Day in Courcheval

With our Espace Killy season passes we get 2 free days to a number of other ski resorts in the area. And as we now have periodic access to a car, we decided to head to Courcheval in the 3 Valleys, a favourite of both Dave & Paul. Unfortunately I had to be satisfied with being a mere pedestrian but it was a great day all the same. We parked the car in Courcheval 1550, sorted out our passes and made our way up 3 cable cars to the top of Saulire. While the guys spent time skiing, I sunbathed on the mountain and window shopped in the villages of Courcheval 1850 & 1550. I thought prices in Val were expensive but as Dave had warned me, Courcheval turned out to be much worse! This comes from the perspective of a seasonaire so of course the high society types (who were definitely in abundance) probably didn't think anything of it! Anyway, here's a few pics of the gorgeous area.

Restaurant at top of Saulire (2738m) - can of soft drink 6 euros!

Dave & Paul about to head down La Saulire red run

View up to Saulire from Vizelle, the next peak

Dave, Paul & I at Vizelle

View south from Vizelle

Vizelle cable car

View north from Vizelle

Courcheval 1850 where the pistes & cable cars meet

Courcheval 1850

Courcheval 1850 where the Grangettes cable car arrives from the 1550 village just off to the right

Broken collar bone

Well I guess one of us was bound to injure ourselves this season... of course it had to be me with a broken left collar bone! Happened on the 16th Feb skiing down a gentle blue run into Tignes Val Claret (near the bottom of Henri for those that have a piste map to hand). I have had quite a few spills whilst skiing this season but usually just get up, dust the snow off & keep going. Dave says "if you don't fall over, you're not trying hard enough" so I guess it's all in the name of progress. That said, Dave reckons he's only fallen over twice this season... although that's probably more of an indication of just how much effort he's been putting into skiing!

Straight away I could tell this fall was a bit worse as there was limited movement in my left arm and my shoulder was screaming. Luckily there was a bus back to Val d'Isere within half an hour, and Paul & Irene were there to help me down to Tignes Le Lac in time to catch it. As you can see, the xray shows my collar bone pretty well snapped (and it was protruding but at least not through the skin). Treatment is a fairly restrictive arm/shoulder brace that keeps my arms back and shoulders as straight as possible for 4 weeks while the bone heals...1 week & 4 days to go... I'd be lying if I said I wasn't counting ;-)

I think the top xray is first off then the bottom one is after they pushed the bone back down
(a drama in it's own right involving gas and an injection)

Kim & Paul's visit

Sunday the 5th Feb was about the 7th day into our big freeze when temperatures had been regularly down to -30C and not getting above -10C even during the day. It was also the day of Kim & Paul's arrival into Val. Luckily for them the extremely low temperatures only lasted a few more days and we were able to get some good skiing & boarding in. It was great to have them here for a week and they had a great time (albeit a cold one). It was obvious however, that they struggled to keep up with the rigorous schedule of bar hopping we had planned most nights, regularly sneaking back off to their apartment to sleep! A couple of photos below but we also took a load of video footage that I'll hopefully be cropping and uploading in time.

On the Village chair lift

Kim on the Genepy run

Paul at the top of the Madeleine run