of European driving!

Turning Penny off, we found the only other alternative into Livigno, a one way tunnel through the mountains from the Swiss side. Of course it's Saturday isn't it? This means that it's changeover day and the road is clogged with people leaving and arriving at the resort. A little tricky when you only have a one-way tunnel!!

Of course, the first we knew about this was when we were stopped by officials on the mountain road and herded into a muddy paddock with about 500 other cars. We had no idea what was going on, but every one else seemed to be sitting patiently in their cars waiting for something to happen. So as the saying goes, "when in Rome..." When I say people were waiting patiently, I'll exclude the occupants of the numerous vans with Czech, Polish and Slovakian number plates. They didn't seem at all concerned about the wait. They were playing disco music, throwing down beers and vodka and dancing around in the mud. Quite entertaining really. Although the novelty did start to wear off after the first hour!!

To ensure that the mountain road does not become gridlocked, during periods of heavy traffic, officials herd all cars into large grass holding pens. Unfortunately, the grass doesn't survive and with all the traffic, they become large smelly quagmires! In this way they can control the number of cars through the tunnel and at the swiss border beyond.

But the really exciting time comes when the officials open the gate of the holding pen to release the set number of cars onto the road. It's a Le Mans start in the mud. 16 lanes of cars are trying to take a U corner in deep mud and narrow to 2 lanes at the same time. I have never seen anything like it, in all my life. In the end, to save the nervous breakdown, I just closed my eyes and let Graeme fight his way through the mess.

No sooner did we get through the tunnel, than we were queued again at the Swiss Border. Another E$25 cash just to get out of Switzerland! Thank you very much!! No doubt about the Swiss! They certainly know how to cash in on the tourist at every possible step.

2/ The quagmire! Gentlemen, start your engines!!

It's now dark and finally we have arrived in Livigno. To top off a rather fraught day, our mobile phone is not working. We can text out but we cannot use it to make phone calls. We have no idea why this is and no patience left to find out. Eventually, with some luck we find our apartment and meet our lovely young hostess, Genni Zini.

The apartment is very neat and tiday, although it's in the roof cavity on the 3rd floor of the apartment building. 51 stairs from the ground! I think it will suit us nicely for the week, although Graeme may develop a nasty crook in his neck!!

3/ Graeme in our height challenged apartment

Dumping our gear, we were off again to find the La Skieda Festival head-quarters at the other end of the town. We managed this with out further incident even though it was now snowing very heavily. Registered, we returned with our flat to get some sleep before the big first day of the festival!

While today was certainly a challenging one, there was some good news.....along the way through Italy we came upon what looked very much like the Australian "Twisties" snack food. A perennial favourite of ours we were excited to try them. Same packaging, same twistie rice crisp shape, but with a milder cheese flavour than the strong chedder flavour of the Australian version. Yum!

Evian Les Bains

1/ Beautiful and inaccessible lakeside chateaux!

The legs just won't do it for us today!! Graeme and I have skied 7 days straight! Even the thought of more powder skiing didn't outweigh the thrill of a morning sleep-in! We've gone soft!! The final nail in the coffin was a late night after sharing an impromptu meal with Rick and Liz last night.

2/ The loneliness of a summer resort in winter!

So after a slothful start to the morning we headed off to Evian-les Bains, the home of the namesake mineral water. Well that was the intention. Somehow the boys got distracted by the thoughts of a walk along the foreshore and pulled off into a car parking area on the outskirts of the town.

Summer resorts are sad places in the winter. Without the lovely mantle of white snow enjoyed by the mountains, everything is grey and drab. The streets are empty and the feel is one of desertion and sleepiness. While the few crocus poking up in the gardens hinted at spring, a cold breeze and drizzling rain kept us thinking about winter.

Somehow we never found the main town. It seems that we were still some distance away from the famous Evian Casino (one of Europe's largest) and the imperious Hotel Royal. But all was not lost.. we found a good Patisserie!

French Observation
Our attempt to find a walking path along the lake to the village centre was in vain. All the houses and buildings own land right to the water's edge. All was fenced off and access was not permitted. It makes you very thankful that the old girl Vicky (Queen Victoria) in 1840 made a rule to reserve land 20m wide along water courses in NZ for public access.

Imagine not being permitted to walk around Lake Wanaka or beside the Clutha River. Wouldn't bear thinking about?

3/ Boys will be boys!! Look closely!

The journey home was slightly longer than expected as the route we took to Evian had closed behind us due to heavy snow. Mike and Leanne were treated to a new route directed by the dulcet tones of Penny (the "GPS"). Not sure what we would do without this lovely lady, even if she does occassionally get lost in tricky cities like Vienna. I guess the answer is: We would have spent the first month lapping the Geneva Airport carpark!!

