Last morning in Les Arcs, and heading home

We'd had the option of skiing on our last morning, which would have involved paying extra for hire and lift passes, and getting up early and rushing back to be ready for the coach at 12.30. After such a big Saturday, we decided to give ourselves a sleep-in and a leisurely breakfast instead. All the Rackers did likewise, despite Sean's intention of going out.

So I think we got up at about 9am and went down to breakfast. There were a lot more Rackers there this time. All the talk was of Rob getting lucky and not being in the hotel. After breakfast, we packed up and checked out, leaving our bags in the foyer, and then went for a wander in the village.

We bought some mini saucissons, and Christian bought some glove liners. We then went up some stairs and discovered the main frontage of the resort, and just how close the bottom of Transarc 46 was to the hotel. The cloud was very high today, and at this point it was difficult to see around the village. We walked back to the hotel in time for about midday.

As we wanted to get the front seat of the bus, we followed Georgia down when she went to find the coach driver. Except we couldn't find him. After a number of phone calls, the coach driver appeared on another bus and spoke to Georgia. He was refusing to bring the coach up to the bus stop, despite this having been the arrangement, because the police had been hassling him. In the end, he gave in, and went to get the coach and drive it up.

We all got on, and finally set off. The road down to Bourg St Maurice was in cloud, and our progress was slow, but once on the flat, we made good time. We stopped at a services, and bought some wraps for lunch, with crisps and chocolate for added snackiness. Before much longer, we were back at the Swiss border, and then at the airport.

Check-in was painless, but we had a long time to kill at the airport, so we did lots of wandering, and finally sat to eat (although it was technically too early for dinner). I had a good pizza, and Christian had a pasta bolognaise.

Our gate was called and we made the journey there. It was a cool round series of gates up some stairs. Boarding was called, and we waited almost until last to get on. We were delayed because the baggage handlers had put the wrong bag on our plane, and so we had to wait for that to get sorted out. The flight itself was smooth. We were served a wrap, which I saved for later.

Back in London, we did the usual - passport control, collected baggage, said goodbye to the Rackers, and headed to a pod, from whence we found the car and drove home.

Full day skiing in Les Arcs

The alarm went off at 7pm, which wasn't too bad. We wanted to get as early a start as possible. We got ready and went down to breakfast, and unsurprisingly, were the only Rackers in sight. We had a couple of courses of breakfast (I had a very unsatisfactory cup of tea), and Prash and Sally appeared before long. Turned out the lifts only opened at 9.15, so we took our time (after a slight panic about my lost sunglasses which turned up in the drying room), got ready, and were up on the slopes at around 9.30.

We skiied fairly constantly all morning. First up, we took Transarc 47 up higher, and spent some time on Col de la Chal, and Valee de l'Arc. It was very crunchy up there early on, and Vallee de l'Arc was hard for me to get enough speed up on. We stayed there for a bit, and took one of the red runs down a couple of times. There were a lot of people up there, and many of them were quite aggressive skiiers. We skiied down to Arc 1950, and got the Marmottes and Arcabulle lifts right back up to the top. We made a detour to the St Jacques lift, which had some lovely wide by steep blue runs. Again there was no one there. This was a beginner area, so the lift was painfully slow. Time was getting short, and so we started making our way to lunch. Back at the top of Bois de l'Ours, we took the Arpette run down, and crossed over to Grands Melezes. We were going to go back to the room to get Christian's SLR, but in the end, we couldn't be bothered.

Because my feet and legs were so sore, I stayed halfway up the Transarc lift while Christian skiied down to the bottom of Charmettoger and took that lift back up again, though I had to go uphill to get there. That was better than the alternative. Loosening my boots was enough to restore the circulation to my lower legs and feet. Christian reappeared, and we got on the Transarc 47 with some other Rackers, and went to the top to meet the other for lunch at La Creche. We got reserved tables outside, and went in to get our self serve lunch. I had a burger and chips, with chocolate mousse for afters. It was nice, but not amazing. Christian had a steak.

