On January 3rd, I left Montreal bound for England and, after a few days spent in London with the cousins, headed to the Eurostar bound for Bourg-Saint-Maurice for a week long ski trip. After 7 hours on the train, we got our first glimpse of the mountains - tall jagged peaks turned pink in sunset. We arrived at Les Arcs ski resort at around 9pm, after a long and freezing trek to the room (the building we stayed in is a maze, all winding halls and dark corners - it was very hard finding anything, especially our room) and at 9:30 went out to find dinner. We were hoping to be able to pick up our skis, which we had already rented, and groceries, but both the ski rental and grocery store were closed by the time we made it there. Instead we found a tiny pizza place (one single table, which we took) with the jolliest French pizza maker singing away to La Rue Ketanou. It was a great first dinner in the Alps.
Day 1 at Les arcs: we left the room early-ish to go get groceries for the week and pick up our skis. After a breakfast of fresh pain-au-chocolat and apples we headed out onto the mountain. The lift is right next to our building, only about a 5 minute walk, and we easily made our way to the gondola and into the mountains. We skied a few runs on the far side of the mountain, then skied through 1950, a beautiful little village about halfway down the mountain. We explored a little, did a few more runs, then headed to a lodge for lunch - leftover pizza and, of course, hot chocolate.
It was very foggy in the morning up until we went in for lunch, but it got a little sunnier near the peak of the mountain after lunch and we decided to test our luck and take a second gondola from where we were up the top of the mountain. It was an excellent choice. When we got to the top, it was bright and so beautiful. The air was full of ice crystals which glistened in the sun, making it look as though we were surrounded by sparkles. There were 360 degree views of the mountains, which were like something out of a movie, so big, snowy and majestic. It sounds a bit cliche to describe them thus, but I really could not believe what I was seeing. Every day I was astounded anew, and had to stop about a hundred times to say, "wait, I need to look at this some more" or "hold on, I'm taking a picture!" We looked out over one side and could see an ice rainbow (like magic!), and once we set out down the run it turned out to be the best one of the day, so good we did it twice. Long, steep, fast and snowy. After that we did the snow park jumps twice, then headed to Arpette, a lodge where a lot of the other students on the trip went after skiing. Loud music, excellent views, drinks. We stayed for about an hour, then skied back to the room.
near the top - Aiguille Rouge
snow crystals and an ice rainbow
views at Arpette
Our second ski day was awesome, so sunny and beautiful, though the snow was a bit icy. We skied with our roommate and two other new friends. Our group of five came from all over: America, England, Scotland, Croatia and Slovakia. One of the things I really love about Edinburgh Uni is how international the students are. The five of us are at about the same level of skiing so it was really fun to ski in a big group - I usually ski with my family, which is great, but skiing with people my age was pretty awesome, especially in such a beautiful place. We went to the very top of the mountain again and skied all the way down, mostly on red runs. In Europe (or at least in France) the runs are ranked differently from in the US. Instead of being classified from green circle (easiest), to blue square, to black diamond, to double black diamond (hardest), they're ranked green, to blue, to red, to black. The black runs were mostly too icy and exposed to ski, so we stuck to reds, which suited us fine - fast and steep but also wide and not rocky. It was great to be able to ski multiple days in a row as I could improve and really feel the improvements day by day. We skied all over the mountain from 10-3:30, stopping for lunch/hot chocolate at chalet Luigi, and ending the day with a couple runs through the jumps in the snow parc and then a couple hours at Arpette. We skied past the sunset over the Alps to end the day.
sunset
The third day was very cold. We skied from 9:30-3, ending our day at Arpette again but inside this time, away from the wind and snow, drinking coffees instead of beers. It was nice but overcast in the morning, and we had some great runs, but then temperatures dropped and it started snowing pretty hard. This is great news in a way, because the fresh snow covered the icy patches and made the slopes a little softer, but it was freezing on the toes and face. The whiteout conditions also made it extremely difficult to see the snow we were skiing on, so we couldn't tell where the icy patches or bumps were until we were on them. This made for slightly treacherous skiing, but I guess it adds a fun sense of the unpredictable. We hit up the jumps again, then headed back to our room for showers and dinner before going out to a bar.
lunch every day
Our beds (with me for size reference)
The rooms here are very French. They look like they're meant to hold about three people, but there are beds for five. The kitchen is tiny, and right next to our beds (I'm sleeping on a pull out bed we've dubbed 'the drawer' under my friend's single bed, and our two roommates are in the loft sharing a double bed). The kitchen holds one person comfortably, but add any more than one and it becomes overcrowded. Despite the small, cramped size (a spaceship kitchen we call it) the shelves and drawers are stuffed with more kitchen tools than we could ever need - a mini oven called the compact chef, a tiny three hob stove, a microwave, a dishwasher, and every kind of pot, pan, and assortment of plates and bowls possible crammed into every open space. It's a pretty nice set up for a university trip to the Alps.
Fourth ski day: sunny, but very cold (-10C with some wind). We headed out to ski at 9:30, and skied until 3, then stayed at Arpette for a bit before heading back to the room for some BBC 1 or 2 (our only two English channels) and pesto pasta. We met up with the guys again and skied on in our group of 5 for half the day, then split up for lunch. We hit up our favourite snow park run a couple times, as well as the top of the mountain run. Great day.
We stopped here for lunch one day.
views from the top
It snowed for much of the last two days we had skiing, which was good at first but then got to be a bit too much. On our last day, much of the mountain was closed, so we explored some of the lower runs that we hadn't done yet before packing up to head back to Edinburgh and the last semester of final year.
Powder!
views from the train back