Category: winter sports

Scotland, Feb 23: Skiing at The Lecht

1 Comment

Thursday 2 February

Our day started in the large car park of the Lecht ski centre in the northeastern Cairngorms. Ryan slept while I made coffee and watched through the window, waiting for the ski lifts to open. It was a while before there was any activity on the neat, parallel runs that spread across the snowy hillside above us – conditions were okay (ie. there was some snow) but not perfect (there could have been more). At last a couple of primary school groups arrived, I managed to rouse Ryan and we left the van for the huge, chalet-like ski centre where we hired equipment, bought ski passes and headed for the slopes at about 11am.

Given that I’d previously spent a not-so-grand total of one day skiing, uninstructed, (see previous post – Alps, January 2020), I was a bit nervous about how I’d find it. I can be impatient and easily frustrated when I’m not instantly good at something and the Alps trip had taught me there’s a knack to snowsports that I hadn’t yet grasped. I’d have liked to try snowboarding again but I’d learnt in France that a snowboard, when attached to me, cannot travel by button lift, so I hobbled awkwardly out of the centre in stiff ski boots, clutching a pair of skis and poles, £52 poorer (which I thought was good for hire and a lift pass).

Remembering the basics

There were two green and two blue lifts open. I’d have liked to start on the low-level, shallow angle green beginner slopes, just to get a feel for skis before heading up higher, but they were swarming with small children that I didn’t want to flatten. We headed for the far left button lift “Eagle 1”, worked out the contactless ski pass turnstile system – but not before I’d nearly tripped over my own skis at least once – and grabbed a lift.

Button lifts consist of a revolving cable going up and down the hill carrying a series of dangling metal poles, each terminating in a plate-sized disc at bum-level. When the traffic light at the bottom turns green you shuffle forward, grab a pole, jam the disc between your thighs and let it pull you up the slope, still standing, poles tucked under one arm. Luckily it was quite easy to get the hang of on skis, so to my great relief and mild surprise I made it to the top without making a fool of myself.

The southwesterly wind hit us hard as we dismounted but the view was lovely: the Cairngorm plateau opened up over the brow of the hill, rolling across the horizon as a panorama of snowy peaks and heathery moorland. Dark grey cloud contrasted with the bright white snow and shafts of yellow light broke through in places, making for an atmospheric sky. Somehow inspired and suddenly full of unwarranted confidence, I snowploughed (front ski tips together, rear tips wide) my way down the blue intermediate slope, which branched halfway down to give two route options. My legs were ridiculously wide and I looked like Bambi on ice, but I was having fun. The fences lining each run  – unprotected lines of battered old wooden posts jutting out at miscellaneous angles – were dubious enough to sober me into controlling my descent, which was definitely a good thing.

Presumably mid-slip
An archetypal snowplough

Unexpected improvement

This continued for several runs and I started to get a feel for the different types of snow (it was quite icy and thin in places), gradients and manoeuvres. I fell over a few times, although less than expected, and I actually found it easier than I remembered – I only got frustrated once, when I crashed and got momentarily stuck on a steep bit right by a particularly treacherous section of fence. Dragging the poles lightly behind me helped me balance and my legs inched closer together as I got the feel for it. Happy with my progress on that run, I branched left and headed for the other operational lift “Grouse”.

Grouse was a steeper lift that led to another blue run, which started off nice and gradual, then dropped into what seemed to me a near-vertical wall of icy snow. It wasn’t near vertical but it did look and feel a little beyond my skill level, so I approached it slowly and levelled out my descent as much as possible by zig-zagging down with lots of tight turns, which seemed to improve my control. Happy not to have crashed but in no rush to repeat that run immediately, I went back up the Grouse lift and took a well-travelled, gentle slope down to the top of the Eagle 1 run.

