MegèveSki

Retro skis and Cote 2000

As I discovered a while back, my skis are dead. I've got around 12-13 weeks out of them so I can't complain, but the timing wasn't quite right - I hadn't already bought a new pair. I was lucky enough to be able to borrow an identical pair from Chris, Michelle's brother.

Chris is skiing with us for the next week so I needed to get some skis sorted out for myself. I want to demo a few different types before I buy so I didn't want to rush into purchasing a new pair just because I didn't have any skis; I also didn't fancy being forced to be in the mood to demo skis for a week... I looked in the loft at home and we had three pairs of old skis; my 205 Salomon Superforce's which looked very straight and very long, Michelle's old X-Scream lady (enough said) and some Salomon Axendo 9's (also Michelle's but a decent length and not 'lady'). I shoved the Axendo's in the roof box and we brought them with us. I skied them for the first time today and they were OK. The Axendo's were some of the first generation carving skis, they weren't as radical (shaped) as some, so look remarkably slim compared to my, now deceased, X-Scream Series. The 183 length seems to ski ok for me on piste, it will be interesting to see what these narrow, short, planks do off piste.

We skied over at Cote 2000 today, ripping down the Chamois and Chalet reds on the best and most consistent, on piste, snow that we've found so far. The lift lines in Cote 2000 were pretty small - the lines on some of the lifts on the way over were another story. At one point we decided on a red, rather than a blue, and, not having familiarised ourselves with the lift layout, ended up at the end of the run with only a single drag lift out. The queue was huge. It seemed that the piste continued on below the lift so we decided against the queue and dropped down below it. Unfortunately the piste stopped there; there was a path into the trees but, it was unmarked and we didn't know the area. We waited there for 10 mins or so, hoping to see some competent skiers whiz past down the trail but it never happend; several people went that way but none gave us any confidence that they knew where they were going or what lay ahead. We decided to discuss he route with Lucy when we next saw her and hiked up to the back of the queue - which, at the time we decided to hike, was pretty short.

Once in Cote 2000 we were marvelling at the deserted slopes and decided that we'd stop for lunch, L'Auberge de la Cote 2000 at the bottom of the area looked empty, no tables on the deck, we went inside to find the place heaving - that's why it was so quiet on the slopes, everyone was at lunch... We had some soup and a wheat beer and then skied some more and headed home. Conditions higher up were pretty good, I think it's described as 'hard pack', still, at least there's snow.