4/ Patrick the Fishing guide & Restauranteur. What is about Fishing Guides and owning Restaurants?

Tonight we were treated by Mike and Leanne to a delicious meal at Les Molliets mountain restaurant. This is our favourite local restaurant. Easily the most atmospheric, it is owned by Patrick a local fishing guide. Together with his son Alex and an all male crew - the place runs like a slick military operation. They are impressive to watch when their outside deck is full with over a 100 patrons on a sunny lunch time. Fortunately evenings are a little more laid back and you have time to gaze at all the historical photos, fishing, skiing and farming equipment that adorn the walls.

The delicious Cote de Boef was the order of the evening. Tender and flavoursome and washed down with some delicious french red, it was a perfect evening. Adding to the cosy atmosphere, the snow continued to dump down outside. Fortunately, we had ex-Rally driver Leanne to drive us home. She handled Pepi, clad in his shiny chains and the twisty snow covered mountain roads with ease!!

Oh No!! More Snow = More Skiing!!! Another big day tomorrow! With hopefully the promise of some sunshine!!

Big Night, Big Day. Skiphilia???

1/ An Owens/Lewis Gathering

As always a big night with the gathering of the Owen & Lewis clans. A delicious venison fondue with poached pear for dessert. There's a story about that poached pear, but the tale of the venison fondue is much more interesting.

Hunting is still a popular sport in the European Alps as attested by the abundance of outdoor stores all stocking an impressive array of knives, guns, (blowdarts?) and other weaponry. A french friend of Rick and Liz is a prodigious hunter and arrived this autumn with a whole haunch of wild venison for their freezer. Aren't we lucky to be sharing in the spoils?

Venison is a perfect meat for fondue. Sliced thinly and cooked quickly it's tender and totally delicious. Accompanied by an assortment of mustards, salad and a delicious potato gratin it made for a scrumptious feast. Fondues are fun meals. They force you to eat slowly and really savour the flavours. Both Graeme and I are guilty of "woofing" down our meals like they will be our last. With a fondue this is impossible. There is time for good conversation instead. Watch out, we'll be dusting off our fondue set when we get home!

I think Rick and Liz really loved the Bartons little gifts from NZ. A beautifully carved stone koru but even more significant were a couple lacquered stones they had collected from the shores of Lake Wanaka where they met on that fateful February day.

As the evening the wore on, the snow continued to fall outside. I could see that Mike and Graeme were getting twitchy. There was a lot of surreptitious glancing out the window by the pair. It was going to be another one of those powder mornings!! It has snowed continuously since Wednesday night! It'll be deep! And the weather forecast is for sunshine...does it get any better?

3/ First in the Queue!

And despite Leanne's lack of enthusiasm for the task, we were first in the lift queue waiting for the lifts to open this morning. "What time does the telecabine open" asked Leanne? "9am!" we replied. "Well, why the hell are we here at 8:30am?" she groaned. And suddenly the fog cleared and I saw ourselves through her eyes. This skiing thing must be a mental illness...skimania, skiphilia?

The Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary defines mania as, “The excitement manifested by mental and physical hyperactivity. Manic behavior patterns include hyperactivity, increased energy, and heightened mood. Left untreated, the person’s judgment is impaired resulting in reckless and dangerous behavior. In severe cases, delusions and hallucinations occur." Hmmmm!

Food for thought! Mike, Graeme and I seemed to be sharing the same delusion that we are still young hot skiers. But the reality is somewhat different. I fell asleep in my helmut at lunch time today!!

3/ The Helmut Kip!!

But as promised the sun came out and even Leanne started to share in our skiing hallucination. While she would have preferred a good long hard ....shopping trip. She did admit to "Hitting her Groove" this afternoon!

4/ That's Leanne on the left with a "Groove Grin!"

Whoo Hooo!! The Snow has Arrived & How!!

1/ Andy has got rather good at shovelling snow!

2/ Mike learning the finer points of snow clearing!!

All right! It's got serious now! Continuous snow for 36 hours! We've had another 30cm at Le Refuge and up to 50cm at Flaine overnight. This is awesome! No sign of it stopping yet either!! Mike is well impressed. Leanne less so!

Leanne has been such a good sport! She is not a skiing enthusiast and I can see that she does not share our single-minded passion for this past-time. She was ecstatic to be snuggling back into bed with her book, while the three of us headed out into the blizzard! We promised to return for an early lunch and a "nana nap". We need to be in top form! We have a big night at Rick & Liz's ahead of us tonight. We have warned Mike and Leanne that a night at the Owen's is not for the faint hearted!!

2/Mike talking to his friend Annie at the ticket office!

Mike has made a friend at our local ticket office. Mike has surprisingly good french! I would even say better than ours! He studied french at school and spent a year in the Swiss village of Morgin in the Portes du Soleil where french and swiss-german were spoken. Dropping Mike off at the our local ticket office each morning, he has charmed the lovely ticket lady (Annie) with his command of the French language. We didn't have the heart to tell him that she speaks English fluently!!