It was down this easy, scenic section that something clicked. In the Alps I’d watched people do parallel turns (where the skis remain parallel and the turn is made on one inside and one outside edge) and thought it looked so cool, but having tried unsuccessfully on those steep slopes (I’d “learnt” on blue and red runs) I was resigned to the fact that I might just be a perpetual snowplougher. However, that morning I’d googled “how to ski” and taken some basic tips from a Wikihow page, which I put into practice on this long, gentle slope. Happy that nobody was watching, I tried a parallel turn and to my utter shock, just did it. I was amazed at how natural it felt on that gradual hill, and even though I only adjusted my course slightly I was delighted. I did it again and again, thrilled that I now understood what it should feel like, and that I was in fact capable of learning to ski. I flew down the Eagle 1 blue and at the bottom I promptly informed Ryan of my success and my newfound, unbridled passion for skiing.

The “vertical” wall
Base of Eagle 1 run

Triumph

We clunked our way over to the van for a quick snack and a coffee, then eagerly returned to the slopes. The resort became busier after lunch, but pleasantly so – it was helpful for me to watch competent skiers, and the only holdup happened when a couple of kids couldn’t get the hang of the button lift. We spent most of the afternoon repeating the Eagle 1 run, alternating between the left and right finishes, and I was delighted with the day’s progress. I’d gone from a slow, wide-legged snowplougher to a quicker, less cumbersome parallel turner, although I still resorted to snowploughing the steepest and thinnest sections, the bumpy bit where I accidentally caught air and the narrow passage past an exposed, person-sized hole in the ground. I still went slightly too quick a few times (a horrible feeling), once on being cut up by another skier, but somehow managed to keep control and avoid fences, holes, moguls and children. I even did the steep run again, for fun. I couldn’t get enough of it, and we reluctantly returned our gear just as the slopes emptied and the lifts closed about 4pm.

A brief note so he isn’t left out – Ryan prefers snowboarding and is way more competent and experienced on snow than me, having learnt as a child and been on several trips to the Alps. He spent the day looking annoyingly at ease as he carved smooth turns, flew nonchalantly down steep bits, practised little jumps and coached me in his inscrutably patient, encouraging manner. He even fell over a couple of times to remind me that he’s human. 10/10 would recommend to anyone looking for an unofficial coach, price negotiable.

The person-sized hole
Getting the hang of those parallel turns

Aviemore

From the Lecht we drove around the northwest edge of the Cairngorms to Aviemore. It was a lovely road: in the foreground wild heather blanketed undulating moorland, which often gave way to areas of dark green forest, above which layers of hazy mountains stretched out lazily beneath bluish clouds. We arrived after just under an hour and straight away everything seemed familiar, as if we’d returned home after a long trip. It’s a cosy, buzzing little town, a well-known hub for mountain seekers almost within touching distance of the Cairngorm plateau, and I’ve almost never been to Scotland without visiting.

We did a big food shop at Aldi, drove along the outdoor-shop-lined road and headed east past Loch Morlich and Glenmore Lodge to one of our favourite overnight spots overlooking Rothiemurcus forest and its basin-like valley, just below Cairngorm ski centre. Ryan cooked his signature dish – burgers – while I planned the next day’s hiking/ice climbing adventure up in Coire an t-Sneachda. Wind shook the van violently and lulled us to sleep as we reflected on our wonderful day on the snow.

I was so buzzing from the day’s skiing that I forgot to take photos of the scenery, oops

Scotland, Feb ’22: Ice climbing at Coire an t-Sneachda – Jacobs Ladder route

2 Comments

Monday 7 February

True to form, I was up at the crack of dawn while Ryan remained dead to the world. I went for a little walk down the valley to enjoy the extraordinary solitude of an early Scottish morning, whose sky glowed pink to lilac to clear, pale blue over the snow-capped peaks and dark forests nestled below. I found some strange animal tracks in the snow, possibly a fox and hare:

Back at the van I woke Ryan, made breakfast, packed rucksacks for winter climbing and drove up the hill to the Cairn Gorm ski centre car park where we’d been the previous day. Our plan was to hike up to Coire an t-Sneachda corrie, a huge bowl carved out of the Cairngorm plateau by a glacier, and try a low grade ice climbing route – our first – up one of the three steep, rocky, icy walls that form the sides of the bowl. We thought about doing the well-known Fiacaill Ridge scramble, but a high crosswind was forecast so we decided against it.

