This has been one of those days where you know that absolutely nothing can make you jealous; which, given that it’s New Year’s Day, bodes especially well for the future.
I picked up my brand new Movement Thunders which Nick Parks (mountain guide and good guy) at Mountain Tracks had sorted out for me, and had my Fritschi bindings from my old skis transferred across.
Naturally enough for a peak week the Roche de Mio cable car had a long queue, and it was sunny, so I took the Blanchets and Carrela chair lift combo to get there instead.
I was thinking of dropping down to the glacier, but then I looked over into the Vanoise national park (this is behind you and to the right - basically on the other side of the cable car station - when you exit the Roche de Mio cable car) and and it looked pretty tempting, with lots of powder and not too many tracks, so went down over there instead. This begins a lovely long ski down towards Le Bois, a few km bus / hitch away from the cable car at Champagny, so don’t do this one too late in the day!
The top was great. There’s a winding road (if there’s not enough snow to go direct, as today) that you follow round until you read a likely spot, and hit the powder for about .. er.. i guess 800m or so? I’m useless at estimates.. but you go down there anyway. It was a bit varied today: part névé, part powder - a combination I’d forgotten about until then - which means you have to be on (or off) your toes in the same sort of way you might if you were jumping on a trampoline knowing that at any time someone might move it away.
Down the bottom it melts, because it’s low and south facing, so you have to hope that the path continues all the way down to the valley. It’s not so bad, but neither is it for people who aren’t comfortable side-slipping (though if you’re not comfortable with that, just what the hell are you doing on this run?) since the edges are big and rather near by.
It seemed like a great moment for lunch so I sat on some rocks with my pate and goat’s cheese baguette, and read Seneca “On the shortness of life” which I received for Christmas.
You must not think a man has lived long because he has white hair and wrinkles: he has not lived long, just existed long. For suppose you should think that a man had had a long voyage who had been caught in a raging storm as he left the harbour, and carried hither and thither and driven round and round in a circle by the rage of opposing winds? He did not have a long voyage, just a long tossing about. - Seneca, On the Shortness of Life
That is one brilliant quote.
I charged down the rest of the path to the valley, just down from Le Bois because I realised some of the folks who passed me earlier had a bus waiting and I thought I’d hitch, but it was full. There is a free connecting bus, though, that runs you the few km to Champagny, where you catch the lift back up towards La Plagne.
I was lucky enough to get a lift with a woman who’d just been touring for a few days in the Vanoise so we exchanged thoughts, and I’ll be writing up some Vanoise tour experiences later.
Then it was back to La Plagne via some “tossing about” and seeing what these Movement’s could do, for a swim in the heated outdoor pool they have at Plagne Bellecote.
So just when I was feeling more smug and content than is probably healthy, I was chatting to an old girlfriend online: she’s packing up in June and heading out to Russia and China on the trans-Siberian railway for 18 months to “just bust out some fun and sites”.
No matter how much we pack in, there’s always more to do.
If you’ve never skied with dogs, I heartily recommend it.