Holiday post no.8

Today was my last day skiing, as our ski lift passes have run out and we are going home tomorrow. It wasn't a bad day, the weather was very cold in comparison to all other days we've had here but it could've be colder though. In terms of temperature, this week has been wonderful; most days it has been about -1 degrees. It sounds freezing because...well it is the freezing temperature of water, but for here, it is actually pretty warm and when you are dressed for skiing, it's actually a pretty damn good temperature. We managed to cover all of the surrounding mountain ranges in our skiing today, admittedly we did not do a lot of the runs in some of the areas but we made a good attempt at it! After going up one mountain range in the first place, we organised to meet at the bottom of a certain chairlift, but I misheard my parents and we spent about an hour looking for each other. After waiting a while for them at the chairlift i thought was specified, I then went up each chairlift around that one and ended up going down a load of different runs. In the end, they rung me and we organised to meet up at the start of the mountain, but when I went to the chairlift to take me there, I found it was closed. This pissed me off quite a bit but we eventually organised to meet somewhere, then eventually managed to get to the start of the mountain. From there, we went down 'La Face', a run I mentioned in a previous post. If you read that post, you would know it is a difficult run, I would probably say the hardest run in the area. Anyway, we were doing this not so much as a challenge, but more to test the conditions, because a ski instructor had told us that at the end of the day, the conditions on the piste were dreadful, to the point even he would not enjoy skiing down the run. He said that if we did the run earlier on in the day, it would be much more enjoyable, as the ice would not be so uncovered yet. I feel that we did not do the run early enough as it was still fairly icy at points, but I might just have too high hopes. 

I still sped down here, slowing down at points where it was just too icy to go fast and waited around at the nursery slopes where the run ends. My mum took a while to get down, as my dad had slipped over and had to put a ski back on. He then decided to take a cable-car down the mountain instead of ski down, as he had hurt his knee in the fall. It was probably a good thing that he did not decide to ski down as at some points, even I found it pretty tricky getting down at all. Meanwhile I did a couple of runs while my mum waited for him to get down. 

Once he came down, he said that he was finished with skiing for the day, as his knee was injured. It was a shame, but at least it was on the last day of skiing. So we took a bus to another chair lift up to a different mountain range, and sat at the bottom and had lunch. After we were finished, my dad went back to the apartment and me and my mother went up the mountain. It was intensely cold up here, and we skied around this area for a while before we gave up as it was just too cold. At the highest run of that mountain, my mother pointed out that the thermometers at the chairlift said it was -15 degrees..which is just unbelievable to me! I would expect it would feel so much colder. We then took the chairlift over to the other side of the mountain in hope that it would be warmer. It was, marginally. So for an hour or so we skied around this area, doing some nice easy runs. It was wonderful, as these two last mountain ranges had barely any people on them, so the slopes were much less crowded than usual. This made skiing today very enjoyable, ignoring the fact of the cold. Soon enough though, the time to come down the mountain for the last time came, not soon enough for my liking, as it was a little too cold up there for my liking, so I was rather in envy of my dad, in the warmth! I forced myself to stay till the end though, as it was the last day I would be skiing for a long while. 

I only managed to take one picture while I was up on the slopes today, as I completely forgot about doing so until the last minute. However I took a picture of the resort in the sun from high up on the run 'La Face'. I feel it really does show the size of the resort quite well.

After this, we went back and relaxed then eventually went out again to take our rented ski equipment back. Then later on, the ski instructor that me and my mother had been taught by earlier on came round for a drink and snack to eat. 

Anyway, i'm going to wind down now and get to sleep soon, so adios till tomorrow.