MegèveSki

Last day at Les Contamines

Les Contamines closed today. We skied there for a few hours this morning and took some video of Miche. The day started as the weather forecast had suggested with pissing rain. The forecast had implied that the rain would be snow above 1800m but it wasn't, it was rain all the way to the top of the highest lift open. Riding up on the Tierces chair lift in the rain was miserable and we had both pretty much decided that the plan would be a coffee stop and then home if the rain didn't stop;we could say that we'd skied here on the last day (by sking down from Signal to take the chair up from Jonction) so we didn't feel the need to do more in the pissing rain...

When we got to the top of the Tierces chair the rain stopped. The first run down Nant Rouge was nice and fast. The snow was soft, it had been warm last night and the snow hadn't frozen over night, and the rain this morning had made it soft and fast, which was cool. Visibility wasn't the greatest but the rain had stopped and the snow was good so we didn't complain too much ;) We took the chairs back up and skied the Tierces red a couple of times. We've avoided this run on previous visits as it seems to be the most obvious and it's usually pretty busy. The whole resort was deserted today so we skied it a couple of times and shot some video on it. It's a nice run with lots of rolls which make for an interesting ride. The snow was forgiving and fast and the coverage was pretty good, there was one bare face but we've seen far worse and the rest of the run was lovely.

After Tierces we decided to stop for a coffee at Chez Gaston on Col du Joly. We skied down to the Pierres Blanches drag lift and, when we'd reached the top, decided to ski and film on the Chamois red before coffee as the snow was starting to warm up and slow down. The run was in good condition and it's the first time in ages that it hasn't had slalom courses set up on it, I was enjoying my ski down so much I over shot the ridge that I'd intended to video from... Miche skied the run well and we did it a couple of times before we decided to finally get that coffee and cut across to Chez Gaston only to discover that it was closed.

We skied back to Jonction via the Col red run and the snow had warmed considerably and was becoming sticky and randomly grabby. We took the chair back to Signal, had a coffee and decided to call it a day.

The skiing today was surprisingly good. We hadn't expected much but the few hours that we skied were worth coming out for, even with the rain first thing. I'm always amazed to see people heading up the hill after lunch at this time of year. Why bother. Get out early if you want to ski, that's when you get the best conditions. As we changed out of our boots in the car park the rain returned and we said goodbye to Les Contamines for this season. Our Evasion Mont Blanc pass is now only good for the lifts at Cote 2000, so I expect we'll have to pay for most of our skiing this week.