Owner:
squiz
Member
Member#: 6644 Location: Registered: 27-05-2007 Diary Entries: 3071
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8th March 2014
Skiing: Giron Wind Direction: Wind Stength: Surf / Sea State: Air Temperature: Sea Temperature: Weather: sunny Max Speed: Distance Covered:
Saturday 8th March ***** cross country skiing at Giron and some travelling.
Very sunny
We drove down into Giron and got our skis, poles, boots and passes for our
day cross country skiing. 40 euros for the lot (about £35). Quite
entertaining watching a large group of snow shoers getting kitted out!
Back up to the car park where we spent the night and amazingly we got the
same parking space – the car park was filling up when we left! We set
off pretty quickly because we packed our lunch last night and were away
from the van by 10.30. We were a bit stiff to start with but soon got into
our sliding style (not very professional but along the right lines!). We
had over four hours of great fun on 10km (6 miles) of blue piste called Les
Avalanches. There wasn’t very much down hill luckily as we are still
practicing our technique (!) for that. We did have a go at taking one ski
out of the tramlines and putting it into snow plough which is what we found
out on Google! It did work quite well but I don’t think we looked very
good! Considering how many cars were in the car park we saw very few
people all day and when we did they were all very nice and of a variety of
standards and techniques!! The skating style is very lovely to watch –
the good ones make it look effortless! There were a few groups of children
towards the end learning and one group were racing down a long slope we
were going up then going back up and racing down again:) Mag only took her
skis off once and that was to make it to the top of a very steep short run
up – she has trouble stopping herself sliding backwards. The skis work
by having slippery bottoms but a rough bit in the middle which grips the
snow when you are going up but if it is too steep this doesn’t seem to
work for her. We went off piste for our lunch stop!! There was a sign to
a view point called Avalanches but the tracks made by other people were
very rough and we did fall over a bit! Still we managed it and it was well
worth it:) The view across the valley to the south was amazing and we were
perched on a rock right above a cliff! We ate our rolls and enjoyed the
rest:) We were about 2/3 the way round at that point. Pressed on and got
back to the van pretty tired at about 3.45. Decided to move on for our
cuppa so took the equipment back to the shop in the village and filled up
our water tanks just next door at the loo! Drove down the valley and
underneath the cliffs we sat on for lunch. Nowhere perfect to stop but we
took a turning up to a small ski resort called Menthieres and decided to
stay here – they even have a chair lift!! Lots of cross country too but
don’t think we will be partaking in that tomorrow! The lift passes for
alpine skiing here are only 15.50 euros! Very cheap but not many runs.
They are in the process of enlarging the pistes but they are not done yet.
We had a cuppa and a well deserved rest then went for a walk to the piste
map and along a road through some barns. I made chicken and chick pea
curry for tea. Unfortunately the wind has really got up but hopefully wont
disturb us too much – too tired!!
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