Les Arcs Diary - Week 11

Saturday 13th March

A day off, all that hardcore boarding has taken it's toll. Also as the weather turned really warm yesterday the snow has gone slushy and choppy and there is very flat light. Not good for boarding. Also needed to update the website, which I am doing around one of the chalets. The Quicksilver Cup starts tomorrow so will be off to watch all the pro's in action.

Friday 12th March

I went out with Chris and Liam, but it is very flat light, the snow is heavy as it is very warm and we are all knackered. Just some piste riding today. Go back out in the afternoon with Alison and her sister, Erica, and do some filming. It is Erica's last night so the Planet Subzero crew head down to Oxygene after the Mont Blanc. A good night out.

Thursday 11th March

There is still blue skies and powder. I went out on my own in the morning and did the hike off Grand Renard. Join Liam from the Mont Blanc in the afternoon and we do The Grieve, this time I film it with the helmet camera. Easier hike this time and the run down is awesome. Follow it up with the hike up Grand Renard and Kirsty's Windlip, which doesn't seem extreme at all anymore!

Wednesday 10th March

Chris and I go out in the morning, though we are both still suffering from the night before. We do the hike up Grand Renard but it proves a comically disatrous run, captured on film with helmet cam. Chris hits a rock on the way down and loses both his skis in the powder. It takes us half an hour to find them. Then I go over a cliff with a 30ft drop onto rocks, just managing to dig an edge in just below the top and climbing out. Then Chris does a 180 onto the piste and lands on a boarder just sitting there. We decide to get off the slopes! As I am walking down to the Dahu in the evening it starts snowing again.

Tuesday 9th March

While everyone else was sleeping off their hangovers I went out with Steph. It snowed last night so so we have blue skies and more powder. She shows me an off piste run that requires a small hike off the Grand Renard lift, it is almost untracked and so good we do it twice. Then we hike up from the top of the Transarc to do the Grieve. The hike takes twenty five minutes, and takes us to the top of a mountain ridge. We are among the first up so there is a full face of untracked powder. It only takes two minutes to go down, through thigh deep powder, but what a two minutes. The most fun I have ever had on a snowboard. karaoke night at the Mont Blanc is packed, so I do my usual energetic version of "Born To Be Wild" - goes down a storm!

Monday 8th March

Another great day doing off piste off the 69 lift in the fresh powder. In the evening thirty of us go to Arcs1800 to celebrate a birthday in the Red Hot Saloon, dancing the night away to a great covers band. The walk back at 2am isn't much fun, half an hour along a piste.

Sunday 7th March

Out enjoying the fresh powder and blue skies with Yoko, find a great off piste run under the Varet bubble by the Flying Kilometre, and do it a couple of times. The afternoon is less fun, watching Wales capitulate to France in the rugby.