MegèveSki

Telemark lesson in Les Saisies

We headed back to Les Saisies today for our second telemark lesson with Lucy. Today was a little frustrating for me as I had all manner of problems until lunch time when a large beer seemed to fix everything and the afternoon's skiing was much more balanced and fluid. Miche had a great day, she dropped straight back into the telemark stuff with no problems and really came on well today.

We started at around 9.45 as we thought it best to allow the snow to soften a little before we began sliding around. It was busier here than yesterday. It seems that all of the ESF group lessons from Praz sur Arly were here rather than at Praz; from the way the slopes at Praz looked when we drove past it's hardly surprising...

We skied down the easy blue, La Bergerie, and, as mentioned above I wobbled around like a numpty and Miche skied really well right from the first turn. I just couldn't get my balance right and, for some reason, had all manner of wierd upper body problems: over rotation, bending at the waist, flopping around like a rag doll, etc. My problems persisted until lunch and Miche just kept getting better.

We skied on the Mont Bisanne side for a while, working on stuff up and down the area between the slalom course and te Le Mantant chair and as I dealt with each of my issues I'd get a couple of new ones to work on... It's quite interesting to go back to being such a beginner; it's been a long time since I've had a "good" turn that's so much better than the "bad" turn that I'd actively avoid trying to do the "bad" direction...

We followed the softening effects of the sun over onto the other side and skied down Les Sangliers, which had great snow most of the way down and was a little heavy at the bottom. After that we dropped fown to the Les Coqs drag lift and headed up to La Légette for a couple of runs down the Les Girolles red. After that we were getting tired so we stopped for lunch at the restaurant near the bottom of the Les Coqs drag.

I decided to see if the telemark cure all, beer, would help. Last time I had problems I had a beer and the problems went away... I had a large beer with lunch and felt much more confortable and balanced in the afternoon. I think I may be on to something here...

We took the drag back up to the top and looked across towards Notre Dame de Bellcombe in the distance. Les Saisies has some new lifts and pistes scheduled for next season that will link it with ND which will make for a much bigger area; bring it on. We skied down the La Vardache blue which had got a little soft and things were working for me. We then skied back down Les Coqs and down the green, Les Blanchots, to the bottom to catch the Chard du Beurre chair. On the way down the green I practiced dropping into the tele-position whilst going straight and switching between one side and the other. This really helped and my newly oiled legs moved smoothly between the positions and left me feeling pretty balanced in between. The good thing about telemark is that when you get in the right position it feels very good and very right; everything that's wrong is pretty ovbiously wrong...

Once we got to the top of the lift we skied down Les Sangliers again and my legs worked but the snow was pretty soft by now and was hard work. We rode back to the top and took Les Sapins back to the car park and called it a day at around 3.

It was frustrating in the morning to be so out of balance but the afternoon went well. Lets hope I can build on it tomorrow and, perhaps, do so without a beer to help ;)