MegèveSki

Skiing in Les Contamines

Yesterday we went to Les Contamines.

We went with Lucy for the last day of our lessons. We had arranged to have Lucy for the whole week but she was mainly meant to be teaching my Mum (from 11am every day until the end of the day). However, since Mum hurt her ankle, she only skiied in the afternoons on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. That meant that Chris, Len and I had lessons with Lucy in the morning, then everyone met up at lunchtime and Mum had her lesson in the afternoon. On Friday, Lucy suggested going to Les Contamines as the snow was meant to be better there and it would also make a change for the final day. Unfortunately, Len was still feeling dodgy and so opted to stay in bed for the day.

Len and I had been to Les Contamines twice before, both times with Ski Weekend when we were staying in Chamonix for pre-Christmas skiing. It seems to have it's own micro-climate, so often has good snow when other nearby resorts don't have much. The snow was indeed better than Megève - less hard pack and less bare patches. Also, although Les Contamines is only the other side of the same mountain as Megève, the terrain is very different. It's very much a resort of "rollers", i.e. lots of runs which have steep sections down and then equally steep sections back up the other side, which are great fun to "hoon" down (one of Lucy's expressions - in fact, she described Les Contamines as "Hoon City", which I thought made it sound like a Chinese restaurant!).

Despite having been to Les Contamines twice before, I didn't seem to recognise anything. Not the lift station, not the restaurant, not any particular runs. This wasn't a surprise to anyone else as it has become a bit of a standing joke that I never pay any attention to where I am skiing. I am always at the back, following everyone else, so just go where they go and don't tend to take much notice of which runs I am going on. Also, I am generally pretty poor at remembering routes - evening if I have walked somewhere with other people, or been driven somewhere before, I often can't remember the route if I have to go on my own, because it's not something I pay much attention to unless I force myself. Add to my general lack of skill in this area the fact that we were following Lucy around all morning, and Chris and I had forgotten to pick up a piste map and so skiied around blindly in the afternoon, and I am left completely unable to describe any of the runs we skied or lifts we took. But I can say it was a great place to ski and I intend to take Len back there next week now that he is feeling better. Will try to pay more attention to the actual skiing (and also get a piste map) on the next visit. Or maybe I will just let Len post a more detailed review..... ;)