MegèveSki

Bumps and crowds in Avoriaz

Today we met up with a couple of people that we skied with on the Warren Smith course in Saas Fee last September; Phil and Denise and their respective partners. Phil has an apartment in Morzine so we drove over this morning and skied in Avoriaz. We've never skied in Avoriaz before so it was good to be able to ski with people who knew their way around.

We started at the Ardent base area and took the bubble up and then the Prolays chair up higher and skied down to the Mossettes chair. The first thing we noticed was that the snow was pretty good, and the second thing we noticed was that there were masses of people around; it was very busy compared to our home slopes in Megève. Due to the softness of the snow later in the day and the number of people there were lots of soft bumps, even first thing. We joked later in the day that we should start a collection to buy Avoriaz a piste basher as they dont seem to have groomed any of the runs recently and everywhere we went there were bumps.

Once at the top of the Mossettes lift we dropped down into another area of the massively connected Portes du Soleil area; skiing over the border into Switzerland and dropping down towards Les Crossets. We skied around there a bit, and then stopped for a coffee before heading up the Chavanette chair back towards France and Avoriaz. The Chavanette chair runs above the "swiss wall" an itinerery bump run that's, supposedly, a mile of bumps. The bumps were "interesting" and the entrance to the run was a bit intimidating but the run itself didn't look that steep from the chair, it certainly didn't seem to be as steep as The Face, or Gunbarrel in Heavenly - but then I only looked down on it I didn't ski it...

Back in France we skied down towards the monstrosity that is the village of Avoriaz and stopped for lunch. After lunch we took the du Fornet chair and skied the "off-piste piste" down through the gulleys and bumps. The terrain was interesting, with gulleys forming natural half pipes and lots of rocks and bumps, and the pitch was such that it wasn't too hard to maintain some control. It was a nice run, the snow was great, and I felt I skied the bumps and terrain features well - probably the best I've skied bumps this season. Miche found the bumps hard going as there were a lot of them, but she skied them better than she has done in the past. Miche took a rest whilst we did the run again and this time my legs reminded me that they were tired by reacting slower and pitched me onto my head; still, the second run was good fun even if I skied it slightly less well. Once again I found that my balance and stability was much better than it used to be, probably due to my improved stance.

After the off piste we dropped down into Avoriaz and took the Express du Tour lift out and had a chance to marvel at the car free, ski in, ski out, ski around, Avoriaz. Although it's basically a series of apartment tower blocks at least the design is interesting, though it would have been good if the architects had thought about what the buildings would look like 20 years on after the weather had got to them. Parts of the roofscape looked like something out of SSX Tricky; a few well placed rails and wires would mean that a cartoon snowboarder could grind and jump their way from one side to the other.

We skied down the bumps (everywhere was bumps today) towards the baase of the Lindarets chair and a Tarte Tatin break at the Pomme de Pin restaurant and from there we downloaded on the bubble as by this stage the snow was pretty slushy and all of us had tired legs.

The day was good fun and it was nice to be led around a new resort and not have to worry about where we were going. I was pleased with my performance in the bumps and although Miche wasn't that pleased with her bumps she still skied them better than she had before, and she has a collection of things she wants to work on to make it easier for her. Thanks to Phil and Jean Paul for leading us around and showing us the sites and we both look forward to skiing with you again some time.