Hiking up

We set off at 10am and headed south along the clear, slabby path from the car park. We climbed steadily uphill towards the high plateau in front of us, and apart from the long, thickly forested Spey Valley behind, everything was vast, glacial ridges, bowls and valleys. The corrie sits two miles up this path, which was long and steady enough for us to regret our warm winter gear and pause to de-layer.

As we approached, the corrie’s intimidating black and white walls rose higher and higher, making us feel smaller and smaller. Vast swathes of snow and rock sprawled under grey clouds which hung low over the ridges ahead, making the sky above seem unusually blue and our winter coats unusually bright. It was a truly wild, unforgiving, beautiful place.

As we approached the high back wall of the corrie the path dissolved into a boulderfield – there’s nowhere to go apart from back the same way unless you’re climbing out of the bowl. We’d eyed up the “Aladdin’s Couloir” route in our guidebook but there was a large group climbing at the base and we didn’t fancy waiting around, so we headed left towards the obvious gully of “Jacobs Ladder”, a well-known classic route (grade I, **) that we’d found on youtube before the trip. After a lot of hopping, clambering and scrabbling across the boulderfield we reached the base of the route, pulled on our crampons and made our way up a steep neve ice slope to the rocky face, a short “hike” which in itself was verging on graded ice climbing territory.

The climb

Jacobs Ladder is effectively a steep ice slide about 2-4 metres wide cut into the vertical face of the corrie. Its gentle (for a climbing route) gradient and sheltered position make it a perfect first-time ice excursion, although that also meant there were a couple of other groups doing the route. We practised a couple of self-arrests, a technique that involves sticking an ice axe into the ground to achieve a controlled stop if you start sliding down the slope, then set up a belay and Ryan led the first pitch.

Once he’d set up the second belay I followed with my single Alpine axe, a lightweight hybrid which is more angled than a straight hiking axe but less aggressive than a technical climbing tool. I followed him up, frontpointing with my crampons (firmly kicking the two front spikes into the slope and standing into the boots, like climbing up steps), hacking the axe into solid ice and pulling up on the handle, and using my free fist against the slope to balance and keep the foot-foot-hand-hand rhythm. I reached the belay, swapped to two technical axes and climbed through to lead the second pitch, placing nuts and throwing slings over horns at quite run-out intervals due to the solid, comfortable feeling of neve-topped ice beneath me. There were enough rock placements on the faces either side that there was no need to use ice screws.

I really enjoyed the feeling of climbing on ice. It was completely different to rock as my focus was on maintaining a steady, rhythmic movement and sinking the contact points into solid ground, rather than searching for abstract little holds with fingers and toes. Moving one limb at a time – foot-foot-hand-hand – just took a little getting used to, as the climb was mostly easy enough to climb like a ladder, and holding my boots at a constant-90 degree angle worked up a good calf burn. I reached the end of our 40m rope surprisingly quickly and set up a belay, but made the silly mistake of sitting on a wet rock and having to endure a cold bum while belaying Ryan up. At this middle section the ice was thin and we had to be very careful not to dislodge any loose rock onto the climbers below – Scottish winters are becoming increasingly fickle.

We had to wait (slightly agonisingly) for the group in front of us to get ahead, then continued in this way to the top, a total of five near rope-length pitches. The gear placements were quite spaced throughout the climb but the ice felt solid – in terms of technicality I’d have been quite comfortable soloing the route, but it was an excellent introduction to ice climbing and I wouldn’t want to climb ropeless with another group below us.

