Our first day skiing in St Foy and it was a pleasant day, a little cloudy and snowing lightly at the top, but the snow was really nice and some fresh snow had fallen overnight.
Sam says the snow cover is very thin and they need lots more snow if they're going to get through the season. He can see off-piste areas that he and Lucy skied last year where this year you can see rocks which were completely covered in 2014.
I don't have those worries as I'm staying on the piste. There are just four lifts in Sainte-Foy and as one of them leads to some reds and a piste nature, I'm limiting myself to just three. The blue down from the top lift is a lovely run, fairly steep in the very top section, but good and wide, it then levels out, steepens, levels out and steepens again. It's a really nice run for someone of my level to do.
With Sam's coaching, I found that I'm starting to carve properly and my turns are getting smoother and more controlled. I can actually feel the edges getting engaged on the downhill ski and I'm learning to bend my hip into the slope to make the edge bite and avoid skids. It is a good feeling, although when the slope gets steep, I still find that my turns are not quick enough and I have to carve quite long turns in order to control speed. What's good is that I can stop and I have got the skid stop fairly well nailed, which gives me quite a bit of confidence.
What's more I've been skiing for two days and not fallen over. I've also discovered a new run called Plan Bois, a gentle blue which takes you from the top of lift one back to base via a gently graded ski road through the wooded side of the mountain. We walked part of it on snow-shoes last year when we went to La Monal. Lucy, who has new off-piste skis, despairs at my ability to find a 'Gollet' in any resort.
We had a quick drink in the Piano Bar at the end of the day and discovered it sells a wide selection of Belgian beers! Our other job for the day was a trip to Super U in Bourg-saint-Maurice (about 20 minutes drive). It was a familiar sight from last year and we stocked up on beer, wine, cheese and meals for the week, which Sam had planned the night before.
I mentioned that Sainte-Foy has a lot of English holidaymakers and it's far more middle class than Les Arc or La Plagne. For example, the chalet next to us is occupied by husband, wife, baby, nanny and springer spaniel called Merlin. He can be seen chasing a tennis ball in the snow each afternoon when his owners have finished skiing.
Lucy has also been eavesdropping on conversations. She heard two men bemoaning past divorces; one had lost two houses (presumably to two failed marriages) and, to rub salt in the wound, his ex-wife had gone to the estate agent and sold the house just after the market crashed. Apart from divorce, the other favourite theme is diet and the theory is that the ski-resort diet of cheese, sausages, potatoes and alcohol is offset by calorie burning on the slopes.
"I must have burned two-thousand calories today."
"More, you burn an extra thousand just being at this altitude."
It would be nice if it was true.
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