Working on the chain gang
A dusting of light snow greeted us not too far up the mountain road this morning. We collected our ski buddy, AJ, bang on 8.30 a.m. and headed up. Chains were required on all vehicles today. Although this is a pain, it does keep many people away which is great for the hard-core skiers like us. I say hard-core because absolutely no knitting was done today (however, two out of three of the team had their knitting bags at the ready).
We pulled up and joined the small queue of vehicles putting chains on at the 9 km mark. Our chains are almost new – used once at Tukino a good few years back – and along with the instruction manual we set to work. I say we, when actually it was David and Jane who put them on. Somebody had to take photos so put my hand up for that job. After a bit of a tussle, they were on and off we sped. Well, we didn’t, we drove slowly up the gritty snowy road. I was keen to sing my rendition of Sam Cooke’s ‘Working on the Chain Gang’ but I didn’t think it would be appreciated by all (younger readers might have to YouTube this classic piece of music). Pity.
With 10-15 cms of fresh snow overnight the mountain was looking glorious. The sun was rising and shone, albeit briefly. At first only the Movenpick was working but after a few warm up runs the Giant started to chug away. The seats on those chairlifts sure were icy and cold this morning. There was much moaning from one quarter about a cold butt and how a new item of clothing (thanks to one of Blair’s wetsuits which is about to be cut up and repurposed into a bum flap) will be on show soon. Looking forward to seeing that, Jane.
Today’s bonus was getting a quick impromptu ski lesson from Duane, as in Duane of the C6 Team. White out conditions came and went. We patronised the Giant Café for hot beverages mid-morning and kept on skiing.
Jane and I managed to do a bit of powder work while David skied on and off-piste all morning long. The High Noon Express never got going while we were there, and two staff members were working on replacing the tower wheels (damaged in the most recent storm apparently) all morning long. It sure must have been cold for them working on the cogs on the towers. The upper mountain was -9 this morning and it sure felt it.
After a nice lunch of leftover La Pizzeria pizza in the car we decided to call it a day. The cloud had rolled in and stayed. All up we probably did about seven runs but as Jane says, it’s the quality not the quantity. Maybe.
PJ