The descent

The wind hit us like a bus as we pulled over the lip at the top, and we realised that our earlier decision not to do Fiacaill Ridge (something else to come back for) was very sensible. We de-cramponned, stuffed our gear into rucksacks and walked north along loose, rocky ground to Fiacaill a’ Coire Chais, the ridge we’d walked down after summiting Cairn Gorm the previous day. It was an entirely different place in the wind, which roared up the steep ridge to the west and across the barren plateau with relentless ferocity. As we approached the descent I was nearly blown off my feet several times. It was funny at first but as it battered us down the uneven slope I got quite bored of it – the rocky terrain meant that every step necessitated good timing and a lot of concentration. Having appreciated almost none of the incredible scenery around us, I was positively cross by the time we reached the bottom of the ridge, having been blown off my feet three times. I was aggrieved that Ryan, at one and a half times my bodyweight, was comparatively stable.

Back safe & sound

After what felt like several calendar weeks we reached the deep snow drift at the bottom, got frustrated at the difficulty of trawling through that, and joined the buggy track back to the car park. Our spirits returned very quickly out of the wind, and we were back in the van by about 5pm. We returned to our favourite car park just down the road for the third and final time, cooked a mighty fine Thai green curry and spent the evening in our usual way, eating, drinking and scheming.

Alps 2020, Day 4: Snowshoe Hiking and Black Ice

1 Comment

We left the cabin much later than planned due to the reluctance of our slow, hungover bodies and plodded to the hire shop to pick up some snowshoes. We planned to hike up Mount Joly (2,525m) via the ski runs and hiking trails, which was fairly straightforward – navigable using the map in the ski leaflet, or so we thought.

I always thought of showshoes in the typical cartoon tennis racquet sense, which isn’t too far off. Ours were big, flat, foot-shaped bits of plastic with small metal studs on the bottom for grip, with two “settings” – hinged under the toe, which allowed the outside portion of the device to “flap” down and stay close to the ground when lifting the foot, and fixed, which locked the whole shoe stiff. Hinged was better for going uphill and fixed better downhill. It was strange at first and I kept treading on the edges of my own shoes, but got used to it after a little while. It was amazing how much grip we had, and the shoes enabled us to walk on deep, soft snow and up steep, icy slopes that we never would have been able to climb in just boots.

The Ascent

We hiked up blue runs, red runs and through tall, dark green pine forest, all the time backed by jagged, snow-capped mountains. As we climbed higher the mountains seemed to grow around us in size and number, until we reached l’Epaule du Joly (2,135m) – the shoulder of Mount Joly – and the high, white brow we’d been fixated on for over an hour suddenly gave way to a horizon full of rough, majestic peaks.

The hardest part was towards the top of that section. We had to hike up two red runs, which were unforgivingly steep and seemed never-ending. I focused on reaching that post, then that post, then that sign, breaking it down into more manageable bits, and I wouldn’t stop until I reached a more significant milestone, like the bottom of a new run. I watched some Alpine choughs diving off the roof of a cabin and listened to their high-pitched trill. Ryan and I didn’t speak for a long time.

Peril #1

L’Epaule was the highest ski lift, and to get to Mount Joly we had to move up steep, snow-covered rock. We swapped snowshoes for crampons, looked up at the looming white mass, and started upwards, using the leki poles to check that the snow and ice in front of us concealed hard rock, not open space. It was thigh-deep in places and we regretted leaving the ice axe back in the cabin.

We moved sideways up the steep face, front-pointing the toes of our crampons firmly into the ice, until one of mine came loose. I’d borrowed my crampons from Ryan’s dad and my boots were a bit too narrow for them, so my heel kept slipping out the back. While I adjusted, we really had to lean into the slope and find a solid footing as a slip would see us tumbling down the steep, rocky ridge with no means of arrest.

The crampon was wedged tight on the back of my boot, so much so that I couldn’t move it in our precarious position. Neither of us wanted to make the call and for a moment we just took in the near panoramic view, until Ryan expressed his concern in a strained tone that I’d never heard before. Recalling fatal stories of summit fever and remembering his dad’s words of caution, we reluctantly turned round and headed back down.

