Telemark day

I can ski and I can snowboard, so I thought I would learn to tele-mark. On my day off I rented a pair of tele-mark skis and boots and got a lesson first thing in the morning. Renaud my instructor took me for an hour and a half (he chucked in an extra half an hour, nice guy, who ever said the French are all bad). At the end of the lesson I had the idea of what I needed to do, and had even done one proper tele turn. My legs however were starting to burn already, but with the gear for only one day I pushed on. 

I think I got the hang of it by the end of the day, even if I didn’t have complete control the whole time and couldn’t do a whole run without stopping. I will definitely look to give it another go, even if it did take my legs a couple of days to recover. It was a great day again with no lift lines, perfect snow and sunny, warm conditions.

 

On the same day, Amelia swapped over her rental board for a brand new Rossignol board as they were having a demo day at the top of the St Gervais lift. We also got to try out a new shockproof Olympus camera and take as many photos as we liked before they burnt them onto CD. All the (good) photos of the day are here.

The Face

While the cat’s away the mice will play. With Amelia up in the north I took the chance to get some of my more adventurous skiing in. I had been looking at these two chutes (or couloirs as the French call them) from early in the season. I had planned on doing the easier one on the right from the top but saw some tracks leading down so decided to give the harder one a nudge. After a couple of turns I had covered the other tracks with my sluff and was on my own.

There were a couple of hairy moments when I was wondering what I had gotten myself into, mostly at the top of the first rock band when I had taken a turn too many and was facing the wrong way. I then had to step over a rock backwards and keep my balance before navigating a second rock band and a 2m hop out to safety.

As I stopped and looked up I could only but think how lucky I was (even though later that night I was thinking, “I know the route now; I can do it a lot better next time”). I skied off and stopped down on the piste to dust off the snow and check my bases (I skied over a lot of rocks). A guy skied up and asked if I had just skied “The Face”. We talked and it turned out he had taken photos of it all. He laughed as I said it was a bit difficult for me. I asked if he had skied it to which he replied, “No, too many rocks, I prefer to ski on snow. Next time take a rope”. Anyway check out his photos here. I’m the black dot that moves position. The places where I am smaller are where I am sitting, stepping down rocks. Tomorrow Chamonix!!

Curling

Our latest staff extravaganza was a trip to the curling rink in Megève for a lesson in this most ancient and silly looking of winter sports. One shoe gets a slippery over-shoe put on it and the other shoe acts as your ‘grip’. The objective of the game is to launch your stone (which are incredibly heavy, there’s no way you’re lifting one of those babies up off the ice) straight down the centre of the rink (about 4.5m across and 45m long) and into the centre of the bulls eye. It is no easy task, as most of us found out despite the extremely friendly Sophie (our teacher, in the middle of the photo) doing her best to make us understand what to do!


If the stone touches the side of the rink or goes beyond the line at the end it’s out of play. The sweepers are there to a) give tactical advice to the person launching the stone and b) make the stone go faster by sweeping in front of it if needs be.

After get a few tutorials in the basics it was onto a game – girls versus boys (oh how obvious we are). Most of us were absolutely useless (see video here - hopefully the link works) but Lauren had the ultimate turn – check out the perfection in the photos!

Unfortunately, Lauren’s stone got knocked out by the eventually victorious boys’ team on the very next go…
Awesome fun though, so if ever anyone’s near NZ’s only curling rink somewhere deep in the heart of the South Island, I’d give it a go! Check out more photos here.

Megève fashion

Megève is one of the wealthiest French ski resorts going. It’s full of Michelin star restaurants and extremely expensive boutiques. My favourite is the coat in the window of the Aallard store which costs nearly 10,000 euro – that’s nearly a house deposit in New Zealand on a coat!!

There are always ladies walking around in massive fur coats, dripping in jewels and toting little dogs – it’s definitely a great place to people watch. We’ve been trying to get some snaps of some of the best ones, although usually we don’t have the camera on us when the best ones walk by. But here are two we did manage to capture (quite blatantly I might add!)

Here's just one of the fantastic ski outfits we see everyday on the slopes as well...

Big snow!

