Ski holiday day 4 - Loic in charge

After two days of afternoon ski school, it was a bit of a shock to have to be up at Arc 1600 for a 9am start.

We caught the 8.30am funicular and it was the third really warm sunny day. Getting the early train meant that it was a little more quiet, but really filled up at the middle station called Les Granges, where lots of families seem to be staying. The carriages fill up with French parents and little children all decked out in their ski gear.

When the funicular pulls into Arc 1600, the children sing “nous sont arriver, nous sont arriver”. The carriage slows down as the cable pulls it into the finish position and the children’s song slows to a crawl as well. Lucy loves to sing along.

Sam and Lucy (mainly Sam) had a couple of things they wanted to do on this holiday. One was to ski down from the Aguille Rouge - high point in the Les Arcs ski area and black run along the top/side of a ridge. They had looked to do it last year, but the wind had been too strong, so they managed it on Sunday when the weather was absolutely beautiful. Sam said it wasn’t too bad, it was really a red run, not a black, but they’d probably classed it as more difficult because of the exposure and to discourage too many people from trying it.

Their second objective was to have a day in the La Plagne resort, which sits alongside Les Arcs, but is separated by a long, narrow valley. They’d bought a one-day extension on their ski pass and to get across there, you take resort, which sits alongside Les Arcs, but is separated by a long, narrow valley. They’d bought a one-day extension on their ski pass and to get across there, you take the Vanoise Express cable-car. This is a massive contraption, a double-decker cable-car that shoots across the valley in super-quick time.

I met Loic as suggested. Of course, Jo hadn’t mentioned our arrangement to him, but he seemed quite pleased to have someone else in his group. The standard wasn’t massively different, but Loic didn’t seem to have the same obsession with left-foot side-slipping which was a blessed relief.

There were six French in our group and two English people, myself and a chap called Dave, who was the polar opposite of Meg. He was there with his wife, who was a much better skier than he was and he was having lessons in a lower group, hoping to improve enough to ski with her. He was a nice chap, but he was no Meg. He was having only one lesson per day and he was a careful, steady bloke who didn’t want to break anything. Among the French was a woman with her teenage son and daughter. It was quite touching that the son, who was the better skier, was always looking after his mum. He’d hang around at the back with her to make sure she was OK and help her up if she fell.

View of Bourg-Saint-Maurice from Arc 1600. Villaret, where we are staying is more or less in the centre
of the photograph. Mont Blanc is in the centre of the ridge. It looks like part of the ridge but is actually
20 miles or so behind the other mountains (and much higher of course).

Loic’s lesson was more laid-back than Jo. He had a good sense of humour and after half an hour skiing, he decided we all needed to visit a cafe at the side of the piste. When I ordered a vin chaud, he joined me in a flash. It was a lovely clear day with great views across the Mont Blanc massif. We skied down into Arc 1800, the sister resort to 1600 (but 200 metres higher, as the name suggests). Neither resort has much to commend it. In the 1960s, when the ski boom was starting, Les Arcs was a small collection of farms. The land was bought up, runs constructed, lifts installed and several large, multi-storey hotels were plonked on the side of the mountain. The architecture is high-rise flats and there’s precious little character or anything to do except ski, eat and drink (which is fair enough because that’s exactly why people go there).

So Arc 1800 was built a few years after 1600 and is pretty much a carbon copy. I learnt a few new blue runs and it was a really good day’s skiing. The icing on the cake was that I hadn’t fallen over once and I was also starting to get the hang of the parallel turn, so that steeper slopes could be traversed in more safety.

Some of the blues were quite busy in places, but you just had to keep an eye out for folk. On the ski lift up from Arc 1800 I was sat next to a Frenchman and his young daughter (five or six years old). It was a beautiful day and the little girl was singing away to herself. I remarked that the scenery was so beautiful that it made you want to sing, at which point she shut up like a clam, but dad was very keen to have a chat. Where was I from? Was there snow in England? I said there wasn’t and we didn’t have mountains like this. What about Scotland? he said. I said that my bed this week was higher than the highest mountain in England and that Scotland had got nothing on the Alps - he was very lucky. he lived in Grenoble, which is very close by and he loved the mountains. He advised me to come a week later next year to avoid the French holidays (he hated the Parisians). We parted old friends.

Thanks to Laura at work and Michel Thomas, I have learned a few useful French phrases and Laura has also taught me a few things about French manners, which definitely makes a difference. Always says hello and goodbye when using a shop, for example. Certain manners are important to the French; they think nothing of pushing in front of you at the ski lift, but it’s really bad form to enter a shop and not give a hearty greeting to the assistant.

I’ve been je voudrais this, that and the other; I’ve nailed meme chose pour moi si vous plait and pas pour moi comes in handy when waiters are keen to fill your glass with water. Indeed my French is so good that I’m now often mistaken for a native and have to explain to an astonished Frenchman that je suis anglais and je parle pas francais tres bon.

I guess I was riding for a fall and after my ski lesson I stopped off in the main square for a drink and a noon snack. I wanted my usual lemon tea, honey and almond crepe and a Ricard. I’m not sure what went wrong; I think I caught the waitress on a fag break and her mind wasn’t really on the job, but I ended up with tea, an espresso coffee and a crepe. I decided two out of three wasn’t too bad!