Snow continued to fall heavily all day. Visibility was fairly questionable at the best of times - think Cardrona/ Mt Buller in a white out! But with the tree runs of Les Carroz and Morillon and our better knowledge of the area, we were still able to find some good little powder drops.

We met up with Rick mid morning and he took us for a blast down through the trees on one of his secret runs. Here's the footage of today - go to 6/03/09. Making a film of these guys skiing was a challenge. They certainly haven't studied at the "Powder 8" school! The Director's vision was that they would all ski down in unison creating a triplicate set of perfect tracks. Alas the result was more like a trio of old mountain goats scattering in all directions. They say that a film director's nightmare is working with children and animals! I think we might have to add Rick, Mike and Graeme to that list as well.

I can already hear the howls of protest from the old goaties about this incident! Apparantly, their view is that I did not explain my artistic vision clearly enough. They were confused by my hand signals. Yeah right?...Nice try fellas..!! But no cigar!

To end the morning, Rick took us on a magical mystery tour down through the trees almost to our village. We are ashamed to say that we haven't yet found the route down through the trees and gullies to Le Refuge. Work in progress!

Back home to a lovely late lunch with Leanne. An afternoon "nana nap" for the oldies and a walk to the village for a spot of shopping for the young and attractive ones!!

3/My old goaties!! Hmm..you're looking a little snowy, Mike?

What happened on the way down?

Yum, Yum more Pow!! The French don't do racks!

More powder skiing! Graeme whoops it up!!

Look I'm really sorry, but it just keeps snowing here!! It snowed all day yesterday and overnight. Another 30cm of light dry powder. Elbowed the septogenerian out of the way this morning and got first telecabine!!

We mentioned previously that our Grand Massif is like Cardrona. No-one skis off-piste and so we pretty much ski freshies all day. We have found a particularly good section which is accessed off a cat track connecting two ski areas. Terrific fall line where you can lay about 30-40 turns top to bottom. This morning we just put in set after set just going wider along the slope each time. And even better, no lift queue. In fact, for the first week of the french school holidays it is surprisingly quiet. If you are interested - here's today's footage.

French Observation

Ski Racks

It appears to us that the french don't do ski racks. Time and time again we see skis just thrown into the back of cars. When the cars are full, 4 pairs of skis & a snowboard are sitting on peoples shoulders and resting on the dashboard. You can tell that the car is full, their faces are pressed up against the glass!! Some of the "neater people" bring a brush and dust off their equipment before putting it in their car, but most don't. They just chuck it in snow and all.

Very strange I must say!

Bizarre Ski Equipment

Check out the upholstery on the ski-do's! Leopard skin print....nice!! I bet someone got a bargain with these puppies. Probably, Grand Massif resort bought them second-hand from an African dictator who ordered them but didn't realise you need snow to run them. Either that, or someone has appalling taste!! And there's not just one of them.....there's about 20 ski-do's parked at Samoens...all with styley leopard ski seats! Hmmmm!

Whump vs Thwack!! A Crash Analysis

A perfect french snowflake!!

"Did we mention the words "Pea Soup?"

It's snowing again!! In contrast to the last snow dump, it's deep, light and fluffy! But unfortunately, it's Sunday and the first day of the French School Holidays. We have been warned - a dire combination!

The french stagger the winter school holidays throughout a month long period. At the moment, kids from the Lyon region (which includes our area) are on holidays for the next 2 weeks. Next week, they are overlapped with the Parisians and British school holidays. Rick and Liz continually tell us that they don't even bother putting their skis on during this period as it is totally crazy. So rather than stay and observe the madness, Graeme and I will be departing for Slovakia at the end of the week.

But this morning, we arose at "crack-o-dawn", dug out the car, (there'd been about 30cm of fresh overnight) put the chains on and were waiting for the telecabine to open. We got the second telecabine. A septogenerian "powder hound" pushed past us to snatch the last spot in the first cabin! Hmmm, next time ....!!

While the snow was amazing the visibility was less so. Good thing that both of us have trained at the Skiing for the Visially Impaired Academy (aka as Mt Buller on a good day and/ or the TC Saddle Basin -Winter 2008)! We have really started to know our way around our little ski area, and heading to all our favourite haunts we whooped it up in the knee deep powder! (Cold crotch syndrome again I'm ashamed to report!!).

And then..... we thought we'd be a little clever and head off down a new beckoning patch of untracked field. The result a nasty crash for Andy!

A word about Crashes - the "Whump" vs the "Thwack!!