On the 22nd of March we woke up to one of the biggest overnight dumps of snow we’ve had yet. February and March seem to have been all mixed up, with hardly a flake of snow during February and temperatures reaching nearly 17 degrees, and March seeing temperatures plummet again with metres upon metres of snow.

This was outside our front door – that hill in the background which is known as the ‘Jaillet’ side of the mountain had been green grass only a couple of days before.

Check out the snow on the window wipers!


These pictures are from in front of the ice rink in town and then another one showing just how much snow the bulldozer had already taken off! (Nice bleary/puffy morning eyes are also on show in the latter pic).

This one’s the best though – how on earth is that car going to get out of there?!


Click here for the rest of the pictures.

Ice skating

Megève has an outdoor ice skating rink in the centre of town that has been on our ‘fun things to do’ list for quite a while now. The other day, conditions were perfect (as in, it was sunny and we had a bit of free time on our hands) so we paid our 15 or so euro each (see blog title to guess which person had some trouble handing over the money and which one did so with glee) and headed out onto the ice. The appropriate clothing (aka Elvis glasses we found at the chalet) was also required…

Being the beginning of springtime there was a decent series of puddles on the ice and some quite gnarly cracks that made disconcerting creaking noises as you skated over them, but luckily our lardy croissant packed bodies weren’t so bad as to actually fall through the ice. Adrian (as to be expected with all winter sports) picked it up incredibly quickly and started showing off doing fancy stops and going backwards etc. – I reckon he’d make a great figure skater – imagine the costumes!

I (Amelia) on the other hand made somewhat tentative progress, aided by my new best friend, Jan (a 5 year old French girl in Megève on holiday who told me several times this was her 3rd time ice skating and she could already go forward, turn, and stop). It was probably about my 3rd time too so I was pleased I got up to about her level by the end of the session…

Once we got a bit of practice in I got a bit cocky and challenged Adrian to a race down the length of the rink and back. Unfortunately, my lead which was unchallenged until ¾ of the way through the race, came to an abrupt end when I tripped up, fell backwards, and cracked my head on the ice…yet again proof that I am not naturally blessed with either balance or sporting ability… The people watching gave a collective ‘oooh’ that even I heard in my semi-concussed state, so I’m pleased that I at least managed to give them some entertainment! I took it grandma-slow for the rest of the evening I can tell you… Click here for some more photos.

Tobogganing!

When the idea of throwing yourself down steep, snow covered hillsides on skis or snowboards becomes a bit passé, what else is there to do but throw yourself down less steep, snow covered hillsides on uncontrollable pieces of plastic. Yep, that’s right, it was time for some tobogganing. We couldn’t find the ‘uber’ toboggan (the one that actually has brakes and is adult-sized) so made do with what is stylishly known as ‘bum boards’ and a baby-sized toboggan.

The snow was a bit thin on the ground which meant runs had to be picked carefully, but we generally fell off before we’d made it too long anyway!

For anyone who hasn’t done it, tobogganing is o for oarsome – particularly the bit when you completely fall off and roll around in the mud (see classic example below - hopefully you don't get as sore a neck watching it as I got actually doing it!).


A bit of hiking is involved, although any and all cardio is a good thing these days considering the amount of croissant-related energy that needs to be burnt off on a daily basis…

Two styles of tobogganing were also in evidence – the planned approach and the ‘let’s just get down here whichever way possible’. As you can see by these two stills from the videos both get you to exactly the same place!

Do you know the way to St Gervais?

I’ve been away so long! Ah, enough with the singing already! (I know you’ve got that tune stuck in your head now). Lauren and I had an afternoon jaunt to St Gervais, one of the towns on the other side of the mountains. We took a series of telecabines up, over and down which was much preferable to paying the 10 euro bus fare! It wasn’t too bad a day and was luckily quiet on the slopes so we didn’t get taken out by some out of control skier!

St Gervais is much more of a traditional French town compared to Megève which is a fairy tale resort type of place. We did the obligatory check out of the local church which had some wicked paintings on the outside but was less ornate than the Sallanches or Megève churches on the inside. I particularly liked this carving on one of the side altars though.

