We had a lie in until 9 and we needed it was too. After breakfast we called the shuttle and headed for the ski shop. As I was walk up the hill to the bubble with my skis on my shoulder and my boots on I felt a twinge in my right knee and thigh - I suddenly realised I had forgotton my magic knee bandage and thigh strap. There really was no point in going on the last big day's skiing without all the help I could muster.
Morzine From Above, Uploaded by M+MD
Especially as today I was going to conquer my Nemesis from last year - that simple blue run called Crocus. I had done it with the class on Thursday - but it nearly killed me again - or so it seemed at the time.
So the others went on ahead and Mags and I said that we would meet up with them later. We gave Highlife a call and they gave us a lift to back to the chalet. I got what I needed and Highlife left is back directly to the ski-lift. That's service. As we were getting on the ski-lift I realised I had dropped my goggles when we were putting on our skis. What a morning and we hadn't even started yet!
We agreed that the best solution was to ski down Piste B - now that is a sure sign of progress. Piste B was the scene of many of my falls on Monday and also quite a few of my scary moments! But now I was ready to go on down first thing!
We had an uneventful run down - it is quite a long run and on reflection not so difficult the last mile is just a pleasant run down. But after all that - no goggles - "c'est la vie". We got the ski lift back up and we then got the Beledere lift again because I now felt warmed up and brave enough to take on the Crocus run down to Les Gets. We rang Deirdre - they were heading for Les Gets my a more roundabout route. So we arranged to meet in half an hour or so and the Chavanne express lift.
Heading for Crocus, Uploaded by M+MD
I passed the spot on Crocus where I came a cropper last year. and just continued on down. There is a slope at the end of the Crocus run that is wide and a a little steeper but this time it was not a problem, no side-slipping just turns and traverses and soon we were down. Then the Piste joins another Blue run - Bruyere and there is a tunnel under a road followed by a long straight run which does speed up. But its a nice run and at the end there is a with a steeper slope just before we arrive into Les Gets. This was a little troublesome earlier in the week. It was where I took my skis off and walked the last 100 metres. Today it was ok, just a little nervous but I just side-slipped out of trouble and soon we were down.
We took the skis off and walked down to a café to wait for the others. It was a beautiful day with lots of sunshine and blue sky. Fortunately I had taken the light warm jacket that we brought in Whistler last year. My eyes had coped with the glare without goggles but I thought I had better get a pair of sunglasses. There was a sports shop beside the café and I found a nice pair there. We talked to Dee on the phone and she suggested that we go up to La Rosta for lunch. Peter had told us about a lovely restaurant at the top. So we left the café and put back on our skis and waited at the bottom of the slope. It didn't look so bad from here!
Soon they arrived and we all headed up the Chavanne Express chairlift.
Chris Arrives with Style, Uploaded by M+MD
We reached the top and Deirdre and Chris guided is down the Blue run Violettes. Its a nice run that bring you down to the top of a valley with five lifts going up two opposite ridges. We took the lift for La Rosta whic is higher than Pleney at 1665 metres. The lift travels over the Black run called Yeti. We could see that we were a long way for bering ready to even think about a Black run! The real problem is the mounds of snow called moguls. From the top of La Rosta we skied down about 50 metres to the restaurant which Peter and Deirdre recommended. We got these enormous sandwiches each sandwich was a huge bun containing two burgers and a load of chips!
There was a big crowd of fellow Highlifers there, including the sister-in-law of a former house-mate in Dublin and her husband who had been a colleague of mine in The Sunday Tribune - its a small world. After lunch we headed back down to the 5 lifts down Campanule a supposed Blue run. However to get to the Blue part there is a short steep slope full of moguls. The problem with moguls is that all of the skis don't all touch the ground - you can be left bouncing on air and as a result turning is even harder than usual. We made down that bit and thereafter it was an easy if rather narrow, run down. We then took the Ranfoilly Express to the mountain on the other side. Le Ranfoilly is 1850 metres high. There is a fantastic view of Mount Blanc from the top. Deirdre was just standing minding her own business and she made some movement and just toppled over!
From Ranfoiilly we took the narrow Blue, Genfiane which goes all the way down to the top of the Chavanne Express. Next we had the Indian Run - a nice easy run for children of all ages.
We even stopped for warpaint and photographs. Deirdre managed to take me out with a sneaky side attack! The we went up our first button lift where you sit on a button seat and get dragged along on your skis. In fact the truck is not to sit but to stand and hold on. It was a short lift which allowed us to go down the Buffalo run. At the end of that run we we back up the La Croix chair lift again to the top of the Chavanne Express and from there we went down the wide Bruyere run which leads down to the bottom of Crocus. It's a great run with a long straight part where you have to allow the speed to build up, because if you run out of momentum near the bottom there is a lot of pushing or walking. At the end there is that steepish bit going down to the Folliets chairlift.
A Long day - Crocus done - ready for home, Uploaded by M+MD
This was to bring us back to Pleney. We then skied down Piste N back to Nabor and down Piste B all the way to the bottom. I was pretty knackered, but why not it was after 4.30 and we had been skiing all day. Piste B - so difficult at the start of the week - was easy now, even though I was tired - it's such a shame we are going home to-morrow. At the bottom we will have to say goodbye to skiing for another year. We were on the home stretch on Piste B when one of the bindings on Lisa's ski sheared right off the ski. She was doing some fancy manouvre, with a jump in behind a pole, at the time. She fell over and instead of the bindings coming off the boot, they came off the ski. Its pretty much the same effect - they are designed to come loose (rather than break your ankle!). She wasn't hurt, she was just so disappointed not to get the last 500 metres of the last run home.
Saturday Evening, Morzine, Uploaded by M+MD
We had less than 500 metres to go and we were skiing like experts. Luckilly there was a path down to the road. We took her skis and poles and she walked back to the ski shop. By the tme we finished and were down at the shop she was waiting for us. We returned our boots and skis. Deirdre and Chris have a late flight home to-morrow and so they extended their gear for another day.
So home we went, tired but buzzing from what had been a fantastic day's skiing. We travelled an amazing 25+ kilometres on skis that day and if you take in the ground covered by skilifts, its probably double that. We had our last Hot-Tub and Sauna. It wasn't really a case of being sore by now - we were over that - it was just that we were tired after a long day of exercise.
Dinner tonight was roast pork and again Ronan excelled. We started some packing and had a last reasonably early night - we were real too tired for much activity! I awoke early on Sunday morning - it wasn't yet dawn - there was just a little light in the clear sky and I caught the crescent moon above the snow slope - MAGIC- just like this week.
