Given the all-over-the-place weather forecast for the western Alps over the next four days, I almost pulled the plug on this trip literally while bringing my bags to the car for the drive to the airport Monday afternoon, but in the spirit of adventure, decided to carry on with it.
Following numerous drinks at EWR and helpful medication, I had a successful overnight flight, sleeping six out of 7.5 hours in a completely full plane, i.e. not laying across three seats, which is usually what happens. After getting my bags in GVA, I walked in front of our son's namesake on the way to the rental car counter. Unfortunately, since both my incoming and outgoing flights always go through that airport in the morning, I never have the opportunity to stop and get a drink there. This is an airport version of the original restaurant at the Fairmont Palace hotel in Montreux. Separately, Tony can see that my blue boot bag arrived along with my ski bag. Both were checked in, comme il faut.
It's always shocking to me how close interesting ski areas/resorts are to Geneva. In less than an hour from the airport, you're driving past the exits for Roc d'Enfer, Portes du Soleil, Praz de Lys, La Clusaz, and especially the Grand Massif, with its Flaine sector viewable from the highway. The latter was my planned stop for arrival-day turns; however, at the last second I changed my mind and continued on to Les Contamines, arriving at 10:30. The village proper on the right side of the map is very pleasant with no building over three stories tall and everything in old-school wood style, similar to what you see in many Austrian ski villages. Top to bottom is around 4,000 verts.
Arriving at the main bowl at 1655m, where you can see that some areas offpiste had already burned off. It was sunny until 1 pm, then a high cloud layer drifted over for the rest of the afternoon -- setting up Wednesday's precip.
The first two warm-up runs reminded me of what Tony, Liz, and I skied at Puy St. Vincent: mostly rock-hard groomers.
However, many south-facing slopes were pleasant:
Isn't there a school of thought that are no mogul runs in the Alps? I picked my way down this south-facing line starting at the summit of the ski area at 2487m, and the sun had softened it just enough to make them enjoyable. The ones to the left of the chair were like cement -- I didn't bother; you could hear them from the lift.
Looking off the backside, toward Hauteluce:
That's the sector where the ostensible connection to both Megève and the underrated Espace Diamant would be constructed, thus creating the largest ski area in Europe, which has been under discussion for years. A local newspaper brought it up again last March, so we'll see when it actually happens.
I stopped here for lunch -- once again, coverage in this drought-mired season looks like what you'd see in early April rather than early March.
Best runs of the day were the two trails that go down to the valley on the opposite ends of the ski area. They'd both corned up beautifully below mid-mountain and never turned to slop until the very bottom, around 1200m.
I skied until 3:30 pm, getting in more than four hours of turns after landing.
Following numerous drinks at EWR and helpful medication, I had a successful overnight flight, sleeping six out of 7.5 hours in a completely full plane, i.e. not laying across three seats, which is usually what happens. After getting my bags in GVA, I walked in front of our son's namesake on the way to the rental car counter. Unfortunately, since both my incoming and outgoing flights always go through that airport in the morning, I never have the opportunity to stop and get a drink there. This is an airport version of the original restaurant at the Fairmont Palace hotel in Montreux. Separately, Tony can see that my blue boot bag arrived along with my ski bag. Both were checked in, comme il faut.
It's always shocking to me how close interesting ski areas/resorts are to Geneva. In less than an hour from the airport, you're driving past the exits for Roc d'Enfer, Portes du Soleil, Praz de Lys, La Clusaz, and especially the Grand Massif, with its Flaine sector viewable from the highway. The latter was my planned stop for arrival-day turns; however, at the last second I changed my mind and continued on to Les Contamines, arriving at 10:30. The village proper on the right side of the map is very pleasant with no building over three stories tall and everything in old-school wood style, similar to what you see in many Austrian ski villages. Top to bottom is around 4,000 verts.
Arriving at the main bowl at 1655m, where you can see that some areas offpiste had already burned off. It was sunny until 1 pm, then a high cloud layer drifted over for the rest of the afternoon -- setting up Wednesday's precip.
The first two warm-up runs reminded me of what Tony, Liz, and I skied at Puy St. Vincent: mostly rock-hard groomers.
However, many south-facing slopes were pleasant:
Isn't there a school of thought that are no mogul runs in the Alps? I picked my way down this south-facing line starting at the summit of the ski area at 2487m, and the sun had softened it just enough to make them enjoyable. The ones to the left of the chair were like cement -- I didn't bother; you could hear them from the lift.
Looking off the backside, toward Hauteluce:
That's the sector where the ostensible connection to both Megève and the underrated Espace Diamant would be constructed, thus creating the largest ski area in Europe, which has been under discussion for years. A local newspaper brought it up again last March, so we'll see when it actually happens.
I stopped here for lunch -- once again, coverage in this drought-mired season looks like what you'd see in early April rather than early March.
Best runs of the day were the two trails that go down to the valley on the opposite ends of the ski area. They'd both corned up beautifully below mid-mountain and never turned to slop until the very bottom, around 1200m.
I skied until 3:30 pm, getting in more than four hours of turns after landing.
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