Me, Gabriel, Isrrael (brothers from Venezuela, studying at le CUEF) Sasha, Sammy and Tom hop on a 2 hour bus on Friday night and arrive in the snowy ski town of Les Deux Alpes. There's just one main road, with ski shops, quaint little restaurants and pubs and cabins. In the night, you can see the outline of the ski trails sloping right down into the village. We stay at L'Hotel Des Neiges, and eat dinner all together at a fondue restaurant. Guinness beers afterwards in the local pub- meet loads of English people who work at the ski station during the winter.
Saturday morning, we way up at 8am and get our gear on - it's ski time ! It's takes a while to rent equipment, buy tickets and get breakfast (and cafe au lait), so it's almost 11am by the time we get on the first
teleferry. It's a big round gondola that everyone jumps into, about 10 to each one. A 15 minute ride brings us up over the first mountain and to the base of the glacier. There's another teleferry to bring you to the top of the glacier, but we decide we just want to ski before waiting in any more lines. I kind of wish we went then because tempests came later on, so we never make it to the top :( Oh well, next weekend!
Instead, we all ski down to another chairlift (through some horribly cold wind) and hit a few slopes- the skiing is spectacular. I couldn't help screaming out "WOOP WOOP!" as I flew down the trail. Sasha and I are at exactly the same speed, so we stuck together throughout the day, while Gabriel and Issrael paired up (both snowboarders), and Sammy and Tom paired up. Sammy is from Vale, Colorado so she's a mad good skiier, but stuck with Tom (from Texas) who's never skiied before.
Sasha's incredibly good at snowboarding - it was so great to just FLY down the slopes. We get to one point on the mountain and just admire the breathtaking view of all the mountains in the distance. We couldn't get over the views, the powder, the conditions (and all the hot snowboarders :) Unfortunately, the wind gets too strong at the top so we make our way down to the base for lunch... we come to a crossroads- green trail (half of which is flat, no good for snowboarders) or black (très difficile). We debate, look at each one, look at each other- "Black?"
"Let's go for it!" We can't even see the other side of the trail, that's how steep it is- plus, the entire start of the trail doesn't have powder on it, so we just slide (and swear) our way down. It is SO steep - my legs are on FIRE as I try to turn sharply and hit the moguls. At one point, I lose control and take a little tumble...oh, can't stop, still tumbling, I CAN'T STOP! Op, there goes one pole, I'm rolling head over heals - I slide about 50 feet! I am a giant snowman, covered in snow. But I'm laughing laughing laughing because I literally couldn't stop rolling, it was so steep!
I use the rest of the energy left in my legs to get down the mountain- whew! Ok, never again... Blacks in NH are not the same as black diamonds in the Alps. Sasha and I are cracking up though because she just watched me tumble my way down the mountain, with my skis in the air and me freaking out! We walk a whiiiile over to a local restaurant for some hot pumpkin soup and espressos. The others guys all trickle in and we call it a day- the others got stuck in the tempest at the top and look frozen nearly to death. We all sit around for about 2 hours! The bus back to Grenoble isn't until 6pm...
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