Sparky had brought his accordion along for the day. Yes, I typed that correctly... Five of us got in the bubble and a random French boarder jumped in. Sparky started the party gondola off with some music and the French guy joined in beatboxing. We went straight up top-bin and Sparky started playing. The whole gondola was nodding and dancing along and he got a resounding cheer as he finished and the doors opened. At the top we got given free water and cookies for someones Neknominate.
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| Party Gondola |
First lap was skiers' right off the Charles Bozon piste. Snow was soft and deeper than expected although some bits had some pretty brutal avalanche debris underneath. Highlight was Sparky playing tunes as we all cruised down. Second lap we traversed to Hotel Face, something I'd heard loads about but hadn't skied yet. After a faff of a traverse (Steve on a monoboard and Sparky on a snowboard) we made it to the top. The terrain is awesome. We picked an untouched line down skiers' right and made our way down. I was allowed the privilege of going first.
Whilst we were getting there some *$%* dropped in from a lower traverse and snaked our fresh line. Pretty angry but oh well. Although hesitant I dropped in. The snow was perfect. Ripped it down a spine, dodging my sluff and the rocks and out into the bowl below. Stopped quite low down incase the slope went. About a minute later I heard a yell and scraping rocks. A cloud had moved in briefly so I had no idea what happened, just that Steve hadn't made it down. S**t. Turns out his sluff had ripped his pole from him and he'd stopped, his board hitting a rock on the way.
Robyn, who had been nervous, made it down fine and stopped by Steve's sluff to find his pole. Monoskiing with only 1 pole in powder is a nightmare, but Steve pulled it off. Impressive. Sparky and Tomtom followed and both ripped it down the slope. Great to watch.
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| Monoboard and snowboard hiking fun |
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| Tom Tom and Robyn looking down on Hotel Face |
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| Picking our line |
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| Dropping in |
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| Sluffs ahoy |
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| Sparky killing it |
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| Tom Tom killing it |
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| The group and our tracks |
By this point most of shaded lines on Hotel had gone so we went back up to repeat our first run. Snow was still excellent and untouched. On the way we saw a couple of basejumpers hiking up above top-bin so we decided to stop, have lunch and watch them from below. I had already eaten so I hiked up to drop one of the boulders above a few times.
After lots of messing around, snow diving / angels and accordion melodies we were worried they'd decided against it. 15 minutes after they'd finished knocking away the cornice we saw a head poke over. It was go time. Two of them flung themselves off within metres of each other and within a few seconds had disappeared down the gorge. Pretty amazing. The first time I've seen it in the flesh.
The others called it after the run down and luckily I bumped into Luke and Will. We dropped off the back of Cornu and traversed over. Will was talking about his Neknominate frontflip. Pointed out that backflips were usually easier. We eventually found a nice natural kicker and after 15 mins work it was ready. Check it out here. Serious balls Will, serious balls. He only overbalanced very slightly sideways otherwise he may have landed it. So close.
Did one more run of Bozon and the snow had refrozen so I got the hell out of there.
Evenful day...
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