Our backyard - Espace Killy

The region has seen a lot of snow to date and everyone is praising it as the best winter season so far for a number of years. We've had everything from light drizzles to a few multi-day blizzards, during the worst of which they recorded winds over 200km/h at the Bellevarde mid-station. Val was cut off to Bourg St Maurice (only way in or out of the valley) for 2 days and with the risk of avalanches so high, even roads within the village were closed and all pubs, clubs and restaurants forced to close and send patrons home. However, much to the delight of every skiier & boarder, we received significant dumps of snow - on the heaviest day they recorded nearly 1m within 12 hours just in the village and even more at higher altitudes.

Anyway, the point of this blog post is to show off Espace Killy (the ski area joining Val d'Isere & Tignes). As you can see, in between all this snowing we have had some gorgeous sunny days... here are some pics from various locations, all showing how stunning the scenery is here in our backyard.

Looking back on Glacier Express chair lift

Top of Cascade Express chair lift in the Val glacier area - they have skiing up here in summer as well (~3200m)

Bellevarde (2827m) above the clouds

View of Val from the Triffolet run heading towards La Daille (lowest Val village)

Picnic at Toviere (2704m)

Looking back on Vanoise chair lift with Tignes villages Val Claret (closer)
& Le Lac (other side of the lake) in the background

On Vanoise chair lift

Rock formations at L'Aiguille Percee (2748m) with top of Marais chair lift in foreground

Zoomed in to the other side of same rocks from top of Palafour chair lift

Polo Masters

The french polo masters tournament was held in Val from the 11th to 14th January - yes, horses on snow running around after a small beach ball! We watched a few of the heats and the finals over a couple of nights, enjoying free vin chaud, soup and waffles on the side of the Face piste were the pisters had flattened an area to make an oval. I'm not sure what the grass version of polo is like but this seemed to be pretty much anything goes with the game only stopping when someone fell off their horse or the ball went out of the arena. There were 4 teams in the competition with 3 players each. The game is divided into 4 chuckers (quarters) when all players change horses, guess it gets too cold for them. It's a very fast paced game and the final was hotly contested to a narrow 9-8 result.

Christmas & New Year celebrations

Well yes it has been a while since the blog was last updated, guess we're just having too much fun that days and weeks are flying by! Christmas day was fun although it started with me working at a daily clean in the morning (first time ever working on the 25th december) and Dave sleeping in after a night of DJ'ing. We met up with Paul & Irene on the top of Bellevarde for a jovial afternoon skiing and stopping to consume an over-priced jug of vin chaud (mulled wine) at La Folie Duce mountain bar/restaurant on our way back down. It did have a great atmosphere, with most people atop tables and chairs dancing to the DJ and band. Off the slopes we headed to Cafe Face, one of the popular apres ski bars in Val, met a few other seasonaires and dragged them to our local Abracadabra with us for vodka shots. Finally made it home about 9pm to cook up our christmas chook roast!

New Year's eve was a bit better organised. Dave was playing in Tignes at Melting so we booked dinner in Val Claret (one of the Tignes villages) before hand - savoyard cheese fondue with meat charcouterie - fantastic as always. Lio (french friend living in Brisbane back in France on hols) managed to catch up with us before midnight and we celebrated the new year countdown out in the snow watching fireworks and getting into snow ball fights with everyone around. Irene & I talked Lio into driving us back to Val about 3:30am in the morning which we did after spending another hour digging his car out of the snow and getting the chains on as it was coming down pretty heavily. Dave & Paul made it back into Val in time to go to our local club Le Graal for a lock-in session, getting home sometime around 9am. Apparently (and not surprisingly), the 1st was one of the quietest days on the slopes!

Xmas day - on Tommeuses chair lift

Xmas day - at La Folie Duce

New year's eve - Val Claret, Tignes

Merry Christmas!

Hope you all have a great Xmas and enjoy the holiday season!

Cheese fondue with Paul & Irene

Snow in the village

Apparently Val has nearly had as much snow fall in the last 2 weeks as they had in the whole of last season. It's been a lot but it gets cleared away fairly quickly. In a couple of spots they piled up snow and created some sculptures...

Santa sculpture

Skiier sculpture

2 heads in the middle of the main roundabout

Deadly icicles forming everywhere

Piles of snow along the main street

River nearly completely snowed over

First day skiing!

After arriving in Val with little to no snow nearly 2 weeks (that long already?) ago, mother nature opened up and it snowed basically non-stop for 4 days straight. It got heavier each day and we ended up with 80cm in the village (1800m altitude) and 1.5m at the top (about 3500m). With the snow, the resort sprang into life, and after much chaos in the streets with various heavy machinery, we woke on Wednesday to a beautiful clear blue sky and our first day of skiing. There's definitely something to be said for spending a season out here and being able to pick your days when the weather's nice as opposed to a one week holiday and going out regardless of conditions!! Here's a few shots...

Top of Madelaine Express chair lift - look at all that fresh snow!

Piste intersection

Relaxing at lunch time

Dave's new friend checking he's ok after falling off a chair in the loose snow

Dave skiing down our street back to the apartment

Val d'Isere village from the Solaise Express chairlift on the way back down

Before the snow arrived

Here's a couple of pictures from our first few days in Val d'Isere before the snow arrived...

West view from our balcony

From our bus stop toward village centre

From our bus stop away from village centre

Down main street

Solaise Express chair lift - piles of snow where they had snow making machines going

Tyres covering the tennis courts to protect the surface when they scrap off the snow at the end of the season

Village church

Village fountain