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squiz Member Member#: 6644 Location: Registered: 27-05-2007 Diary Entries: 3070 |
11th March 2020 Skiing: Margeriaz Wind Direction: Wind Stength: Surf / Sea State: Air Temperature: Sea Temperature: Weather: Mainly cloudy Max Speed: 26.70 (knots - unless stated otherwise) Distance Covered: 26.96 (Nautical Miles - unless stated otherwise) Tuesday 10th March – Van fixed and travel to Margeriaz – rained most of the day. We actually had a good night in the Technic Auto (Bosch Service) but were still not sure if the van would be done? Mag got ready for the day around 8 while I laid in a bit longer and was just making the bed when the garage door opened and the Mini that was in pieces the day before drove out! So, we quickly sorted the van out as the man walked over to say they were ready and we hadn’t even had our breakfast! I then had the nerve-racking job of driving the van onto the hoist with no power steering! That done we decided to walk up the road to a Mc Donald’s we had spotted yesterday but even though it was a 24 hour one it was apparently closed for cleaning! So, we walked a little further into a huge hypermarket where we visited a Decathlon a multi sports store where I found some nice ski touring gear and Mag spotted a small peddle exercise machine she wants for rainy days in the van. We resisted and found a snack bar for cappuccino and muffin trying to avoid contact with any surfaces or the locals with the Corona virus spreading over Europe. Hand sanitizer is impossible to buy but luckily, we have two bottles for our pockets which we have had for a while. There has been serious panic buying back home with shops running out of toilet paper of all things, we just don’t see the connection between the virus and toilet paper but people are just nuts!!! There has been one reported case back home in Suffolk and they are warning pensioners not to venture out, that’s a bit late for us and we are lucky that we are quite isolated in the van anyway! We had only just sat down with our breakfast when we had a text from the garage saying that the van was ready:) Back at the garage we paid the bill and were surprised it was only 116 Euros as we were expecting the worst and the woman from the RAC who had rung us to confirm it was ready for collection said it would be 150 euros! We then set off to the Lidl at St Jorioz and did a big shop costing 70 Euros including 18 bottles of water to fill our tank and loads of cake! All we had to do was drive about 30 miles to one of our favourites little ski resorts, Margeriaz. The weather was too bad to stop anywhere but the scenery was as lovely as usual. Despite the rain there was loads of snow as we headed up the mountain road to Margeriaz but because of the weather it was pretty much deserted, the army were here in force though! Being our usual very anti-social selves, we parked in the bottom car park near the husky’s kennels, with the best view but a bit of a hike to walk to the lift! We soon had the van level, water tank full and were tucking into olive and nut bread with French cheese and a yummy apple. The rain eased enough for a quick walk up to the lifts mainly to recycle all our plastic bottles and the car park was next to empty! I think it will be busier tomorrow with sunshine forecast and we can’t wait to get up there! As it is Tuesday Mag gave Mary our elderly friend from Felixstowe a ring and was on the phone for 45 minutes!!! So, fingers crossed for the sun to come, the mountains look so much better set against a blue sky! Wednesday 11th March – ski **** - Margeriaz – mainly cloudy. Good night in car park 2 at one of our favourite small ski resorts, Margeriaz and we hoped to go skiing as the forecast looked pretty promising. The sun came up over the mountains right in front of the van but sadly there was still a lot of cloud from yesterday’s rain blowing up the valley and it was mild too - 6 degrees first thing in the morning didn’t bode well for the snow! Still if it didn’t look like clearing, we could go snow shoeing so win win all around:) Then after breakfast with some large patches of blue appearing the decision was made, skiing it is! While I sorted out the ski gear Mag packed a picnic and we were ready to leave the van at ten. The trouble with being anti-social and parking as far away from everyone else as possible is it’s a bit of a trek to the lifts! Still we walked along the road and through the car park which was filling up nicely as Wednesday is a popular day especially with school kids. There were five buses in as well as the army out on manoeuvres again as well as normal skiers, ski tourers and snow shoers. Mag soon had the passes which are great value for money being only 49 Euros for two including insurance:) Being a small resort there is one main four-man chair lift up and half a dozen buttons but the pistes here are usually great, mainly fairly shallow blues but with some challenging reds and blacks too! The resort is low starting at 1400m and rising to only 1845m but despite the heavy rain from yesterday the pistes looked in really good shape as we headed up the 4-man starting at 10.20 meaning our pass ran out at 2.20, that’s plenty of time for a couple of old pensioners! We decided to break ourselves in easy to start with and do the runs near the chair to save our legs. As we neared the top the cloud covered the top ridge and did so for most of the day! To be honest the snow was disappointingly soft and sticky which plays havoc with the muscles in the top of your legs, certainly not helped by the shocking state of my skies, they have definitely seen better days. Things were better if you could keep on your edges and you can’t fail not to enjoy the quiet pistes. Where did everyone go? We then headed over to the two difficult buttons over to the right - the steep side of the resort and had a really great run down the black, the deep soft snow was making controlling your speed nice and easy and Mag was loving it:) Not a hint of dreaded ice!!! This is a popular resort for ski touring and snow shoeing and there were loads walking up to the top for a walk around the ridge which usually offers stunning views down into the valley but not today. Well not until late afternoon when it cleared a little! A toilet break was required and then up to do the long blue runs over on the left which we thought wouldn’t be very good but in fact were really good and we spent the rest of our session over there! We had two really great runs down the boardercross, giggling all the way. I even managed to video the second run on Mags mobile and I sound like I am just about to have a heart attack!!! Sadly, the cloud came in for the last hour at the top but it was OK down in the trees and it did get busy with loads of kid’s classes, the young slalom skiers were particularly impressive whizzing down! There was a couple of young mums out with their 5 year olds and a baby in a sling down their front, the mum by herself on skies was coping fine but the other family on snow shoes were struggling:( Time was up on our passes so we found a picnic bench at the top of the La Bergerie button and enjoyed our yummy sandwiches. The struggling snow shoe family came past in trouble really, the visibility was poor and they had walked way too far and the poor mother had the baby on her front, a ruck sack on her back with coats and the child’s snow shoes and poles while the father had nothing!!! They stopped at a picnic table for a rest and she was on her mobile. We later learned that she was asking the first aiders for help! But the cloud cleared and they realised they were close to the 4-man lift so they set off again, heading slowly there to hopefully get a ride down!! Then a red cross man came looking for the young mother in trouble and we were able to tell him where they had gone and that they had hopefully made it to the lift! Drama over we could see we were close to the ridge edge so skied off piste over to get a scary view down! We will have to get up here on our snow shoes later in the week. We then made tracks all the way off piste to the little L’Alpage restaurant and down all the way nearly to the van absolutely knackered!!! Back at the van our control panel which works the lights, tap etc was not working but handy Mag soon fixed that by fiddling with the fuses!!! After a welcome cuppa and apple puff and with the sun out I decided I had enough energy left to do my back exercises but ended up doing them all only slightly spoilt by feeding time at the husky centre, what a row they made!!! Then the mountains in front on the van turned gold as the sun set, as for tomorrow it’s supposed to be cloudy and 15 degrees. Photo Gallery Here |
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