Skiing for Xmas

When we first booked our Christmas week in Sestriere we had some vague hopes that we might be lucky enough to get a white Christmas. Well, it wasn't to be. I mean, there's plenty of white stuff around, but nothing actually falling from the sky during the 24 hours separating Xmas Eve and Boxing Day. Instead, we were treated to glorious blue skies and light winds, with crunchy cold snow underfoot. So, nothing worth complaining about really.

Happy Christmas everyone!
Heading out for our Xmas day ski trip on a cold, clear morning.

So far this week we've had a couple of long days, where we took the gondola up to Salze d'Oulx and Sansicario, and a rest day (today) where Katy & I had a little ski on Borgata -- with a plan to break everything up with a trip to the swimming pool this afternoon. Of course, it's a little different to our regular skiing week in little old Guthega. Here's a list of the main differences:

1. Our apartment here is not actually on the ski run, so we have to walk about 200m to get to the slopes. At first, this created considerable angst amongst the younger members of our family, but we have become used to it. Our morning ritual is to stagger out fairly early, sometimes even before the lifts open, and take advantage of one of the cafes that are about 2/3rds of the way to ski slope. There, we recover from our walk, listen to some euro-trash pop music, have a cappuccino and a chocolate croissant, and then finally pluck up the courage to jump on the chairlift.

2. The scenery is a little bit more spectacular than we are used to! What's more, strong winds and fog seem to be a little unusual (at least, they are this week) so we can both see and appreciate the surrounding mountains.

3. The chairlift rides (and gondolas, etc) are pretty long. This has some downsides - you can get a bit cold (and if one child is inadvertently left at the bottom they have to wait for quite a while before being rescued; see previous post). Also, it is pretty common to take the opportunity to light a smoke on the chairlift - another thing I had never seen before. But on the plus side, long chairlifts mean pretty long runs - the longest here is about 1000 m in elevation, which is pretty fun. 

4. The long runs and cold weather means we can only get a few runs in before kids get tired... but fortunately there are coffee shops and restaurants dotted about everywhere. These places universally play hits from the '80s, which is just fine for us parents. Even better, they sell good food at normal prices - so whenever we hit our limit we are able to stop and refill.

5. People take their dogs to snow, of course, and often hang around the bottom of the lifts, or even walk part way up, with dogs in tow. Sorry, no pictures of the dogs, but I just had to mention them.

6. There are, surprisingly, a lot of J-bars (known as pomas in our family), and not just on the beginner slopes. Some of the highest and steepest runs have J-bars, including one I took the other days that boasted a 60% gradient. Oh, and they also have some weird little travelling walkways which allow you to get between key points between lifts (see right). Nat was a bit fascinated by these and took a few extra detours just so she could get an extra tunnel ride in.

OK, so that's about all I can think of for now. We still have a couple of days skiing left here before we head off for Grenoble to settle into our flat there which will be home for the next 15 weeks or so.