RedBull Week and Birthday

Between Feb 24th - March 3rd we had the RedBull Winter Wonderland Corporate event at our chalet. Other than the sign outside and the RedBull fridge the chalet was the same, but rather than staying for a week we had two 3 day events. Most people had never skied as they were all bar managers who'd met RedBull sales targets over Christmas and New Year.

The RedBull Fridge

One of the events in the VIP of Folie Douce... free beer and Champagne!

One of the RedBull nights out in Cafe Face and Dicks Tea Bar.

Me and Tony out at Dicks

My Birthday Night at Dicks Tea Bar

On my Birthday we had to do a changeover of the Chalet, which wasn't a great morning... but then we went for a ski and to Cafe Face for a few drinks, then Band-ioke at Le Petit Danois (it's Karaoke but with a live band playing the song and doing backing vocals for you). In the evening we went for a burger then as we had no guests me and Charlie had Champagne in the Chalet Hot Tub.

SFR Tour

In mid-Feb the SFT Tour was in Tignes doing a halfpipe competition. The weather was pretty amazing so sitting in the sun with a few beers and a croque monsieur was a good way to spent the afternoon.

SFR Tour Link

Pisteurs Couloir

On Monday 18th February I took on one of the harder and more famous couloirs in Val d'Isere, Couloir des Pisteurs.

We had to hike about 20/30 minutes along the ridge in the picture above from the top of the Grand Prix chairlift.

This is the view from the entry to the couloir.

This is Rob coming down after me and Sam.

The good news was that after the tight rocky couloir there was some really good powder when it opened up. It was 4 days since it'd snowed but as not many people do the couloir and the weather had stayed cold the snow was amazing.

This is the view of what we skiied from the bottom.

Frostgun Invitational

Between February 9th - 16th the Frostgun Invitational was held in Val d'Isere. Basically they built a huge jump and loads of pro's had a big air competition, it was won by Alex Bellemare of Canada. Unfortunately we couldn't watch the final up close because we were cooking dinner but we could see the jump out of our window and we had it streamed on the TV so we got a good view and replay after each jump.

The DJ booth where the crowd were entertained between rounds, they also had music after the event finished which we managed to go to.

 One of the competitors.

 Charlie standing in the gap between the two sides of the landing.

 Me standing on the landing with the take-off behind.

Amazing Powder

Some of the boys from the Ski Club at Uni were out for 2 weeks in early February, Sam and Rob. In about 3 days it snowed almost 2 ft in some places. We skied quite a few of the famous Off-Piste runs in Val d'Isere including the Gorges de Malpasset (Bad Passage), Le Couloir du Lavancher (Avalanche Couloir), Lièvre Blanc (The White Hare), Tour du Cugnai, Grand Vallon and Pisteurs Couloir. Given that between us we have 3-4 years on snow we all agreed it was the best powder we'd ever had which was pretty amazing. These photos were taken just to the side of the Cugnai lift at about 2.30pm.

Rob Churcher

 Sam Moores

The Boys Out To Visit

The uni boys came out to visit for a week at the start of February, which was over Charlie's Birthday.

The weather wasn't perfect everyday but we had some pretty good days, the next two pictures were taken from the Tignes Glacier.

Left to Right: James Poyner (Charlie's brother), Quiche, Matt, Andy, Big Phil, Benio, Me, Tom Lewis, Tom Andrews

The view down to the Folie before we went in.

A couple of beers at Cafe Face before Flash Pizza for Dinner on our night off.

The Val d'Isere BMW Polo Masters

Me and Charlie walked down to watch some of the Val d'Isere polo masters after we'd put dinner on the go, pretty cool on the snow and they change horses each quarter because it was about -24º.

http://polo-master.com/site/val-disere/