Today’s objective was to sail from our start point at Nikiana (shown in Blue) to one of the many places in Greece called Sivota. The particular one in this case being shown in Green. Its about 11nm and the forecast was for light winds. There was some breeze at 9AM so we headed out as soon as we could.

We sailed until the wind died at about 1pm and then motored for a bit until we entered the meganisi channel which funnels the wind and makes it much stronger. This channel featured in a blog post from a few years ago but going in the other direction in rather more breeze..

Day 1…. fast and furious

Much more pleasant this time.

On the way into Sivota, we sailed past what is obviously the lair of a bond villain. Why do they make them so obvious?

And then moored up in a location which looks handy for the bakery in the morning but also turned out later to be handy for a Karaoke bar which is less helpfull

Sleep.. eventually.

Yesterday’s warm weather and the overnight freeze had turned the runs at resort level to hard ice this morning and we had to very carefully navigate an entire Galaxy of Etoiles skiddimg all over the place  heading down to the first lifts.

Beautiful clear day, with a cracking view to Mont Blanc from the route back from Orelle.

Spotted this impressive cornice created by the recent wind as well.

There was a similar one on Cime de Caron a few days ago with people stood on it having their picture taken. You’d think that  given how much dangerous stuff there is around here without any kind of warning sign, people would figure out that when they do warning signs up, you really need to pay attention!

Today is medal presentation day for the ski school and of course this requires someone to dress up in an appropriate outfit or two.

… and someone to hand out Vin Chaud to the parents, or any other random people  like me standing nearby.

The English version of the parent’s briefing yesterday had included advice on how not to let children worry about passing the test… and the children arrived by the back entrance to avoid the media circus of parents with iphones jostling for a vantage point.

The Cime de Caron cable car was out for maintenance but you could still get to top from the other side. Remarkably few people seemed to have spotted this so the runs down were wonderfully quiet and we headed there after lunch.

The day warmed up steadily until even the snow at 2700m was getting sticky and at resort level it was wet, grey slush.

Nothing for it but to round out an excellent week with.

Needs to be eaten quickly before the cream melts in the sun….

So you may recall our dismay in February when we were in Val Tho on a Tuesday to discover that the waffle stand had a day off. You can imagine our horror then when we arrive for the week to be told he has finished for the season! We checked our travel insurance and it seems we are not covered for cancellation due to lack of waffles so we had reconciled ourselves to living without waffles.

Anyway, back to the skiing. The day dawned bright so we thought it was high time we used our 3 valleys lift passes and headed over to Mont Vallon.

As ever it lived up to its reputation for great views and awesome skiing.

Heading back we saw what we thought was a constellation of Bronze Star ski school kids at the top of a black run so we figured it must be easy enough. Turned out it was a constellation of Gold Stars and I’m not quite up to that standard having dropped out of ski school with only 2 stars years ago…. we all got down, they got more style points than us.

Lunch with a view at the cafe at the top of Peclet. There used to be glacier skiing up here but sadly no more.

In the afternoon we skied with our youngest member as they have now been promoted to chair lifts. This involves skiing in the beginners area amongst the afternoon ski school groups. Below the star groups we have Flocon (snowflake) groups. Here is a blizzard of flocons heading down the fun park.

Our party member is an Ourson (bear cub or possibly Teddy bear depending if you believe Google or ESF ). Apparently the collective noun for bears is a sloth…

Heading up for our last run we spotted the waffle stall open.

It would have been rude not to stop but that delay meant we caught the last lift by 4 minutes and skied past the Follie Duece just as they were kicking out the people who had been in there drinking for a few hours…. Worth it for a waffle though. Mont Vallon, sunshine, waffles.. what more can you ask for?

For a short time this morning, #wearingmymothersoldskisuit was one of the fastest growing trends on the mountain with at least 100% growth in participants overnight. However it was soon overtaken by #itissnowingreallyhardandmymodernjackethasbetterwaterproofing

Skiing mainly in the cloud but with the odd sunny intervals. Most sensible people were in the warm somewhere so not too many crowds and lots of fresh powder to play in.

Some of our group hate not being able to see and some never really got behind this whole “looking where you are going” thing anyway so are less bothered.