After we finished with the touristy stuff we did a bit of shopping in the only shop that was open (we’d forgotten about the whole closed between 12-3pm thing…). I was sorely tempted to get one of these incredibly beautiful, sophisticated, and not at all tacky fake marmots but in the end decided to save my hard earned pennies ;-)

It was a pretty cold day which worked out for the guy doing ice sculptures in the town centre, and meant I could rock one of my myriad of scarves which have been languishing at the back of the wardrobe for a while.

We had a delicious hot chocolate and cake before we left the main town centre and stopped in at this fantastic boulangerie (bakery) on the way back to pick up some goodies for later. I got this thing called a ‘boule de neige’ (snowball) for Adrian which was a 10cm diameter white chocolate/coconut/meringue concoction that took us about a week to eat it was so massive!

On the way back to the telecabine we saw heaps of people milling about outside this deli which was in the process of reopening after lunch. They were putting out basket upon baskets of saucissons (salamis) which ranged from donkey flavoured to genepi flavoured (a local spirit which is like Chartreuse). We ventured inside and spent ages looking at all the great food – fortunately we were quite full so weren’t too tempted to buy much! It was clearly a local legend, everyone was queued up to buy their saucissons, bread and cheese for dinner, along with a couple of bottles of wine. Check out here for some more photos of the day.

Ice hockey

As we were leaving the chalet on our night off last Monday one of the guests asked us if we were going to the ice hockey down at the sports centre – and so instead of $$, that became the tip from that guest! We headed down and got our 9 euro tickets (which came with a 30 euro voucher for dinner at the restaurant at the casino – score!) for the ‘friendly’ between Megève and Mt Blanc. It was a pretty low key and small crowd (only half the bleachers were open) so it took us until the end of the first third to realise that we were sitting with the Mt Blanc supporters instead of the Megève supporters!

In the beginning we weren’t sure what the deal was with the two teams (as in, were they normally playing at the same competition level etc) because Mt Blanc seemed to be a) younger and b) better than Megève. The first third score was pretty pitiful too, with Megève trailing by a couple of points. I (Amelia) decided that more support was in order so got myself an ‘Allez Megève’ (Go Megève) scarf and we also got some crazy cheap (and terrible) drinks at the bar. Here's a video of some of the action (we're is in the green/blue strip scoring the goal and Mt Blanc is in the blue).

The second third was much more like it – Megève scored a couple of goals (see the video below) and things were looking up for the home team. However, it was really the final third when things got interesting. As any sane person knows, even though it might have been a friendly, what everyone was out for was a fight, and they didn’t disappoint!

Number 86 (one of our favourites, he’d already been sin-binned a couple of times already) (Adrian = whatever! He spent more time in the sin bin than on the field!) was in the thick of it, as was the other favourite, Number 5 (see below ladies…). No idea who came out victor, but some good punches were thrown by both sides, it was a game of two halves, and ice hockey was the winner on the day.

Well, actually Megève triumphed to be the winner (8-6) and we went home happy and victorious – ALLEZ MEGÈVE! Check out more photos here.

Cross-country skiing

The Ecole de Ski Français here in Megève (French Ski School) has been putting on a demonstration of cross-country skiing every Monday night for the last couple of weeks. The other Monday I was working but Adrian had the night off so he gave it a go and thought it was so much fun that I should have a try the following week. It was a bit iffy in terms of how much snow was left (it was in the middle of town and we haven’t had snow in aaaaages), but luckily they were foolhardy enough to put it on so we headed on down. We conned Ed, our new Ski Royale recruit and fellow driver/chambermaid, to come with us and try his hand as well – he’s a fellow snowboarder so I didn’t feel too bad about embarrassing myself in front of someone else who can’t ski to save themselves!

Swapped over the shoes for some random soft bootie-like things with hard clips on the edge and headed over to get fitted for some skis. They’re about as tall as you are, but only about 5cm across which makes it pretty hard to get your balance! I had a French instructor helping me out and we palmed Ed off on the poor English speaking instructor who had had to deal with Adrian the previous week as well… (I hope she gets paid well!)

When you’re on the flat it’s kind of like walking (because you’re in the grooves that have already been made by other skiers), but uphill you have to use your poles a lot more and then downhill was a bit interesting! I got to grips with snow ploughing in the end though!