I am always surprised when I fall. I am generally very relaxed, humming along to the music playing softly on my headphones. I'm not thinking about what I am doing at all. Thanks to my intrepid father, I was brought up skiing off the "beaten track". I seem to remember most of my early skiing days were spent rolling down ungroomed slopes or dodging trees in tight gullies. Dad himself would often provide spectacular demonstrations of how to crash in deep and heavy snow without hurting yourself. My father always treated any fall as an occasion for great hilarity. As a result there are very few times even now that I don't start giggling while I'm flying through the air and I know that a "Whump" into the deep snow is imminent.

The only exception to this relaxed demeanour is when I am skiing on -piste or the snow is really icy off-piste. Then I'm tense. I don't want to fall. I ski tentatively and try to ensure that I am not going to hit or be hit by someone or that I will end up doing a "slide for life" on some icy off-piste. On the rare occasion that that I have crashed on-piste - it's a Thwack! And it hurts!

As capturing crashes on film is hard to do, you will forgive me for me using some old footage to demonstrate the distinction between "Whump" & "Thwack" crashes!!

The happy "Whump Fall" Note: soft snow and smile on face!!

Brother-in-law, Cam, demonstrating the aftermath of a "Thwacker".

Note: hard snow and blood!!

So today was a bit of a shock to the system. I anticipated a Whump when instead I received a Thwack. As I hurtled down the new off-piste field in the poor visibility I did not see that a groomed trail had been cut across the slope. The drop was about a metre onto a flat and hard packed snow road. I had been quite relaxed, after all I was skiing powder what could happen? So even when I ejected from both skis I was anticipating a graceful flop into a snow feather bed. To my surprise I ploughed head first into the hard road, driving my goggles onto the bridge of my nose. Ooowww! I saw stars! Thank goodness I was wearing a helmut! It took the full brunt of the impact.

The good news is that of course I was completely OK. After a quick check of the all the fingers and toes, I retired from slopes for a restorative hot chocolate and was able to continue skiing for the rest of the day! It is afterall a powder day and more snow is predicted overnight!

Wet Blizzard!

A full on blizzard. Graeme is out in the wet snow putting on the chains.

The rain finally turned to snow very early in the morning and about 20cm of very wet snow greeted us. We are currently sharing the Teste residence with a group of their male friends. Last weekend, their wives had stayed and this weekend was the boy's turn. These boys were "party animals"!! But their late nights meant that they were not very early starters! We hardly saw them as we had left to go skiing well before they arose. The girls seemed more organised!! We are looking forward to having the Teste Family back in residence this weekend!!

Getting to the Telecabine this morning proved a little tricky. Wet snow was bucketing down and about 50m up our road, a huge 40 seater bus had managed to wedge itself on a snow bank and was stuck fast. As it was blocking the road we had to turn around and head back down our road. This is not our preferred route. The road is steep and frequently very icy. Applying the brakes at any point during the journey can have all sorts of unexpected results!! But we managed to get back down our hill and on to the main road without incident. Being early, it appeared that the snow ploughs had not really started their job, or if they had, the snow was coming so fast that they couldn't keep up!

It is always a little scary driving in these conditions as the locals persist in driving at the same speed they would in summer! We know that they are locals as their car registration plates end in "74", the number for our Haute-Savoie region. I will certainly accept that the locals generally have snow tyres and they are used to driving in icy & snowy conditions. But it's the old story. When something totally unexpected happens it won't matter that they are all ex World Cup Rally drivers, their brakes won't stop them any faster than a slow tourist! The crash will just be a bigger mess!

Speaking of tourists. To this exciting cocktail of driving snow, icy roads and suicidal locals, you also need to add the "seriously dumb" tourist whose favourite trick is to get half-way up a hill, lose traction, stop in the middle of the road blocking both lanes of traffic and then decide to put chains on. You can imagine the Local's reaction to this sort of nonsense!

So today, not only were we confronted with the stuck bus, but on our way up to the Telecabine we met with the "dumb tourist". Driving conditions were becoming borderline even with snow tyres. We were going to make it if we didn't have to stop. But alas as the tourist's car in front of us started to lose traction and begin its slide back down the hill, we decided that discretion was the better part of valour! A 6 minute chain fitting job by one, Mr Graeme Oxley and we were on our way again. With chains on Pepi Peugeot becomes a 4WD!! We zoomed past the bewildered tourist who was still trying to figure out whether the chains go on the front or back wheels!

After that eventful morning we had a couple of runs in the heavy snow and then retreated for an early coffee to calm the nerves. Unfortunately, there has been more rain than snow today and there was nothing much to report in the way of good skiing. We decided to come home for lunch and to finish the last of the french homework. Lessons this afternoon and then a casual drink and dinner with Liz & Rick. A nice Saturday night!!

The weather conditions were not conducive to good photography hence the lack of material for today. Hopefully when the sun does finally shine again we'll have the camera working again and get some good photos.