Courchevel 1850 was our destination this year for a 3-day trip with friends. I’d only skied 2 days last year so was pretty rusty, even after a couple of hours on the indoor slope at Hemel with Rob from InsideOut Skiing.
However, a four hour lesson (non-stop!) with Marco Tommasello at New Generation really sorted me out. My main faults were two-fold: first, I was not going up and down anything like enough and, second, I was skiing with my feet too far apart in a futile, if unconscious effort to be more balanced, though in fact it has the opposite effect and makes everything else difficult if not impossible. But after some gentle practice around Verdons, we headed up to 1650 just as the snow really started to come down and then hit some reds, starting with Rochers. Keeping tight on Marco’s heels meant I could semi-forget the technicalities and just let myself try to do what he was doing (again, without thinking about it too much, a curse of mine). Then we shot back to 1850 all the way down to the Croisette and beyond, to the Brigues red down to La Tania and back up via the Foret bubble, down the bottom section of Dou de Midi then back to the Croisette. I went straight to bed at 1.30pm and slept for 2 hours!!
The following day I was skiing reasonably happily with the others and, albeit far from elegantly, going down all the reds in the deep powder. Lunch was at the Soucoupe where Winchie (aka. SpiderMonkey) had memorably questionable herrings and Mikey later got lost just off this section:
I fell over about 10 times in the three days but felt that this was due to pushing myself rather than being utter crap. And I won “Most Improved Skier of the Tour” award, admittedly against not much competition.
The Hotel Le Paddock was OK. Well, for Euros 115 per night including breakfast and only a stone’s throw from the Croisette, it was always going to be slightly spartan. But spartan is good, and the bar downstairs was fine. I was lucky enough to have one of the rooms on the not quite as noisy side of the hotel — if you stay there, do NOT have a room on the same side as the main entrance as you will be woken at an ungodly hour by drunken renditions of your favourite tunes from all the revelling skiers.
I had a great time, and was really getting into the skiing by the time we had to leave. Which is a pity.
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