European Snowsport
Outstanding, independent ski schools in Verbier, Zermatt, Nendaz, St Moritz and Chamonix
We’ve finally wrestled with technology and dug out the pictures from the Farinet Apres Ski opening night, and even got a picture of Kato’s new headgear following his ‘upside down dancing’ exhibition, lucky you…
The boys try to fix the sliding roof…
The girls dish out free shots…
The White Lines Open proceedings…
The Dicktators dressed as a disturbing collection of Santas…
General carnage…
Kato’s exciting new bandages…
No, not Christmas – although that was great, the real cause for celebration was the opening of Farinet Apres Ski.
Yes, beer-swilling, table-dancing, and drinking-shots-from-the-bottle are all back with an army of happy Apres-Skiers ready to join in.
Now, Apres Ski being Apres Ski, there was carnage.
First the sliding roof wouldn’t close before the bands came on, so lots of very serious looking blokes hung from the rafters with crowbars tring deperately to get it fixed.
Secondly, while the workman looked troubled, the girls behind the bar decided to calm the baying and by now slightly excitable crowd, by standing on the bar and pouring shots into the nearest passing mouths. Naturally, this only fuelled the caranage.
Then it all kicked off with The White Lines and The Dicktators whipping up the crowd further. Bizarre and stunning – there are things in life you never expect to see, and for me it was always a band of Santas wearing army helmets and belting out AC/DC tunes.
There are pictures to show how the night unfolded, but sadly they’re in my camera, which slipped from my fingers around 9pm and disappeared underneath a hundred pairs of highly mobile ski boots.
It has since been recovered and we should be dragging the shots from it’s tattered memory stick tomorrow, so don’t panic. It’s worth the wait…
Finally, of course, something happened to Kato – he apparently landed on his head after trying to dance upside down in Casbar later that night.
Bless.
Sadly it’s unlikely there are any shots of this, mangled or otherwise…
After ages of debate and rumor, Mt. Gelé finally opened up again, giving Verbier back its off-piste only mountain.
With just two Itinerary Routes from the top, plus bags of accessible terrain, and (if you’re not feeling too self-conscious) the long run down the front that takes you back into Verbier under the watchful eyes of, well, just about anyone who’s in skiing in resort.
The story is it’s been shut for so long owing to a combination of snow conditions, or mechanical problems depending upon who you talk to, and there are even theories about insurance problems.
But it’s open again and that’s all that counts.
So we rather selflessly had a trip up, and it looked a bit like this (OK, the first shot was published last week, but we were so busy skiing, we forgot to take a snap to remind you what the mountain itself actually looks like):
The view from the top. Alright, if you like that kind of thing…
Lac des Vaux suddenly looks very, very small, and a long way down:
Naturally, loads of people were kean to get up there – although some might not have been quite aware of what they were getting themselves into:
Er, Louis and I practice our very best mountaineer catalogue poses (sorry):
…and a bit of Louis in action…
Well, as promised, here are some snaps of the first of our adaptive lessons, as part of our new adaptive ski school. This was a sit-ski lesson with our first client, Anna. And from now on we’ll be catering for all sorts of different clients, so if you’re interested, give us a shout…
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I know that I shouldn’t be complacent, but the conditions here are still absolutely stunning.
We keep catching ourselves remarking on how empty the pistes are, then realising that, well, the season’s barely started – with the snow and the blue skies it really does feel like March.
We’ve also been celebrating the start of two new parts of the ski school – the new race club for kids and teens has launched, and we’ve also started an adaptive side to the school which is run on a strictly not-for-profit basis. What’s adaptive? Well, adaptive is any specialist ski teaching that goes beyond normal lessons – everything from visually impaired ski lessons, to learning difficulties to sit-skis.
It’s a really important initiative that’s been started in conjunction with Disability Snowsport UK, and we’ve given our first lessons this week.
And as soon as the missing USB key with all the impressive pictures on it appears, we’ll upload the images (sorry Gemma – it”s here somewhere).
Thing 1: Blue skies are great (see below)
Thing 2: Loads of snow is great (see below)
Thing 3: Droopy mustaches are this season’s must have facial hair (see below)
