Sorry for the delay since the last post. No excuse really, since I'm still jobless. Anyway, here's what's happened since the last update....
It's aliiiive!!!
After almost three weeks of resembling something out of the Twilight Zone, Brides les Bains has perked up. Bars are open, buses come and go, potatoes are no longer the only vegetables available in Spar. Most importantly, the gondola has been fired up and we've finally made it up the mountain.
As if to make up for the frustration of the previous fortnight's purgatory, as well as the stinger of shelling out for the season liftpass, the first day was a belter. As most of Meribel emptied towards Geneva and Chambery to make room for the next batch of punters, there was only a relative handful of folk on the slopes. Moreover, there had been a fresh dump of fluffy, feather-light powder all over the pistes. Throughout the day there was no shortage of fresh lines to take, most of them accessible right off the chairs. The only downsides were the intermittent flat light and the -20 degree temperature. A thermal-less Kyla needed regular defrosting and, by the time it came to eating our sandwiches, the baguettes were harder than a Barlinnie sudoku. A small price to pay for the day we'd had though, one that the rest of the week couldn't live up to. The temperature jumped, and soon Brides up to Les Allues had gone from white to green. The flat light stayed with us, but hard-packed piste was all that was on offer.
As if to make up for the frustration of the previous fortnight's purgatory, as well as the stinger of shelling out for the season liftpass, the first day was a belter. As most of Meribel emptied towards Geneva and Chambery to make room for the next batch of punters, there was only a relative handful of folk on the slopes. Moreover, there had been a fresh dump of fluffy, feather-light powder all over the pistes. Throughout the day there was no shortage of fresh lines to take, most of them accessible right off the chairs. The only downsides were the intermittent flat light and the -20 degree temperature. A thermal-less Kyla needed regular defrosting and, by the time it came to eating our sandwiches, the baguettes were harder than a Barlinnie sudoku. A small price to pay for the day we'd had though, one that the rest of the week couldn't live up to. The temperature jumped, and soon Brides up to Les Allues had gone from white to green. The flat light stayed with us, but hard-packed piste was all that was on offer.
pow! right in the kisserIt may have been an average first week, but it's given us the chance to weigh up the pros and cons of doing a season in a satellite town as opposed to a resort. The 25-minute gondola, rather than being the royal pisser we expected it to be, has been fine. The lift up gets you fully stoked for riding, and the knowledge that you'll have almost half an hour to take it easy after your slide gets you riding harder, for longer. With uplift from 8.30 you can easily catch the first lifts from Meribel, and there's no danger of cutting your day short to get home. The supposed inconvenience of the gondola means that accomodation prices in Brides les Bains are around half that of your Mayerhofens and your Courchevals. The cost of our apartment also includes use of the building's swimming pool, sauna and jacuzzi. Yes, there's a lot to love about Brides....
Obviously there are downsides: for starters, it's hard to predict the weather on the slopes when you're some 1000m down the valley, and there's no chance of adding or shedding a layer unless you take a backpack. Also, it's difficult to do a full day's riding without running into some issues at lunchtime. Popping back to the flat for a sandwich is not an option when it means an hour's round trip. You have to take your food up with you, and find somewhere comfortable to eat it without being fleeced for a 5-euro chocolat chaud in a Brit-bar by some reject from BBC's 'The Season'. [NB: just tried to put up a link for those who haven't seen it, but it seems even the BBC website no longer has a place for the vile, morally reprehensible piece of shit that is The Season. Count yourselves lucky].
All in all, we're stoked with our current situation. That said, we still need jobs: cut-price or not, a season is still a season, and we've been watching our respective piles diminish at a disturbing rate. Fingers crossed that we'll find something soon...
That brings us up to Christmas, details of ours coming soon. Hope everyone had a good one!
Duthie
No comments:
Post a Comment