Because my flight didn’t depart until 7pm, I decided to stick around town and snowboard at the Les Houches resort right down the road. I knew the conditions would be good, because it had been snowing around town the entire day before. Everyone else either had earlier flights or had enough snowboarding, so I went by myself. A short walk down the road had me at the ticket counter. Instead of the Italian greeting from the days before, here I was greeted with a “bonjour”.
The conditions were great, although the mountain itself wasn’t as tall or large as the Italian one from the day before. Snowboarding alone, I was able to cover a lot of ground and got a number of runs in before noon. After taking a particular lift a few times, I spotted my idea of the perfect French lunch spot: Les Vieille Luges. I noticed this restaurant from the lift, but realized it wasn’t visible from the piste. However, there was a small sign and turnoff from the nearby piste that held a long, narrow trail to reach the restaurant.
After missing the turnoff once, I found the restaurant on the second attempt and it was packed! I made my way through the 5’10” entrance and found the owner who fortunately spoke English. After searching around, he managed to find a small table where he could fit me, because all of his other tables were full with reservations. A couple minutes after seating me, he approached me with a “parlez vous francais?”. After I replied no, he asked if I wouldn’t mind having another individual without a reservation join me for lunch. I said no, and he said, “Great! But he doesn’t speak English”. Needless to say, we had a pretty quiet lunch, but the meal was fantastic.
Later that afternoon I made my way back to Geneva, then eventually to Amsterdam and Den Haag. All in all, it was a fantastic trip!
France, Snowboarding, Travel, Winter
This is the second article in the series about my Chamonix Valley Ski trip. Although we were staying in the French Alps, the first two days of snowboarding were spent at the Italian Alps resort named Courmayeur. A 25 minute shuttle ride had us through the 11km long Mont-Blanc tunnel, which connects the Italian and French sides. The exciting part was entering the tunnel on a perfectly nice day on the French side, only to emerge in Italy to find yourself in a snowstorm.
Upon arrival I immediately knew we were in Italy with the multi-lingual “Welcome” signs (even though this picture is showing the English & French words). The gondolas taking you up the mountain were standing room only and wow did they pack the people into those. I think they crammed about 75-100 people into a 10 foot by 10 foot space.
Up on the mountain, avalanche homing beacon testers were placed throughout the resort, and many skiers walked passed these testers to hear the accepting “beep” that let them know their beacon was fully functioning. Unfortunately, this didn’t do anything to calm my nerves, as I had no homing beacon and the avalanche danger was a modest 3 out of 5. Fortunately there were no problems, even though the snow was great. We made it up to the top piste that was open where we had powder up to our knees.
The most exciting part about the experience was going to lunch. We made reservations at a small Italian restaurant on the mountain that served fantastic Italian food. Between the two days there I sampled three types of pasta, sausages, pizza, and lasagna – everything was fantastic. The owner was there both days, shouting loudly at the wait staff from the seated section above.
Food, Italy, Snowboarding, Travel, Winter
I recently took a three-day weekend to join a group of coworkers in the French Alps. Because most people took a full week vacation I made the trek south from the Netherlands myself. To start I had to make my way to the Amsterdam Schipol airport via train ride from Den Haag. I managed to get to the train station on bike, carrying a laptop over one shoulder, snowboard over the other, holding the handle of my rolling suitcase in one hand, and steering with the other hand.
After a relatively quick flight from Amsterdam to Geneva, I took an hour-long shuttle van ride to the Chamonix valley. The Chamonix valley is the general area, which is composed of at least 6 resorts, including the one we stayed at: Les Houches (pronounced: “lay ooochhh”). Even though the driver didn’t speak a word on English (and my French was limited to “bonjour”), I safely made it to the Chalet.
The Chalet itself was fantastic: spacious, wooden/log cabin décor, sauna, and hot tub. We even had our own staff that would serve us breakfast and a three-course dinner with unlimited beer and wine. The whole trip went well, and I made it back after three full days of snowboarding in great conditions! Check back for posts about the Italian and French Alps experiences.
France, Snowboarding, Travel, Winter
