Skiing in the Alps

Okay.... I said I was going to try and catch up on my blog, and I meant it!  

Since returning from the States, we have been traveling around France and its neighboring countries on our free weekends.  So here is the story of our first weekend excursion of 2013.

Let me start by saying that Paul (along with about 97% of the people I've met in France) is an avid skier.  He started when he was something like 5 years old and has loved it ever since.  I didn't start skiing until I was about 14 (thank you Katie B for taking 2 hours to get down the slope with me a single time all those years ago....), so my skills are not nearly what Paul's are.  He's a black diamond kind of guy, and I'm really more of a nice blue circle kind of girl.  (Note: The difficulty scale is different here -- there is a red level below black and no double blacks.  Also there are no shapes involved, just colors).  

Not surprisingly, this discrepancy in our skill levels makes me a little nervous about ski trips.  Really everyone is a much better skier than I am (even the 4 year olds who come whizzing down the mountain past me), so I'm afraid I'll either break myself trying to keep up with them or get left behind on the easy slopes and lost all day.  (Both a little dramatic, I know, but worries often are...)  Also, while Paul's friends are SUPER nice and welcoming, it's still a bit daunting to go on weekend trips with a big group of French speakers.  

That being said, the weekend turned out to be really lovely.  We stayed in a city called Chambéry at the home of two of Paul's good friends and took day trips to the slopes.  We also celebrated the birthday of another friend who was there -- lots of fun things going on!  I was really happy to notice that my French has improved enough for me to be able to keep up with (most of) what's going on around me so I could enjoy the fun too!

When it came time to go skiing, I was a little surprised by what I saw.  In the US, the biggest ski resort I have visited is Killington in Vermont.  Other than that, I've stuck to the relatively small ski mountains in Central New York.  In my limited experience in the US, you choose a ski resort.  That ski resort has ski/snowboard rentals, it runs the ski lifts, it offers a few restaurants or bars, and it usually has some sort of lounge area where people can come inside for a little while.  (This lounge area usually smells like sweaty people and feet.  Just saying).  But in general, when you go to a ski resort, it is completely owned by one big company.  

Well, that's not how it worked in the Alps.  As far as I could tell, the lift belongs to the town or village in which it is located.  So we went to go get our lift passes (which were deeply discounted because the weather was less than ideal) at a little office that was (I think) run by the town's tourism office.  That was it.  Then there was a little plaza, much like those in other small towns, that had restaurants, shops where you could rent ski gear, and I even saw a grocery store a little further from the lift.  The shape of the town was a little bit different and seemed to center around the ski lift with parking lots a little bit further away.  (The picture is from where we parked our car... that part in the upper left side should be another mountain across the valley from where we were, but it was snowing too hard to really see it).  But to me this concept was craziness... I didn't feel like I was trapped into ridiculous prices by a big resort's monopoly on my day.  (Maybe in reality I was trapped by the town's monopoly, but it at least gave me the impression of more freedom).  THEN -- I think this is really cool -- as we were riding up the lift, I saw some apartments on the mountain.  As in... you can own or rent an apartment that is on the slopes.  So in the morning you wake up, walk out your door, and ski down the mountain.  And in the evening you ride up the lift, ski halfway down the mountain, and go into your apartment.  How cool is that?!?  I've never seen that in the US.

The next day was really my favorite of the weekend.  Paul was sweet enough to take a day off from skiing and go snowshoeing with me.  This was really amazing in the Alps.  I absolutely think that snowshoeing is more of a workout than skiing, but when there's a scenic overlook at the end of the trail, all that work is completely worth it!  For our snowshoeing afternoon, it's probably easiest to tell the story in pictures.

Our snowshoeing path started here, at the edge of the little ski town.

It took us through the snow-covered forest which, aside from the occasional snowshoer, cross country skier, or dog sled (!) was completely silent and serene.  

Snowshoeing is a serious workout, so we started to peel off our hats, scarves, gloves, and even open our jackets a little bit.

And at the end of the trail (major credit to Paul who convinced me to keep going when I was tired and wanted to go back into the village for a hot chocolate!) we found this:

So all in all, it was an amazing weekend in Chambéry and the Alps.  Turns out I'm not as horrible a skier as I thought I was, and Paul was giving me some tips on how to improve.  We ate crêpes and raclette and drank some vin chaud (mulled wine) to warm back up at the end of our days.  

Also, if you are able to procure a bottle, I highly recommend you try Chartreuse, which is a local liqueur from the region.  If it helps convince you, Quentin Tarantino thinks it is a tasty beverage.  (Warning- F Bombs dropped in that clip!)  I recommend you sip it and maybe drop an ice cube in there to make it even better.