Duthie's Diaries: Beep Day

up to no good from Andrew Duthie on Vimeo.

Cheers again to Ben and Coz for another awesome Tignes trip, this time featuring Nicol Paton. Got a good wee shred in with him before he and Ben headed off to Morzine for the Lowrider grom camp.

Back in Brides, the conditions have stayed as good as we could have hoped for. With the slopes getting quieter, and the park demolished, the Meribel season is almost over. Before it was too late, we had to tend to some unfinished business...

If you look at a 3 Valleys piste map, you'll see fifteen lifts ("beeps") marked with a special symbol. Ride all these beeps during your stay, and you get a certificate. It's a device aimed at getting holidaymakers to really appreciate the size of the place, as well as providing an incentive for complacent seasonnaires to explore. We had seen first-hand how it had inspired some to head out on a miserable afternoon, stinking hangover to boot, just to get to the far side of Les Menuires and tick another beep off the list before crawling back to bed. What intrigued Kyla and myself, though, was talk of people hitting all fifteen in a single day. Daunting but not impossible, the only way to reach the far-flung beeps would be to melt it down every run, from first lift to last. Last Saturday, the conditions were just right to have a crack at it....

8.25am: We're at the bubble in time for first uplift, but there's a problem. No-one is being let on while the lifties try and get it sorted. We don't have a lot of time to spare, so it's the last thing we need.

8.55: Finally, we get onto a bubble and make our way up the hill. Time will tell if the lost half-hour will make any difference.

9.30: The Roc De Fer, overlooking a bulletproof race piste, is the first chair of the day. Conditions are perfect, and we're both stoked to get going.

9.37: #1, the Olympic Express. 1 down, 14 to go. It's a good one to start with, seeing as the next one is 900 vertical metres down in St Martin de Belleville, and the run is a beaut. We're the first ones to ride it, joined only by a pistebasher finishing off the groom.

The count starts

After the depths of St Martin, next stop is the hights of Val Thorens. 70 minutes and 5 lifts later, and we're at #4, the Moraine. It's another wide, even piste, ripe for holding onto your hat and pointing it. The epic conditions mean that runs like this might help us make up the lost time.

11.48: #5, Peyron. Over in the 'fouth valley' of Orelle, the Peyron is maybe the most remote of all the beeps. Having only headed over here once before, we're stoked to be back. It's a definite upside of the whole plan.

A drawback, though, is that those other beeps aren't going to get themselves, and we don't have the time to hang around and enjoy more of Orelle. There's a lot of runs still to do, and most won't be as good as what the morning offered. It's back over into Val Thorens, and on to Les Menuires.

12.30: #6, Plan de l'Eau - Sure enough, we just rode down the 3 Valleys' shittest run to get to the 3 Valleys' shittest chairlift, only to do the same shitty run, but for longer. With the snow really starting to soften up, the back feet come out on the flat sections.

13.10: Masse 2 (#7), over the far side of Les Menuires. We're eating into the afternoon with less than half of the beeps covered, so we're not optimistic. Almost an hour later, we hit #8. With so much left to do, we lower our expectations.

14.33: Finally on the Pas du Lac bubble headed to Courcheval. 9 down, 6 to go. The danger now is that in our pursuit of the more remote beeps, we might miss the lifts back over. One eye on the clock from now on.

15.10: Chapelets (#11). Pointing it down every run was beginning to take its toll on the legs. At the start of the day chairlifts seemed to take forever, and we couldn't wait to get off them. Now, having just reached the furthest side of Courcheval by beating our way through choppy slush, they were over far too soon.

#12, and with only ten fingers I needed help with the count. Telling Kyla that Take That are shit did the trick.

16.04: with only 3 to go, we head back to Meribel on a lift we hadn't planned to be on. It was a low moment when we decided not to head down to get the one in La Tania, but we were out of time. The worst part was that, had we the 30 minutes that we'd lost at the start, we could have probably have made it. Now, though, it's anyone's guess as to whether we can get the last remaining beeps in Meribel.

16.43: Dent de Bourgin (#14). With seven minutes to spare, we make it to the last beep of the day. Having ticked off the Golf down in Meribel Village, it was two tense will-we-won't-we chairlifts before we reached the Dent, but we got there. By the time we reached the top the hill was all but deserted, and there was nothing for it but to take an easy cruise down the home run under the motionless lifts.

now don't be sad, cos 14 out of 15 ain't bad

Last shredder standing; Kyla heads home

17.15: On the bubble back to Brides, exhausted and a bit bewildered. After 31 lifts and 40-odd runs, it turned out to have been decided in the first half-hour. We may have failed, but still we're confident that we'd have made it to la Tania had it not been for the delay. For us, that was a good enough reason to celebrate.

Even if we hadn't come as close, it wouldn't have mattered. The day was a stormer, up there with our favourites of the season. Sometimes all you need is an old-fashioned burn around to have a good time. 3 days left before the bubble closes, stay tuned for one last post.

Duthie

The full shebbang. Orange = our lifts, purple = our runs, red = what we missed, yellow = detour.