MegèveSki

Off-piste on Cote 2000

We haven't been over to Cote 2000 for ages. We decided to rectify that today and decided that an early start would mean we'd end up skiing on ice due to the freeze/thaw thing that's going on at the moment, so we didn't head off until around 10.30.

The first surprise of the morning was that the off piste around the blues on the way down from the top of Caboche was light and fluffy, the second was that there were signs of new snow (skied to bits) on the run down from Alpette. It looked like we'd had 3 or 4cms of new snow late last night after the pistes had been bashed. We consoled ourselves with the fact that it probably wasn't quite enough to give the floaty feeling had we been up early enough to get the first tracks...

We skied down under Alpette and the snow was pretty good, a mix of choppy, soft new snow and soft old snow; lumpy yet fluffy, it required a fair amount of effort to ski but was good fun. Miche's new stance worked well but she complained that it was more work than just standing on the skis; more effort for more stability and control, seems like a fair trade to me.

We dropped down towards Fontaine and found that the snow here was already much more sun affected; it was only 11.30 or so. As well as the chunky snow, there were patches of very slow, sticky stuff, not quite slush but not quite snow. The run down Fontaine was slower than usual but it was quite fun doing huge carved turns and knowing that the edge hold couldn't give out on you. We took the chair up and dropped down to the Rochefort drag; there was a small queue here as it seemed that quite a few people were heading for the high ground in search of better snow conditions. Once at the top we dropped down to the Lanchettes drag; another huge carved turns run.

As we took the path down towards Cote 2000 it got cooler and the snow got crisper. We took the chair to the top, went right and I took a route down the steep off-piste section under the chair, the snow was pretty light as the slope spends most of its time in shadow. Miche met me below on the red piste and we skied down to the lift again. Lucy had called to say she was popping out for a ski so we met her at the Cote 2000 lift.

Next time down we took the downhill race course; no gates this time, but the snow was nice and I did a few more of those huge carved turns which were working so well today. We flew down from top to bottom with a brief stop halfway down.

Back to the top and we let Lucy decide our route this time. She took a look at the Marmotte black and decided that the snow looked crappy, I mentioned that the snow under the lift was nice so we went that way. Lucy took a line down the steepest section and I followed, Miche hesitated and then took a slightly less agressive line; linked turns, no refusals and a smile on her face at the end... Lucy was impressed with the improvement in Miche's skiing and prompty led us across the red piste and back into the off-piste on the other side. Again Miche linked turns and just did it with hardly any hesitation. I cut a little further right to a slightly steeper slope and once again the snow conditions were lovely. Dropping down to cross the bumpy section of Marmotte we finally rejoined the piste by the old drag lift hut and Miche decided to take a rest.

Lucy and I headed off back to the top and this time we came down the first face of Variant Chamois (the red that's left from the top of the chair) and then went through the gate into the off-piste - it was more a low sign without a rope between the uprights than a real gate in the US sense of the word, but it had the same effect; you had to have seen the sign before you ventured off-piste. Once through the gate we dropped down towards a slightly steeper section and I had a couple of technically less than inspiring turns that were, nonetheless, a lot of fun; during the first one I rotated my upper body in towards the hill (fear!) which meant that I didn't have my weight quite right. The second I dropped down the face a bit too fast and then found myself a bit back on the skis (think wheely) but I managed to stay just about in control and come to a stop eventually. After that I was a little higher than we'd planned, we had intended to ski just below a well worn jumping spot and instead we were above and to one side of it. I set off and soon realised that my turn was taking me straight towards the jump, which was not in the plan... At that point I lost a little of my commitment to the turn and somehow managed to lift my downhill ski (don't ask) and from there it was just a case of twisting around on one leg a bit and it soon became quite easy for me to stick my head in the snow and my legs in the air. From here we cut across Marmotte and skied down to Miche who said that she'd wished she'd had he video camera as the wheely moment looked like I was falling rather than skiing as I was moving so fast and the later fall was amusing... Technically that run wasn't one of my best but the steepness and softness of the snow was wonderful; hopefully try that again in a day or so...

We skied Chalet down to the base and then took the chairs back up to the top. We said goodbye to Lucy who had some work to do, but first decided to go and have a laugh at some fellow instructors who were doing a modelling shoot for a ski clothing catalogue or something; next season's B2's look cool!

We took a run down the race course and then stopped at the bottom and had our sandwiches and then headed back to the top I did one last run down the short section of off-piste under the Cote 2000 chair which felt like the best turns I'd done off-piste so far; nice and steep, controlled turns, facing down the hill with no dodgy moments... Then I finished off by cutting up onto a bank on the left of the red to do a couple of crappy, lean back, force it all around with brute force type turns just to bring me down to earth. We cut back across to join the race course half way down and skied down Pré Rosset towards the Lanchettes drag.

There was a bit of a queue at the drag lift, it was home time and lots of people had been over to Cote 2000 today. We really should investigate the itinerary route back from Lanchettes to La Petite Fontaine as that cuts this drag out of the return trip. The ski back from Lanchettes was a bit sticky, the snow has suffered from the sun today and was hard work on the way home. We did one run down the race course under Caboche and it was OK for big carved turns but a little sluggish for smaller turns; nowhere near as nice as yesterday.

Miche skied really well today. The techniques that we'd been working on yesterday helped her to feel more comfortable and in control and this helped her to be more confident in the off-piste. This is part of the transition that I had when my new stance started to work so I'm really pleased that it's also working for her now. Fingers crossed that it'll stay that way...