After lunch, we were going to ski with Birgit and her Dutch other half and another Racker, but they took off a little slowly for us, so we overtook them and went down Col de la Chal, and Plan des Eaux, continuing down to the bottom of Marmottes. Because the Plagnettes and Arcabulle lifts were so busy, we took Bois de L'Ours back up to l'Arpette and spent quite some time on the Arpette runs. I took the long blue run once, but got lost and ended up going down the red Col des Frettes, which was not fun. I concluded that taking the early red drop-off was much easier, though it was a bit icy.

Christian had arranged to meet Prash at 4pm so we could ski together. They spoke to each other when we were halfway up Transarc, so rather than skiing down to meet him, we stayed where we were and waited for him to take the lift up to us. We set off skiing, and for a beginner, he was very brave and keen. I think he made some good progress, though I'm not sure we were the best of teachers. It was a steep run for him to try and he did well.

Sab caught up with us, and offered to stay with Prash while we went to the bottom of the run and came back up. So we did. At the bottom of Charmettoger, we got a bit lost, and Birgit told us how to get to the bottom of the lift (via Belvedere). Only she got it wrong. So we skiied down to the hotel, and walked back up to the lift, and got on it. We looked everywhere for Prash and Sab, but couldn't see them anywhere. So we decided to just keep doing Charmettoger until the lift closed. We were halfway down when Sab went past on the lift over my head. I asked what he'd done with Prash. He said he'd killed him and buried the body. At least they'd got down safely.

We kept going and took the lift back up. Christian decided to bomb down on this run. So he was well ahead of me when Sab went past overhead again, telling me that I was being left behind. I think we fitted in one more run right before the lift closed, and headed back to the hotel. We dropped off our hire gear (I wasn't sorry to get those boots off) and went upstairs.

I was determined to have a sauna, so after lolling around (Christian was a bit sniffly by now) and getting our energy back, I went downstairs to investigate, and found I had the whole area to myself. The warmth was heaven on my muscles, but as usual, 20 minutes was about all I could take. I went looking for the piscine, but failed to find it (Christian later told me that it was outside).

I had a shower, got dressed quickly, and we went out to keep our dinner reservation. The restaurant (La Cabane des Neiges) was nowhere near as noisy or crowded as it had been the night before (which was a blessing), and we were shown to our table downstairs. We ordered a glass of champagne each, and ordered our raclette. It came out very quickly, and it was fun playing with the melting machine. The plate arrangement wasn't perfect, though, and I couldn't keep up with all the melting cheese (we turned it off a couple of times). It was absolutely delicious, though, and well worth the price. We didn't have a starter or dessert, as there was plenty of food.

As we were leaving at about 8.30, the rest of the Rackers were arriving, so that was good timing. Christian was quite sniffly, and ready for bed by now, so we headed back to the hotel, and turned in early for the night.

Early start to Geneva, and thence to Les Arcs

The alarm went off most unwelcomely at 4am. We were out the door around 4.30, drove to Heathrow terminal 5, and parked easily in the POD parking area. We had to wait about ten minutes for a pod, which was freezing and annoying, but we got to departures in plenty of time, and met up with Georgia and the Rackers. We checked in and went through security, and met Sean and Prash and Sally in Starbucks for some breakfast.

The gate was finally called, and we made our way to it. Boarding was well in advance of the flight time, so we ambled to our seats, and strapped in a row with Sean. The flight was uneventful - I had tea again, and we were served another ham and cheese croissant, which I saved for later. The landing into Geneva was a bit bumpy, and I was slightly queasy.

We filed off the plane, and Georgia shepherded us like cats to the baggage carousel, and thence to the coach. Georgia made sure that Christian and I had the front seat - the coach was not full as the presidents club had done the drive the day before. The coach driver was a funny guy. He had good English, and was always cracking jokes.

