Ella's Visit

During our second week of guests Ella came out to visit as she'd just finished finals. She's only skied once before in Mayrhofen last year but got on pretty well and even though I had to cook for 12 still got too see quite a lot of her. 

One of her few falls, luckily caught on camera

A bit of parallel skiing once the confidence was high (although I ruined that by taking her on a steep red and had to rebuild it agin the following day)

On the Olympic bubble

We got some good weather as well as the odd cloudy day, this is the view from the top of  the Olympic bubble

Ella and Clare at the Folie Douce on my day off

Cafe Face, another bar we visited after the Folie. Cheapest beers in Val d'Isere at €2.40, although they go up 20 cents every hour after 4pm. Even convinced Ella to have a beer (or a Peche) which is beer with peach syrup in it, after 2 or 3 she started to like it!

Outside the Church in Val d'Isere after some shopping

La Folie Douce Opening

The Folie Douce, probably the most famous apres ski bar in the Alpes had its 2012/13 season opening party the day before the womens Super G in Val d'Isere. It plays live music with DJ's and singers + lots of dancing on tables all season long. This year it is sponsored by Rossignol so some of the female racers were there signing pictures and modelling this years Rossignol ski gear.

Me with Lara Gut, a racer from Switzerland

Me and some of the other guys who work for VIP Ski

First Week of Guests

Our first week of guests was 4 guys, luckily no dietary requirements so an easy on to start us off. Two were boarders and the other two skied, the week went pretty well and one of the days I skied with them all day and showed them some of the powder in places they wouldn't have skied otherwise. I think they had a pretty good time and when we were skiing they bought me lunch, (the pizza below) - and it tasted so much better because I didn't have to cook it!

The view from the restaurant

Lunchtime pizza and beer, classic French almost raw egg on top

Mens GS World Cup

The guests have been here for 4 days now, and so far so good... all the cooking has gone pretty well and they're having a good time. It's 4 men probably late 40's/ 50's and they're here for 1 week, then next week we're up to full occupancy with 12 guests. The pictures below are our lovely snow-cleared steps and my first afternoon tea- hummingbird cake.

At the weekend they held the Mens World Cup Slalom and GS on that slope I've shown you thats light up at night. We has transfer day on the Saturday so didn't see the Slalom but on Sunday we watched all the 2nd runs and saw Marcel Hirscher win.

It's pretty different watching it on TV to the real thing but really glad we got to see it, hopefully there'll be a downhill at some point although someone said they got rid of it from the circuit because it was too dangerous.

Anyway here's some pictures from Sunday, lots of people and lots of noise- especially when a Frenchmen was skiing. 

Pure Powder

So it's basically been snowing everyday for the last week, lost count of how much we've had but every day has been spend doing a few hours of snow shovelling from the night before. It's a bit demoralising when you clear an area and an hour later there's 10cm of fresh stuff there but can't complain, it's good to ski on and decent exercise (plus it beats cleaning)

I think I've skied 5 times now, mostly in poor visibility but yesterday we had blue skies and could finally take on some of the powder. The new ski's are amazing, can't imagine skiing on small ski's again- they just seem to float.

Here's a few freeze frames from the GoPro

We seem to clear our doorway each night but we've woken up to this a few times

Blue skies yesterday, one of the best days skiing until I realised it was -14 and I couldn't feel my fingers or toes

Accidentally broke the 'no-backflips until 2013' rule yesterday, couldn't help it with a natural kicker and loads of powder to land in though.

Wine testing in the evening, I'm now an expert and can pick you the perfect wine for your meal, not a bad end to a great day skiing. We tried the tow house reds and whites 3 of each from our upgraded wine list including a bottle of Red that costs between €150-200 in some of the Val d'Isere restaurants.

La Face light up in the evening, ready for the downhill and GS tomorrow, should be good but they've had a job getting it ready with all the powder. Get Ski Sunday on this weekend and you should be able to watch it, or on the red button it's live I think.

Also we just found out we have our first guests tomorrow so thats something to look forward to.

First Day Skiing

Apologies for the delay in pictures but we got our first day on the mountain on the day the resort opened, December 1st. Couldn't have had much better conditions in the morning, bright blue skies and amazing snow

Not bad for the first day of the season

Me and Charlie

The second day wasn't quite so blue however, we got out in the afternoon on the 2nd December but the visibility wasn't great - mainly because it won't stop snowing! Wasn't to bad though and still got a few hours in. The picture below is a run into Tignes Val Claret.

Deep Cleaning and the Resort

The last week has basically been spent deep cleaning the chalet, here's some photos of our handy work in the kitchen and living room,

These are some pictures from around the resort, 

The Church

La Face piste lit up at night