The Black Horse Ski Club

The Gatwick 5 - Richard Minson, Ewen Hamilton, Alan Rogers and Tom and Debbie Neal. The Bristol 9 - Iain Smith, Colin Burton, Mike Seber, Steve Dodds, Nick Corderoy, Karen Rees, Kate Gallego, Claire Carrington-Windo, and Beth

It's the second week of January and New Years eve is just a distant blur in the memory banks. Hey! Austria and St Veit beckons, except that now we find ourselves in a chalet in La Tania in the famous 3 valleys region of the French Alps. Well, this is a new direction for the BHSC and with El Presidente and Hon Treasurer as joint trip leaders, whilst our erstwhile Hon Sec is away teaching in Alpendorf, what could possibly go wrong!

The wintery conditions made getting to our departure airports difficult enough and combined with dodgy conditions in France resulted in unimaginable delays and difficulties getting to the resort. The Gatwick 5 must consider ourselves really fortunate to have arrived at Chambery, picked up our transfer coach, and got to La Tania at a reasonable time albeit 3-4 hours late. The party of 9 from Bristol were not so fortunate, spending around 5 hours sitting on a plane at Lyon airport not sure when and where they would eventually be allowed to disembark. Alpine Action managed to arrange to get them off the plane, and after a longer than expected coach journey arrived at the chalet about 2.00am. Even at that time they received just as warm a welcome from our chalet hosts, Bryan & Naomi as we had received much earlier. Richard and I waited up to join the welcome party after having had a couple of drinks in the Telemark bar earlier in the evening. Finally, we had all retired to bed by about 3.00am.

Sunday breakfast was heartily consumed by all, except Richard, who appeared to be suffering the effects of last night's drinks. Lift passes have been got for us by the Alpine Action rep so the next task is to head down to the ski rental shop to pick up skis, boots, and for Beth, a snowboard. A cloudless blue sky awaits us for our first day on the pistes. We have decided to ski together at a gentle pace in order to find our way around this massive ski area. Even allowing for a late start we have still covered a lot of terrain and over the course of the day we had skied from La Tania to Courcheval to Meribel and back to La Tania. Ewen laid claim to the first tumble of the day, whilst Tom had a couple of falls in the afternoon. Nothing too serious thankfully, for which Tom is blaming Richard as he had told Tom that he was skiing on a red run when it was actually a black. One of the many benefits of a chalet holiday is finding freshly made tea and cakes available after a tiring day on the slopes. The Cote Coeur also has the luxury of a hot tub, which provides a great way to relax tired muscles.

Whilst enjoying the first of Bryan's excellent dinners, we were able to watch the World darts final live on Sky TV. Karen had a particular interest in this event as she had had a bet on Martin "Wolfie" Adams and was getting more and more excited the better Adams threw his darts. This eventually led to many of us howling every time Adams hit a good score or a winning double. Quite what Bryan and Naomi thought of their new guests I don't know, but at least they had something to talk to their mates about. Assisted by the generous flow of wine on offer, this first evening together was turning into rather a good party. Not content with wine, "Beer Monster" Nick and a few hardened drinkers decided to hit the local bars for a late night drink. Not the best of moves for Nick as when it came to buying his round, he realised that he had came out without any money and had to borrow some. To add insult to injury, on his way home he slipped on an icy step and banged his head.

Monday morning and again a cloudless blue sky greets the Black Horses. Karen, Kate, Beth, & Mike opted for a rather more sedate day whilst the remaining 10 blitzed the slopes of the vast area around Courcheval. The highlight of the day on the piste was a spectacular high speed crash by Hon Treasurer Iain. Showing off really as he was trying to carve a 360 degree turn and caught an edge. His "friends" showered him with snow and photographed him whilst lying in a heap in the middle of the piste.

After the raucous start to the week, the evening was rather a quiet affair with most people staying in the chalet consuming the wine that accompanied dinner. Even so, there were quite a few empty wine bottles to clear away at the end of the night.

Tuesday and the good news from the local weather forecast is for another sunny day. Richard and Iain plan a 3 valley safari for the hardcore skiers over to Val Thorens and back. 10 skiers and Beth on the snowboard are going to do the safari leaving Kate, Karen, and Tom to poodle around Courcheval for the day. Whilst over at Val Thorens Nick, Mike, & Claire were keen to do the toboggan run, which starts at the top of the glacier and ends back in the village. The skiers were able to follow their progress down as the toboggan run runs between a blue and a red. Mike and Claire soon got the hang of steering, but in all honesty, Nick was rubbish as he crashed on nearly every corner. Great entertainment though. It was a long and tiring trek back to La Tania, especially for Beth on her snowboard, and we only had about 5 minutes spare when can catching the last lift up from Meribel. It was 4.50pm and nearly dark by the time we finally reached our chalet. Tom had also had an interesting day, involving a wipeout and skiing the whole of the afternoon on the wrong pair of skis.

