My last day in Sammy Ski School

My ski instructor on the booze again. Does he drink
because I'm such a bad pupil, or am I bad
because my teacher is a drunk?

After three days without skiing, for reasons of weather and other holiday plans, it was good to get on the slopes again.

And, following what I felt was a good day’s skiing on Tuesday, I was keen to see if my improvement had been temporary or fixed in my memory bank. We started from Les Arcs 1600 with the usual trip up Cachette, then down Belvedere to Arcs 1800, down again to Vallandry via Foret and Liaison Grizzly.

It was up the Grizzly chairlift then down the upper part of Foret to join the dreaded Renard, my nemesis from the previous week. I was feeling confident that Renard would not hold for me the thigh-burning horrors it had and, in fairness, I accomplished the run far more confidently than previously, but it was still a real challenge, it still required a rest midway through and I was relieved to see the end.

Teacher Sam says it is my fault for not executing proper turns, for leaning back and for not practising sufficient squats during December and January.

It seems I am still turning in the snowplough all or part of the time and teacher No 2 in Sammy Ski School, Lucy Rayner (the bad cop of this combo) said I needed a bit of down/up on the turns – get jumping, hadn’t Ski School Sammy told me that. She followed up by banning my regular escape route, Gollet, which has joined Route Des Animaux and my childhood teddies as a thing of the past.

There was nothing for it but to head back up Derby for 2300 (the big, wide bowl) and practise getting the turns properly parallel. Ski School Sam (or SS Sam for short) thought the best way for me to do this was to work on my skid stop. It was mastering that technique that was the breakthrough moment when he was learning to ski, so it seemed logical I should also break something ...

Actually, after a couple of badly executed skid stops, I did seem to have gained more control. I wasn’t stopping, but I was feeling my edges better and if it wasn’t a full parallel turn, then I was getting into the parallel much more quickly.

After a run of that, I was ready for a drink and a break, so we went back up 2300 and down to the cafe on the right. The route down seemed quite steep, but OK and when we arrived Sam said I’d skied a bit of a red (Perdrix). It was only a bit, but good for confidence. After half a Kit-Kat and a lemon tea, it was time for more skiing.

I wanted Foret, Maitaz and Gollet, but Gollet isn't allowed any more; so we went a little way down Foret, back up the Derby lift to pick up the Transarc 47 cable car to Col de la Chal at 2600 metres. On Derby, I got squeezed into the children’s seat at one end and melting snow was dripping off the chair’s arm onto my shoulder and arm. Sam and Lucy thought it was hilarious that a) I’d ended up in the child’s seat and b) I was getting dripped on. I was glad to get off the lift and on the run down to the Transarc, the water on my jacket froze, so I had a big patch of frost on my shoulder.

Warming up by the fire - it doesn't look much, but it was toasty!

From Col de la Chal, we took the blue run and Plan des Eaux to the bottom of Arcabulle lift, met Lucy and then skied down past 2000 and 1950 via Vallee de l'Arc to the bottom of Comborciere. Here, I was promised a restaurant/bar with a large, open fire and I wasn’t disappointed. The restaurant is called Le Chalet Du Pre St. Esprit and it has a big, open fire in the middle of the bar. There's a short video here. We were able to warm up, have a drink and then, with the snow falling, it was the slow haul up Comborciere then down Mont Blanc to pick up Belvedere and Arpette back to Arc 1600. This was a long day skiing for me – probably further than I’d skied in any other day – and I was pretty glad to be done. I need to work on turns and skid stops, but I think I’ve made progress this holiday and when I’m back in April, I should be starting from a better level of fitness and skill. We finished the day with tartiflette (always a winner).