A rest day, sort of

Carl was still feeling very much under the weather and decided to stay in bed for at least the morning while the rest of us went to play on the slopes. I wanted to check out a new route to Val Thorens which would't involve any hair raising descents that Caron would freak out on.

The route I followed was as follows:

• Up doron lift and down boyes
• Up bruyeres 1 and down the lower half of paturage
• Up montaulever and then down into Val Thorens
• Up the funitel peclet lift and down tete ronde and then 2 combes.
• Up moraine lift and down genepi
• Up morain lift and down moraine
• Up portette and down fond and then plateau to the top of Caron.
• Down getiane and bd cummins all the way home.

The weather had started out fine but by the time we were coming down tete ronde it had started to snow lightly again. We stopped at the intersection of tete ronde and 2 combes for more hot chocolate at the same expensive restaurant which was just as good as before. While I was waiting for Kirsten and the kids to emerge I watched 3 british girls putting their skis on, very funny, the one was pointing straight downhill and took off immediately straight into a whole pile of nicely stacked skis, poles and snowboards. Carnage ensued with lots of shrieks and laughter.

By the time we got onto the Moraine lift the snow was coming down quite hard and it was nearly impossible to see the slope that one was skiing on so the kids decided that enough was enough and that they were going home. Kirsten reluctantly following them. It was a real pity because both moraine and genepi are fantastic slopes, they're steep enough to really go on but not so steep that one has to be worried about not being able to stop if things get out of hand. I loved the feeling of carving down the slope while the snow is falling even though not being able to see where one is skiing, other than the piste markers that is, is a little disconcerting. I must admit that the chair lifts in the driving snow and wind was less than comfortable but definitely worth it.

I was meant to head straight home after moraine but I couldn't resist another run and ended up going down gentiane. I was just thinking how Caron would enjoy the run as I noticed the name and now that I have found an easy way into Val Thorens for Caron, this is a real possibility.

I arrived back home about 45 minutes after Kirsten and the kids just in time for lunch. By this time it had really started snowing quit hard so we all decided to have an afternoon off and rest up a bit. I spent most of the afternoon resolving a problem with my notebook because it had run out of disk space and computers, in general, really don't work well with 0 bytes available, hence my late post of yesterday.

At about 16:00 it was still snowing hard but we needed supplies so Kirsten and I went down to carrefour to do the necessary. The plan was to take the bus down but after waiting for 15 minutes and no bus, we walked and arrived in town just as the bus finally overtook us. We finished the shopping and went and stood in the bus shelter but again, after about 10 minutes, we decided to walk. This was a big mistake, not only had we been walking for only about 2 minutes when the bus arrived but by the time we made it back to the apartment my arms felt like they had been pulled from their sockets by the groceries and we were both bathed in sweat. Thankfully Kirsten helped with the bags for some of the way. I think that waiting patiently for the public transport is something we are not culturally equipped for. Since both of us were sweating profusely from the walk up the hill we both dived for the shower at the same time and, just like at home, this was not a good idea because there is only enough pressure for one shower at a time. I ended up standing in the shower waiting for Kirsten to finish so I could turn the water back on. The cold water here is not just cold water, it is freezing. Fortunately Kirsten showered quite quickly so I wasn't going hypothermic by the time I could continue my shower.

The snow continued to pour out of the sky and Megan and Alistair spent some time on the balcony trying to catch snow flakes on their tongues.
As darkness fell Carl and I had a cigar and whisky on the patio which was just fantastic. Carl was commenting on how the whisky tastes stronger here as he realised that ice cubes don't melt in the glass here. I was half tempted to just put the ice blocks back into the ice tray to use tomorrow.
We finished the day with a chicken and chips from the restaurant over the road before a quiet evening reading and watching movies.