Spotted a great accessory for people learning to snowboard.

Apparently you can have turtles on your knees and elbows as well.

The run we use to get back to the apartment is accessed by the same lift that goes up to La Follie Deuce, which despite the heavy snow was in full party mode. Let me see you put your hands in the air!

As you get on the lift they have security checking rucksacks for illicit alcohol… I offered mine but they just waved me through! Deeply offended that I don’t look like I am going to a party.

What’s the weather like this morning?

The snow stopped as we had breakfast and the sun came out. We found some perfect red runs where one half was groomed and the other half had 20cm of fresh powder. Ideal for practising.

We’ve been a bit disappointed by the lack of people in silly costumes, so we decided to start a retro skiwear trend.

Here is the same suit in 1992

#wearingmymothersoldskisuit anybody?

Looking down to the lower resorts you can see that spring has firmly arrived.

The slopee are even turning green at St Martin…

We have a significant birthday in the group today, so we are trying to bake a cake with whatever random equipment the apartment has. Liquid measures are to the nearest shot glass….

Might be edible if we can get the candle wax off.

Much more promising start.

We had to drop smallest group member at ski school and so we listened to the announcements for parents. In English someone explained to the parents that she was not going anywhere, would be there for any problems all morning that the children were perfectly fine with them and to just give them the children, and enjoy a few hours off… The French version of the talk seemed to skip the 3 or 4 minutes of reassurance!

As we were out early we were some of the first people on the lifts, and had loads of fun in the 20cm of fresh powder snow. With a few incidents..

The cloud returned in the middle of the day so we ended up skiing in amongst layers of cloud including one lift which we were thinking had been a really bad idea until we came out of the top of the cloud right at the top of the lift.

Trouble is you have to ski back down through the cloud.

It brightened for the last few runs and we headed back to the resort. The Easter Bunny was out and about handing red and white pills to young children.

Which turned out to be VT branded m & ms. Apparently you are supposed to sing some traditional Easter Bunny song to be given these, but they widely waived this requirement for me.

If you wonder why the lift passes are so expensive at least we know where the promotional budget goes!

So the forecast today was always pretty rubbish and sadly for once it was right.

What that picture fails to capture is the horizontal snow and birds flying backwards past the window.

After the complexity of dropping off the youngest member of the extended family at ski school, not helped at all by the blizzard conditions, we headed out to review which lifts were open.

As you can see our options were limited, and they open the lifts because it is technically possible, not because anybody in their right mind would go up them. They did open one more lift for a bit. We tried it and the lift was OK but the run had patches of wind polished ice which were not.

We got a few runs in before retreating to our apartment for a leisurely lunch.

Tried again in the afternoon, as there was a bit less horizontal snow. There was fierce competition for the role of staying on the magic carpets with the youngest member of the party. The rest of is had a  couple more runs while the lift company kept changing there mind on which lifts were safe to run in some conditions perhaps best described as ‘unpleasant with sunny intervals’. Minor incidents including one member of our party face planting on a sheet of ice which clearly stung a bit as they stood up asking us “is my face still there”. No apparent lasting damage done.

Looks nice now… because you can’t see the 40kmph wind still howling past the window….

Anyway it has been a dream to ski with our extended family for quite a few years so we are not going to let a bit of weather spoil our mood. Forecast for tomorrow is much better.

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.

After a dusting of snow the day dawned ‘semi wholemeal’

The picture above is the view from our apartment so we should explain where it is.

We chose it purely for its central location. It is tiny and everything we need to work works. What the picture above does not show is that directly below our bedroom window is a bar that some nights has live music starting at 5.30pm and some nights starting at 10.00pm… We’ll if you have to listen to it you may as well be there.

The cocktail list is interesting.

Anyway back to the semi wholemeal weather we decided to ski over to 16 (formerly known as Courchevel 1650) where we found the fresh snow and warmer temperatures made for great snow conditions, just sometimes in the cloud

And then a sunny interval

Stopped for a coffee on the way back. The table behind us ordered a Giraffe of beer….

I thought I had seen every way of serving beer, maybe I have now?