After dinner we all head down to the Ski Lodge bar as we have been told that there is a good band playing live music there tonight. Unfortunately, the whole village appears in the Ski Lodge and it is packed, very noisy, with the music almost inaudible. It took a long time to be able to get a table to sit down and enjoy a pint in relative comfort. Needless to say some stayed in the bar longer than others.

Come Wednesday morning the clouds have descended and snow is falling. The good news is that the visibility is still pretty good and so Courcheval beckons with the prospect of skiing in fresh powder. What a wonderful morning the hardcore team have. The weather has put off a few from skiing , so we have all arranged to meet up for lunch at the restaurant by the La Tania gondola. By the time lunch is finished, not only is it still snowing, but the mist has descended and visibility is now poor to non-existent. Skiing is not much fun in these conditions, so the afternoon sessions consist of a few circuits of the nearest blue run before an early return to the chalet. Wednesday is the day off for all the chalet hosts in the resort, so we have had to book up a table in the La Taiga restaurant for dinner. As with all restaurants in the village this evening, La Taiga is packed to the rafters and whilst the food is excellent, the service is somewhat on the slow side. Again, there is live music, but as before the bar area is packed, and waiting for a table is going to take a while. Some, including myself, return to the chalet for a quiet drink, while the remainder end up forming the backing group to the live band.

Thursday morning sees the return of fine weather although the forecast given out on the radio suggests that more snow may return later in the afternoon. There are plenty of new slopes to explore, so the hardcore skiers head off to St Martin, which is situated on the very edge of the 3 Valleys area. Not many runs here, but the piste is in wonderful condition as this little corner of the resort seems to have been overlooked by the masses. If you are so inclined this area offers acres of virgin powder crying out for the off piste skiers. On the last run of the morning Tom claims the wipeout of the week award for a spectacular head first leap into the deep and steep powder. There were mutterings about being cut up by a small child, but we think he was just desperate to win a medal! After lunch and more new terrain to ski over at Les Menuires (the eponymous French concrete jungle up a mountain). By this time the weather is closing in and we find ourselves at the summit with the prospect of skiing down a very steep red in near a whiteout. Easy does it and we are all down safely. Another late finish and we are home in the chalet just before 5 o'clock. Dinner is back in the chalet tonight and in addition to the copious quantities of wine consumed, there are also a number of duty free bottles of spirits that need to be consumed before returning home. Despite attacking these bottles with great gusto, the drinking set found it necessary to call into the Ski Lodge for a few more beers. Poor Colin had a very early morning call as a number of the returning revellers jumped on his bed for a very rude awakening at about 2.30am.

The final day of skiing for the week and the prospect of another fine day. Kate and Karen had booked a private lesson for the morning, whilst Beth had decided to have a rest. Being the last day, Richard & Iain decided that the best plan would be to stay relatively close to home and to cruise the blues and greens around Courcheval. An uneventful morning's skiing was followed by a rather good lunch at Le Bouc Blanc restaurant, situated by the La Tania gondola. The plan had been for us all to meet up, but as the restaurant was so busy, we were split into two tables. After lunch, El Presidente could not resist the urge for something more challenging, having all ready sampled an off piste gully in the morning. With Ewen, Claire, and myself in tow Richard headed up the mountain for a more adventurous tour of a few steeper reds and blacks. Probably because of present company, Richard did not succumb to the lure of the "Grand Couloir" despite a number of longing looks.

With everyone back at the chalet safe and sound, the order of the day was to get started on organising the packing before the last night party. And what a lively little shindig it turned out to be. With DJ Colin supplying the music, the singing, dancing and general mayhem carried on until the early hours of the morning or at least until the duty free bottles had been emptied. Luckily for all, we had a rather comfortable departure time of 9.20 giving us plenty of time for a decent breakfast and the last minute packing. Yes, there were a few bleary eyes at the breakfast table. To cap a fine week the return journey was decidedly hassle free and give or take a few minutes our flights took off close to scheduled time.