March 13, 2008. Wow, what a day. Nothing happened. I did manage to plan another two days of our Easter break (Semana Santa) which is the Saturday and Sunday on the way back from skiing. Here’s the thing, it’s high season, we need two rooms (if anyone wants to sleep — David snores loudly and I can’t sleep with it and frankly, we like to be comfortable) and Provence, where we’re going seems set up for romantic get-aways (only). Hours later, I called the best western and booked something one of the sites said was not charming. It required speaking French to a few people, with one guy answering me back in such poor French I didn’t even try to book with him after that (he didn’t have anything close to what we wanted anyway).
March 14, 2008. We packed today, getting ready for what promises to be a long drive to Méribel, France. It’s all super highways and should take about eight hours. Unlike the US, every resort changes on Saturday (as in 30 years ago in Colorado) so the roads are crowded not to mention it’s Easter (Semana Santa for hispanofiles). We are packing heavy since it a car trip.
I went out to get in shape for the vacation today, and road my bike about two hours up into the hills. It’s some pretty nice riding with tons of tight turns after you get out of town, which takes about 15 minutes of uphill riding. One thing I noticed is the clothes I wear here are completely different from other places — long sleeved jersey (I never used it until I got here), vest (ditto). It’s still a bit cool, but definitely ready to warm up. After skiing, we’ll stop in Provence to do some reportage.
March 15, 2008. Eight hours plus in the car and we got from Barcelona to Méribel, France. There was about 30 minutes of traffic, otherwise not bad at all. This is the largest ski resort in the world (Les Trois Vallee). I’ll get all the details here. Anyhow, we’re here. They have a great Internet connection, a nice village where there are tons of restaurants all within 100 yards and sports stores. We rented equipment and went to dinner. The French food, even here, is far superior to Spanish food in flavor (it has some). It’s nice to be at altitude (about 6,000 feet) and unlike Aspen, it looks like they could use some snow.
March 16, 2008. We gave up trying to find breakfast and went to a small, very good supermarket and bought everything for a while for probably the price of one breakfast. The local foods are very nice, products of this region which is the Savoy.
Just got back from skiing (photos here) and it’s endless. Conditions were less than perfect with flat light and a new “dusting” of about 3 or 4 inches of heavy wet powder. We skied through it and aside from not seeing anything, the amazing thing is that everyone stays on these very narrow “pistes” which are next to huge fields of endless untracked snow (which is in fact better skiing and much more fun). From the reading I’ve done, the harder pistes are found in Courchevel, which is one ridge away along with a gondola ride. We’ll try to go there tomorrow, weather permitting (it was not permitting today with wind and white-out conditions). It’s dumping now at 5:28 p.m. local time.
March 17, 2008. Last night both Joshua and David threw up. It was really bad for Joshua, not too bad (but bad enough) for David. Joshua was up an extra hour and a half, David probably about half an hour. Joshua was very pleased after he threw up the second time. They obviously got some bad food, we suspect at the restaurant we ate at last night.
We went out and found the snow very heavy (day’s photos here) on the lower slopes but about two feet or so on top. We are all in great skiing shape as a result of our Chamonix trip, where our guide Bruno made us ski a lot and hard. Even so, given the depth of the snow and how heavy it is, we quite at lunch and went down to Meribel (we’re actually above Meribel in Meribel Mottaret. They have a great rec center, including a pool and ice rink that seems very Aspen although certainly not as big. The rink was left over from the 1992 Olympics in Alberville; the pool is new. Anne and I got some laps in while the kids enjoyed the slide.
March 18, 2008. It looks like a clear day, some clouds. We skied (photos here) first over to Courchevel and a run over there trying to hit as much powder as possible since it snows the last few days. Basically, you can conceivably ski powder here for probably weeks after it snows since it just doesn’t get skied out – imagine a run that is 1/100th the width of the potential ski run – ski either side, go another way, anything. There are no boundaries or trees and other than having an avalanche fall on you, and skiing over rocks (rentals are great), or a cliff, just go whereever. What’s interesting is the runs (“pistes”) are super crowded but right next to the narrow piste is powder on both sides which is available for the taking. Pretty amazing stuff. They say there are 600 Kilometers of pistes, there is unlimited skiing. Imagine Snowmass times 20 or more and you have these resorts.
March 19, 2008. Towel change day. What a treat to come back to an apartment with clean towels albeit a cigarette smell.
As for skiing, it was a beautiful morning turning after lunch to a complete white out where we couldn’t see 20 feet and couldn’t make out terrain. We did ski some slush, ice, hard packed, powder, crud, broken crud, etc… The boys are skiing really well with turns down the fall line through broken crud; it’s very impressive.
There seemed to be many more people on the slopes today, although if you are willing to ride a slow lift, there were no waits. The faster lifts looked like they would require minimum 20 plus minute waits. It was a beautiful day so we rode lifts.