Totally Dehydro

As I mentioned in an earlier entry you only get a ribbing for a week before someone else is caught with their pants down. Our friend bonnie was in this weeks Mountain Echo.

‘Shhh!’
‘Tora (Petit Danois doorman) and Bonnie (Europe Transfer) have already had complaints from neighbours in Les Oreades about the amount of noise coming from the apartment. We hear the Danois’ main man is being quite the gentleman though. Having won the skis at the Pacific Bar raffle he swapped them for the snowboard because Bonnie didn’t have one. Ahhhhh’

HeeHee!

The snow is once again crapolla and we don’t really fancy ice-skating down vertical drops. Rather than lazing around in the flat we’ve been checking out some amazing walks around the valley. Barbara and I came across a tiny abandoned village, which used to be inhabited by Shepard’s and farmers in yester year. Just up from that we found a spectacular frozen waterfall.

This is the grossest thing EVER! Emily’s arm had mostly been ok. She’s pretty tough. Until one day she gets up extremely scrunchy faced. Her arm is absolute agony with one specific area that has shooting crippling pain. I sent her up to the medical centre to get it checked. BLEUGH! They took her cast off to find…two of the pins actually poking through her skin. EUGH! Annoyingly we don’t have any photos of that. Here’s a photo of me and Bonnie with Ems and stookie.

If you look at a piste map here you’ll see I tiny drawing of an igloo. You’d think it was going to be just big enough to get inside, WRONG. You go underground into a massive ice cavern. Inside there are life sized ice carvings of a mammoth, a gorilla and some kind of gigantic dinosaur. The keeper of these spectacular carvings is a poor wee Chinese lady who has to sit there all day, everyday with a thousand layers of bear skin on.

Bienvenue Gees’s. Had the best time ever with Kath and Craig. Aside from the off piste areas I think we pretty much covered the whole resort.
I couldn’t go up the mountain on the first day so I gave them a map and explained how important it is that you look at your map to check gradings. Val D’Isere is one of the worst resorts for under grading. Some blues are more like reds etc. It was a white out day but luckily kath had come dressed to be found in 100 feet of snow.(see photo). In typical Gee style they went up, left there map and came down a red, which is the entire side of the mountain and more like a black. Needless to say they didn’t object when I suggested some blues for the following day. Hysterical.
In keeping with our hardcore rock and roll lives back home. I promised a big night out. Starting with nice cocktails in Victors on to our favourite bar Blue Note then out to Dicks until 4am. The reality was, barely two cocktails in Victors and we were all falling asleep in our seats. Tucked up in bed before 12. Living on the edge.
On our visit to Tignes we came across a spectacular rock formation called The Eye of the Needle. Again kath’s grace and coordination overwhelms us all. While climbing up towards the eye which granted it pretty steep she loses her footing and slides down the slope straight past her ski’s and on towards the piste which was packed with people going a million miles an hour. Craig and Nigel being such gentlemen stood and laughed until they peed. Nice.

The only sucky bit is NewYears day I got so sick. I had a temperature of 100 and the most amazing chest infection ever. Couldn’t breath at all. Didn’t eat for 3 days and had amazing hallucinations consisting of ninjas and SAS guys coming to recruit me for missions that I immediately accepted. At that point Ems thought I should probably go see the doc. She had to dress me while i continued to chat to people who weren’t there and drag me along the street. After a dose of antibiotics I was straight back up the mountain.

Christmas and New Year rocked. Here are some photos for your perusal. Too much debauchery to talk about. What happens on the mountain, stays on the mountain.

As you probably know the snow has been rubbish this season. We get a dump for three days, which is great but in less than a week’s time it’s compact and death trap icy again.
I’d planned a nice day riding by myself. Packed my little bag with tunes, water, mountain snacks and headed of with a massive grin. Blasted down a few greens for a warm up. Headed over to Tignes hit some blues then finished on relaxed reds. The run into La Daille is the first way down the mountain you come to on the way back from Tignes. The only problem with that side of the mountain is its in shadow all day mixed with lack of snow. It’s ok though, I knew there was a blue that should be ok.
Headed off. The first bit wasn’t too bad, came through the tunnel which you have to slam a hard left or you fly full speed into a solid ice wall. After that it all went horribly wrong. The piste was actually shining blue with ice. I looked ahead at a sea of bodies. Not only were people not able to stand up they were actually sliding uncontrollably down the slope on what ever part of there body met the ice first.
SHIT. Was my only thought.
Well, gota do it when your half way down the mountain. Slid the whole way down thinking once I’m past this it’s just the blue the rest of the way. Hmmm? Turned the corner to see the massive sign saying the blue was closed. Ok.
Again started down it fell, fell again, fell some more. Stopped to try to gather my thoughts. As I was sitting there with my tunes on I heard a faint screeching. Turned around to see a lady sliding sideways towards me. Realising if she hit me we’d both not stop till the bottom. I tired to dig the edge of my board into the ice. Think there was about 1mm holding me onto the slope. She came to a stop at which point we both sat there  “What the hell do we do now?”. Thankfully her mates arrived. They fenced her in with their ski poles after loads of heart in throat pants full of poo moments we managed to get to the side and free. It was the longest 20 minutes of my life. We actually kissed the ground when we made it to the bottom.

Emily’s brother Tom came over for a visit and left Emily with a lovely departing gift. We were cruising down Genepy, a cheeky wee green run. I was just behind Em’s and her bro, as usual I had stopped to dick around with gloves, bindings, hat or some other annoying piece of kit. Looked up as Tom lost control. Not wildly it just seemed like they both sat down.
Caught up with them as Emily calmly said “I’ve broken my arm”.
Me being my compassionate and understanding self shouted “Woteveah .Get up you lameass!” Then I saw her arm. It looked like all the bones had been removed. After loads of really mature bleugh gross out noises and helpful jumping around from one foot to the other waving my arms wildly. We packed her arm in snow and rang the hot mountain rescue guys. At this point Emily starts ranting at me “Have you got a bobble? Fix my hair! Fix my hair! The hot skidoo guys are gona be here soon. What’s my mascara like?” She whizzed of shouting “Faster! Faster”. Lunatic.
She had broken the whole top off her radius. Spent the next three days in hospital having three pins inserted into her wrist. Check out the x-rays.