With hindsight I’m more disappointed now than I was at the time, but it was the right decision. While testing the ground for firmness on the way down, I punched a leki pole straight through a cornice (an overhanging snow edge that looks solid; we looked up at it afterwards and were almost certain that it was a cornice) into thin air, and with one pokey, semi-loose crampon, I couldn’t have pressed on much further. We’d expected a hike, not a graded ice ascent, so didn’t take axes. The sky had been growing thicker and darker all afternoon and we were concerned about visibility worsening; we didn’t fancy an overnighter. There was no other sensible option.

IMG_4793

Descent

The plod back followed the same route and was scenic but very, very long. We’d both been a little hungover but Ryan felt really rough coming back down, which I maintain had something to do with him refusing to eat. I returned the snowshoes in dwindling light while sickie dragged his poor body straight back to the cabin, then I tried to revive him with a hot drink and some food. We didn’t have much and had planned to find somewhere to eat out for our last night in France, so we got in the Polo and set off on what would soon become a treacherous journey.

In our normal blasé fashion, we did zero research and intended to stumble across a place to eat. We found that the pizzeria in our tiny village was closed, so we sent Google maps to the nearest restaurant. We followed the innocent-looking little blue arrow off the main road and down a suspiciously steep drive, which narrowed, steepened, became twisty, and – most worryingly – increasingly icy.

Peril #2

We couldn’t turn back, so we crawled along. There’s no way to describe the heart-in-your-mouth feeling of suddenly being taken by black ice. We slid diagonally down the road, picking up speed, as I tried to feather the brakes. Our concern (verging on terror) grew, but luckily the gentle braking worked and we slowed to a precarious halt. It was so tense that we felt that breathing too hard could set the car off again. On our left – the side closest to me and the way the camber pushed the car – was a deep ditch and a bunch of not-very-soft-looking rocks and trees. We ran through our options. We had snow chains in the boot, but no way of putting them on without moving the wheels. Attempting to control the car was likely to result in another sliding session, but we didn’t seem to have much choice. For the second time that day, Ryan spoke in a tone that I’d never heard before.

Stifling the rising feeling of dread, I told myself that although I didn’t fancy losing the €800 deposit on the car or negotiating our recovery in French (then paying the fee), we weren’t going to die. Ryan got out (gingerly) and moved around to the driver’s side, then put all his weight into pushing the car towards the uphill camber, while I tentatively eased off the clutch and crept forward. We slid a little, then I was in control. We slid again, and I was in control again. Ryan left his post and walked/slid in front of the car, directing me to the least icy bits of road, and we moved down the hill this way – just tickling the accelerator and the brake – for what seemed like an age.

Finally we reached a flatter bit and Ryan got back in the car. We crept along, flanked on either side by dark, ominous trees and incredibly on-edge, crossed a bridge over a river, and started ascending the winding road on the opposite side of the monstrous valley. The relief was immense but fragile, as we were painstakingly aware that we could come across more ice.

Relief

We emerged literally out of the woods and onto a more major road. Very few times in my life have I felt comparable elation, mixed with the sudden realisation that I was famished and totally exhausted. Not only had we climbed more vertical metres in a day than either of us had before (about 1,000m), in snow, but we’d barely eaten a thing. It was about 9pm on a Monday and we weren’t near any major resorts, so our hopes of finding anywhere open were low.

By chance, we came to a Chinese restaurant on a road in Saint-Gervais-Les-Bains, the nearest large town to our village. We nearly didn’t get out the car as although the lights were on, it looked dead. We pushed at the door and it opened, sounding a bell, but there were no waiting staff or customers anywhere. We looked tentatively around the warm, colourful room decorated with Chinese art and didn’t dare to hope too hard. A minute or so later a waitress came along, looked a little confused by my desperate-sounding plea (in French) for a table and gave us the second-best news of the evening: that they were still serving food.

I have never tasted such delicious Chinese food anywhere, and I don’t think it was just because of the day we’d had. It was everything I could have wanted – prawns in a lovely spicy sauce and fragranced rice with veg, and Ryan had some noodley thing. He perked up afterwards, but we were both so exhausted that after the thankfully uneventful drive back to the cabin (safe to say we eschewed Google Maps and stuck to the main road) we collapsed into bed like two sacks of potatoes.

