Val Thorens 28 januari 2010

Val Thorens, January 28th 2010, my brother, a friend and I were skiing.

We had a really great day of skiing, it was snowing and cold and because of the weather the slopes were quiet. So we could enjoy the powder that day. As if all the mountains were there for us. And nature gave us a gift with a fresh dump of snow to enjoy.

By the end of the day we were still very driven to only stop when the last lifts would close.

(photo: we don’t like closed lifts)

So around half past three we decided to take the Caron and Cime Caron lifts up to 3200 m so that we could make one more decent. The lifts were Both huge Gondolas, but nobody was using them exept for a handful of people… By the time we reached the second lift the people that were there got out, except for us…. The reason why was because on top the temp was -14, with snow, visibility of just 30 meters and winds of 120 km/h…But how bad could it be?

When we reached the top the weather was worse than we had imagined. I think we had a second of doubt if we would take the slope down. But before we could argue I put on my ski’s and made a small part of the decent. When among friends you stick together, so my brother and my friend followed… (Laziness also played a big part in the decision. Nobody wanted to walk up again)

Snow pounding, we couldn’t see anything ahead, and it was very cold and strong winds… it was so cold your poor sight became worse because of your goggles freezing. After just one minute we couldn’t see where we were anymore, where the slope ended and the cliffs started and it was cooooold. Making it quite clear you need good clothing and equipment in those kind of situations. At one point the wind, snow and bad visibility became so bad we were starting to doubt if we could find the way down in a healthy way so we could tell the story later on… We even made a small film in case we would get lost and people would find us frozen the next day.

Because going back up again wasn’t an option anymore (again, too lazy to walk back up and we just couldn’t see where we should be going anyway) we just kept skiing down. The weather didn’t really improve much until we reached the middle station after a decent of almost 600 meters. And all the time no one else came down the slopes. But it was fun and exciting and felt like battling nature and a real adventure.

When we came at about 2000 meters the weather improved and we could find our way back (in a hurry) to the lifts again that were providing access back to the village. With just 5 minutes on the clock before they closed, we were happy we took up the challenge!

Would we do it again! Yes! Because skiing in these kind of conditions, make you feel so alive, make you and your daily routine and problems so small, and for me this is the reason to keep going as much as I can, every year.

For us it was a great adventure! I am curious about your adventures? I am mentally preparing myself for my next trip to Zermatt next month. So to stay excited all the stories are welcome in the reactions!

(Uiteraard in het Nederlands ook goed! Dit avontuur heb ik namelijk ook gedeeld op een engelstalige site)