There was snow on the ground very soon after Geneva, and continued all the way into the alps. We passed through the border before the snow started, and the drive, after beginning fairly grey and ordinary, soon brightened up so we could enjoy the beautiful scenery.

We made a stop at a McDonald's, which was surrounded by large piles of dirty snow. Christian won at orders by using the machine and getting our food before anyone else. After 20 minutes or so, we were back on the road.

Most of us started to nod off after this, and I began to wonder how on earth I'd find the energy to ski for the afternoon. We got to Bourg St Maurice, and I was pretty awake. Christian described how he'd arrived there by train before to get to other resorts. We then started the final climb to Les Arcs. After a few choice switchbacks, the driver stopped, and we walked the final few hundred metres to the hotel. Our luggage was taken care of. I was thankful for my new snow boots.

The hotel was nice, without being decadent. We picked up keys and other essentials, and headed downstairs to the bar for a welcome drink. This did not include coffee, about which I was unimpressed. We had a coffee to wake us up, went to our room to get ready, and went straight to the hire shop to pick up our gear. This was done with a minimum of fuss. My boots were tight, but fitted well.

We walked the short distance uphill to the Charmettoger lift, got our skis on, and began. The weather and conditions were near perfect - it was sunny, and the snow was deep and dry. At the top of the Charmettoger lift, we got straight on Transarc 47, and went higher up the mountain. At the top, I think we took Plan-vert, detoured onto Plan, and then onto Marmottes to Arc 1950. From there, we got the Bois de L'ours lift up to L'Arpette, from whence Arpette, and Grands Melezes, back to the Charmettoger area, The Charmettoger runs were really nice, as the sun was finally full on the area, and there was no one there. Heavenly - we did another few runs until the lifts closed at 4.50.

Christian dropped down onto the road via a narrow snowy off-piste path, while I much more safely walked around the road, which was quicker in the end, by the time he and others had worked out how to get over the car park fence. Back in the hotel, we dropped our skis, boots and poles downstairs in the drying room attached to the hire shop, and went to our room.

After taking some sunset photos out the window, we got dressed and went down to the bar to meet people pre-dinner. We were so early that most people, having gone straight to the bar apres-ski, were leaving to get ready. We got some spirit mixers, and asked about food, because we hadn't had any since Maccas and I was starving. They didn't have any crisps, but the bar had put on plates of tasty meats and things, and so we gobbled up lots of that. Yum.

People came back to the bar ready for dinner, and the real drinking started. Christian had a genepi, as it seemed the thing to do. Then one of the barmen offered a genepi to one of the girls for free, but she didn't want it. So I had it. It wasn't bad.

When everyone was gathered, we walked down into the village for dinner, to Une Parenthese. It was a nice enough place, and the food was good, if not terribly French. The wine was very nice. We sat at a table with no one we knew, and chatted to the others. For a starter I had a foie gras terrine, which was tasty. Christian had scallops in eclairs (choux pastry), which sounded random, but was apparently good. For main I had a sea bass fillet with beetroot risotto. The fish was good, and the risotto was definitely not beetroot, but tasty all the same. Christian had beef with mashed potato - he said it was overcooked, or pre-cooked. Either way, not great. At this point, I went outside to ring Jill about bills. When I came back, everyone was playing musical chairs, and so I sat with Andy and Sally for a while.

Amar got up to make his famous speech, and I went back to my seat. The speech was pretty awful, because they kept ordering shots for him. Anyway, dessert came - mine was the chocolate and caramel dessert of randomness, which was not very caramel. It was nice though, a soft sweet thing covered in chocolate, roughly in the shape of a large chocolate bar. Christian had chestnut cream mousse, which was pretty good.

We left soon after the speeches, and had a wander down into the village to see if we could find places to eat raclette the next night. We found a good contender and booked then and there. As we walked back past the restaurant, more speeches had started, so our timing had been good. Back at the hotel, I had a shower, and we got ready for bed. It was after 11pm by the time we switched off the light.