The best meal of my life
And his

Alps 2020, Day 3: Skiing

1 Comment

Having spent Day 2 of our Alps holiday snowboarding for the first time, I realised that snowsports could become yet another of my thrilling and unaffordable interests. I could happily have boarded for another day (as Ryan did, having done both before) but I wanted to try skiing too. We’d swapped my board for skis the previous evening, so we were wrapped up and back on the slopes bright and early.

Mounting and dismounting the lift for the first time on skis was much easier than on a board. I was still a cumbersome creature but at least I effectively just had two extremely long feet, rather than a clunky slab of wood being dragged around by one foot. We started on the blue run we’d whizzed round the previous afternoon, beginning at the top of the Chattrix ski lift and finishing at the end. It had a good mix of steep, twisty, open and forested sections, and although not ideal for an absolute beginner, I’d probably have got bored with more suitable slopes.

Skiing was much easier to pick up than snowboarding. Skis give you two independent points of contact with the ground, whereas having both feet strapped stiff to a snowboard mean that if you start going over, there’s no intuitive way of counterbalancing. Having thought about it, I won’t write about this too much as I’ll do a separate post comparing the two.

Once I’d got the hang of snowploughing my way down the Chattrix run, we went down the first blue run of the previous day (much more successfully), up the Croix du Christ lift and down the long blue run with the gentle but sheer-sided section. It was along here that I realised how much quicker skis are than boards as I lost Ryan very quickly, which was a shame as he was trying to film me.

I found the poles helped a lot with keeping speed on the gradual slopes and balancing generally, but I still managed a few fairly dramatic, snowcloud-inducing crashes on the steep sections. I preferred crashing on a snowboard as the long skis made me feel giraffe-like; at least on a board you land directly on bum or knees, whereas skis jabbing into snow threaten to bend knee and hip joints in ways they shouldn’t be bent.

Back at the bottom, I tentatively mounted the button lift that had given me so much grief the previous day, back to the top of the Chattrix run. Annoyingly (but to my relief) it was perfectly straightforward on skis. We nipped down the blue route, noting the thickening sky, and back to the cabin for a warming lunch of soup and baguette. It was only then that I realised that I’d been learning to ski with two straps undone on each boot.

The afternoon was spent doing laps of the Chattrix blue run and we both loved it. Occasionally I hated it, but that was only when I was reminded that I wasn’t very good at skiing by all the skiiers flying past making parallel skiing (if that’s what it’s even called) look as effortless as sipping an apres-ski mulled cider. The weather had deteriorated throughout the day and by mid-afternoon powdery snow was laying delicately on the slopes, making it increasingly difficult for this cumbersome infant giraffe to ski at a sensible speed and in a controlled manner, so we gave each other the mutually understood “time for a drink” look and abandoned slope.

We returned the gear to the shop and continued along the road away from the cabin to the nearby village of Saint-Nicolas-de-Véroce to pick up some supplies, namely a bottle of gin. The village was very quaint, situated halfway up the valley side with an elaborate chapel, big wooden chalets and a beautifully presented but small shop, which was crammed with all sorts of fascinating (to two uncultured English louts, anyway) tins, jars, packets, meats, cheeses and bottles.

Unfortunately we couldn’t justify spending €42 on gin, so we settled for c.€20 vodka and some snacky snacks. We walked the half hour or so back to our cabin, cooked improvised pea and ham soup with leftovers and spent the evening drinking far more than intended. The phrase “we’re on holiday” was getting a great workout. 10/10 would ski again, although on balance (and despite being more difficult) I’d pick up a snowboard first.

