Work hangover in Courmayeur

29th Dec: Woke up after a depressingly short sleep to go and try and make the most of the weather that had ruined the last two days. Grabbed a lift with Rasmus, Oscar and Erik to Courmayeur.

The first run was.... abysmal. Took a big core shot straight away skiing the tracked out trees that had been 'excellent' for the last two days. It was also bitterly cold. I was thoroughly pissed off and wished I'd stayed in bed. It looked like a crap day until I spotted they'd opened Youla for the first day since the snow (it said it was closed for the day when we arrived). Oscar wisely skipped the first run as his transceiver had run out of battery so sped down to buy some more.

So very cold...

The snow was fantastic. Soft and deep. We chose aspects carefully as some slopes were heavily wind loaded. We did three laps of the couloir with fresh tracks all the way down. Couple of drops off features here and there then into the already tracked trees below. I also took an embarrassing amount of falls as I hadn't turned my DINs up since the start of the season and was pre-releasing constantly. Cranking my DINs up heavily at lunch solved that problem. On our third run one of the guys led us into a couloir further West. I was hesitant due to wind loading and was proved correct as I set off a very small slab. We got out sharpish. 

Wouldn't have wanted to be first anyway

Freshies all the way skier's left

Taken by Eric

Great views

Slashing the pow

After a feast (some peanuts) we headed back up for another three laps and took the high traverse as it was relatively untracked. The snow was even better. Big arcing turns accompanied by whoops of joy. Work hangover well and truly forgotten... The day ended as it started, with a dire ski back down. The middle however had been excellent.

Waiting for Rasmus at the top of Youla

Traverse in the late afternoon... fresh to be had everywhere

On the way back through the tunnel we got had to wait in the tunnel for an hour for an emergency. Was somewhat worrying when the barriers came down and the fire engines blasted past. Luckily all that happened was a coach had broken down / was leaking oil.