Couldn’t really handle the whole ‘skating’ across on the flat (when you ski without the pre-made grooves) but on the whole it was heaps of fun and a big shout out to those ever patient instructors!



As well as the skiing they had a place where you could try shooting (so, trying the entire winter biathlon competition where they cross-country ski and then shoot at targets at different points along the course). I hadn’t shot an air rifle before and was totally up for it! It was pretty easy lying down when you could steady yourself (I got 5/5 of my targets!) but standing up it was a different story completely…(I think only 2/5 there).

I could definitely consider doing the rifle range again, but I think I’ll stick with the snowboard thanks! Check out all the photos here.

New skis

After a hard season tree planting, my skis had seen better days. The edges are rounded, blown and depressed. If you could see the state of my bases you would be depressed also. The shock absorbers were leaking their fluids and my bindings are starting to strip their screws.

My skis had had a good life, but it was time for them to retire. I had been enquiring around the shops about prices for the type of skis I wanted and in general putting off the outlay of a large wad of money (those who know me will know I don’t like that much either). Then I stumbled across the perfect buy. They are ex-rental touring skis which come with skins. Being touring skis they weren’t rented out much so are in good nic. All for only 300 euro, super! (Would be 1000 euro new) Now if only I could get out of the hotel onto them…

Day out in Sallanches

In an effort to make a break for it, Lauren and I took a day trip on the 9th of Feb to Sallanches which is a larger town down the mountain from Megève. We had planned on going to St Gervais and catching a series of télécabines and chair lifts across, but the main Mt d’Arbois lift up the mountain wasn’t working so it was back to the bus station and plan B for us. A 20 minute bus ride took us down to Sallanches where the driver dropped us off in the middle of town with ne’er an explanation of where the station to be picked up from was. Oh well, guess we’d find that out later by way of a bit of an explore otherwise we’d be stuck there forever (no more work! Oh no…)

We did a quick reccy of the main square where the Saturday markets were just closing up before heading towards a little chapel on the hill that looked interesting. On the way we popped into the Eglise de St Jacques. As seems to be the case with most of the churches in this region, it was pretty plain and unprepossessing from the outside, but very ornately decorated on the inside. The wooden carvings on the altar, the wooden pulpit, the organ and the ceiling were my favourites – check out more pictures here if you want.

After looking around that we continued in our search for the little chapel up on the hill. We wandered up through a wooded area for about 5 minutes and popped up right where it was – good spotting Batman! It was called La Chapelle de l’Imacculee and was built to look over and protect the town of Sallanches – and it had a pretty good view of the Alps while it did it (see here)! The doors were locked but through the mesh I got a picture of some of the interior.

Then, following a bit of shopping (a pair of trousers for 8 euro!) we sat and had a beer in the sun. Once the bar owner found out we were from NZ and Australia it was all on about the rugby! Talking to another bar fly we found out that the bar owner used to be the world 5 time welterweight boxing champion – and there were photos all over the bar to prove it. The things people end up doing non?! Our new best friend the bar fly was keen for us to stay for several more drinks – or at least come back the next day – but it was back to the bus station (found during the reccy) and Megève for us. All in all a great sanity saving excursion was had by all.

Staff ski days

Our day off is on a Tuesday and our company has arranged to meet up with the skiers from another company (Stanford) for a joint ski every week. We meet at the Rosay café on the Mt d’Arbois side of the mountain and after a bit of a drink/bite to eat, we all head up together. At the moment I (Amelia) can’t keep up with the good skiers (Adrian etc.) so either I hang out with Lauren who’s learning like me or head off on my own. I wasn’t quite up to the ‘off-piste’ action a couple of weeks back that all the skiers managed (snowboards don’t lend themselves to sections of flat powder!) so did some blue runs by myself.