Alps 2020, Day 2: Snowboarding

Leave a comment

I’d never snowboarded nor watched anyone snowboard before, so I went in as blind and stupid as I was keen. The hire shop and Chattrix ski lift were a 10-minute walk from the cabin, so before I knew it Ryan was teaching me to mount a ski lift while I simultaneously attempted to mount the ski lift. This sounds okay, but given that I’d never touched a snowboard or a ski lift – which doesn’t stop and wait for you to get on – was bemusing to the seasoned skiiers watching the childishly excited and unmistakeably English novice.

Once mounted, the ski lift was amazing. As we rose higher, more and more mountains emerged, their jagged outlines crisp against the clear blue horizon. Mont Blanc dominated the skyline behind us and the ski runs below seemed very small, snaking around swathes of dark pine forest. It was smooth, still and deafeningly silent – the calm before the storm.

92125479_651257469026247_4019824290789588992_n

The storm refers to my mood when I realised that snowboarding is a skill that must be learnt, rather than picked up instantly once on a slope. Ryan was very patient with me, despite my attempts to whiz down nose-first like the snowboarders flying past us, and I spent the first half hour alternately on my back and my knees and constantly in a foul mood. It didn’t help that the whole learning process was done on an intermediate (blue) run and an intermediate board, with a heavy-ish rucksack on, but excuses aside it was more difficult that I’d anticipated.

Eventually I listened to instructions and concentrated on moving down the slope at a shallow angle, moving from one side to the other in a slow, controlled banana curve and always keeping the upper edge of the board in contact with the snow. I learnt that I could do this facing both uphill and downhill, but came to prefer facing downhill. Once I started to get the knack I loved the rush of gaining speed and controlling the board round the corners and away from the edges, but I never stopped getting overzealous and falling over.

Once we’d completed the first run we jumped onto the Croix du Christ lift, which took us up to another blue run. At the top I was absorbed by the panoramic view and I felt the pull of every mountain, vast, mysterious and incomprehensibly enticing. This run had a long, gently sloping section which – despite the steep, unprotected drop on one side – allowed me to cruise along nose-first and appreciate that regardless of ability, I was so happy to just exist in such a breath-taking place.

The run got steeper, I fell off a bit more, and we ended up back at the start. We were peckish and the only way back to the village was up an innocuous-sounding button lift, which turned out to be categorically un-innocuous. Having barely been on a snowboard a couple of hours, once I got the silly little seat between my legs I just couldn’t stay in a straight line up the steep slope. It moves quickly, doesn’t stop to wait for you to get into position, barely takes any of your weight and has nothing to help you balance; I must have fallen off ten times before deciding that I didn’t want to hold the other skiiers (there were very few snowboarders using it, as it’s notoriously un-snowboard friendly) up, so we faced a hike back up the first blue run. I was furious gnome.

This was long, tough and blister-inducing in stiff snowboarding boots, but quite satisfying once we were back at the top of the Chattrix lift. We went down the blue run that took us back to the village, which had some really nice, flowing sections and long, steep (for a beginner) runs.

We got to the bottom and demolished a huge panini and a bottle of cider, which tasted delicious after that rollercoaster morning. Sitting still, the cold quickly reminded us that it was January in the Alps, so we didn’t hang around before hopping (lolloping, in my case) back on the Chattrix ski lift.

We spent the rest of the afternoon going round the blue Chattrix run. My relationship with snowboarding fluctuated from love to hate and back again several times, with no middle ground, as I alternately got and lost the hang of it. I didn’t realise that so much falling was involved. Ryan was irritatingly good. Even his patience with me became annoying, as I felt like I held him back a bit. Overall I loved the speed and the thrill of taking the board right to the edge of the run, then smoothly (on occasion) pulling away from the steep drops just in time. I was sold.

92130497_210618880266307_8439667486042882048_n

When we finally decided the day was done, we walked (hobbled), grinning, back to the chalet and spent the evening cooking, drinking cheap wine mixed with syrup and chatting excitedly about snowboarding and the Alps and mountains and who knows what else. We were on a high, giddy from the adrenaline of snowboarding and the anticipation of getting back on the slopes the next day. That night the stars filled the clear black sky like I’ve never seen before, and nothing else mattered.