The runs down into the resorts have been really suffering the last few days as it has been warm and they have become quite slushy. This picture doesn’t capture it really, that is not fluffy snow.

The bashers have been working really hard to repair the runs every night, it looks like as they have a really good base, they cut right down into the ice and break it up. We were headed to a restaurant the other side of Mottaret and had to walk across the piste they were working on, which allowed us to get up close and observe them in their natural habitat

Two of them had spend a long time ploughing this area flat and they were now grooming it smooth. You’ll notice half way through the video one trys to run me over…. just being playful, I’m sure.

They don’t seem afraid of humans at all and were happily working on the main pedestrian area as quite a few of us were heading back from dinner.

They are cutting 30cm into snow so hard packed you can’t stick a ski pole in it and moving it somewhere else..

Anyway, once the bashers had spent all night bashing, Friday dawned thoroughly overcast, again with a few centimetres of snow having fallen overnight. We skied in layers of cloud but got lucky and found some great snow we could actually see, with only a few bits of icy stuff we couldn’t.

Sought out an indoor spot for lunch this time, it has a handy hammock outside for an after lunch snooze. The safety instructions say no more than 6 people.

Then the wind really picked up enough to close some high lifts, so we went and did some relaxed skiing in Rhodos, with the obligatory coffee in the Rhodos cafe, before heading down to bring a great week’s skiing to an end.