That powder day was pretty sweet!! One of the best ever! I (Adrian) rose early on my day off (those who know me will know how much I love to sleep), and got to the front of the lift line for first lift (Yeeha!!!), only to hear some British lady behind me say “What the lifts aren’t going yet? We’ll get a later bus tomorrow.” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Needless to say I had fresh tracks all morning till I meet up with the rest of the crew. I was pretty shattered but skied on for the rest of the day. We got some footage of the afternoon, which I will have to try and nab it somehow. We stopped at the pub at the bottom of the mountain for a couple of beers and to talk about the beauty of skiing for seven hours. After the two pints we attempted to ski back into town with a little success and a lot of laughter. We then moved into town for a great night on the booze and the dance floor. If you can’t dance well, dance enthusiastically!!

Team Ski Royale (L-R): Amelia, Charlie, Simon, Lauren, Michelle, Adrian, Matt, Adam

Adrian and Lauren on the 'Les Mandarines' run.

Paraskiing action! Oh yeah that helmet's a good look!

Ski Royale

So in between our glamourous life of skiing and snowboarding, hot chocolates and vin chaud (mulled wine), unfortunately we have to do a bit of work. We work for a company called Ski Royale which manages three chalets in Megève. The largest (and one we work for) is a 2 star hotel called ‘Les Cimes’ which has nine rooms and sleeps about 25 max. We work with an English chef called Matt and another guy called Edward. Lauren and Simon (Brisbane) work at the Ryokan which is a 4 star private chalet that sleeps about 8. Charlie (English) works at the other chalet called La Frutiere) which is smaller again. It’s Michelle’s (English) business and she runs it with the help of an old school friend Adam (English). Here are some pics of Les Cimes:



I (Amelia) am what is deceptively called a ‘chalet host’. It’s really a misnomer for an underpaid and overworked maid/waitress/kitchen hand! I do about 65-70 hours a week and get paid just over 100 euro…that’s one euro per hour people… It’s pretty hard work, starting with breakfast, then cleaning rooms, then afternoon tea a few days a week, followed by dinner. The job is pretty bad, but I’m learning to snowboard out of it so that’s the magic point that must be remembered! (Whilst obviously being completely jealous of Adrian’s job and all his tips).

I (Adrian) pretty much have a sweet job. The hardest part being that I must constantly explain to my co-workers that it is work, and that I am a highly trained professional. My week starts on a Sunday when I pick guests up from airport (about an hour’s drive). I might have to do this up to three times in a day, plus wait times. The next day I take guests up the mountain and make sure they know their way around, avoid the lift lines, and get the best runs. I do this four times a week. I then sit down with the guests at dinner and make polite conversation, fill up the wine, water and bread. I then also help with breakfast, afternoon tea and cleaning occasionally. (Cleaning?! When did I ever see you clean a toilet last Adrian??)

We get Tuesdays off and if we’re lucky another night a week so we can head out for dinner. We also occasionally get some tips, but to be honest, it’s not exactly as if we’re rolling in it… Click here for some more photos of Les Cimes or here for the Ski Royale website.

Le Calvaire de Megève

Le Calvaire is a pilgrim route in Megève from the 14th Century that has the 14 Stations of the Cross represented in little chapels. The doors are locked, but you can peek through and look at the different styles and types of paintings and statues. It’s set in a 10 hectare park just down from the Mt d’Arbois ski lift. The ‘Calvaire’ translates to ‘martyrdom’ or ‘calvary’ which apparently means ‘living death’.




So on a sunny afternoon (nearly every day is sunny here, it’s a hard life I tell you) we headed off for a walk to see the sights. I (Amelia) had done a long walk the week previously and chanced across them, so thought it would be cool to show them to Adrian.

Most of the buildings are pretty small with just one picture or statue in them, but there are a few that are on a much grander scale and have a whole series of events. The stations are represented in quite different styles which made it interesting to compare between them.

There are heaps more photos here of us and all the different little chapels and the interiors.

We ended the walk with a visit to the local church in Megève. It’s called Eglise (Church) St Jean Baptiste in the parish of Sainte Anne d’Arly Montjoie and our apartment is just behind it. The church fronts onto the main town square which also holds the Mairie (Mayor’s offices), a Hermes store and a few cafés etc. While looking pretty plain from the outside, it’s a completely different story inside. Again, the 14 Stations of the Cross are represented inside, as well as having an amazing painted ceiling and some altars.