Aiguille du Midi

I had wanted to go to this all week. This morning the weather seemed to line up and the web site showed it was open.  As I paid for my ticket I wondered if it was just a tourist cash grab.  When I left I thought nothing of the sort, it's amazing that this exists.  Whomever was at a bar and was convincing enough when he said "hey, let's build a team right up to the top of that thing" and everyone actually agreed, is amazing.  

It's both audacious and amazing.  The wind gusts and high ledges are terrifying at times.  

From midway station.  You start travelling almost horizontally.  You can see the needle right on top. 

Entering top, car moves nearly vertically. When it enters the tram house, it still wobbles around in the wind. 

Entry tunnel. 

Bridge across is very windy and very far down. 

This is where you enter from, tram goes into back of that mountain. 

I came over through that tunnel to a viewing area. 

Amazing view. 

Down to Chamonix.  The heights and exposure are disconcerting. 

Cold up top!

Path down to the ski run that's 20+km to town. You need guides and ropes to get to it. 

Elevator is the easy way to gain vertical.  

From top top. 

Chamonix valley panorama from top. 

The bowl you can see panorama. 

Needle from the terrace a few floors above the tram entry. 

Junior Sprint day

So I hit up my favourite lunch spot again. It's hard to resist.  Commute to lunch doesn't get old. 

Big and bright ski area.  Dying of brightness. 

Lunch line. 

The Mont Blanc genepi beer in the Mont Blanc glass avec the real Mont Blanc. 

As I take a few bites, a bratty British kid throws a snowball at the black cat.  The big dog that wanders around at a sloth like pace does two quick trots, stops directly in between the boy and the cat, his face is like 4 feet from the boy's,and gives one big bark.  The dogs face is the same height as the dog. Boy freezes then cries.  Dog watches, walks away.  Cat watches, walks away.  Animals are smart.  

Jure Ales of Slovenia won the junior sprint. His skiing has looked killer all week and his last run was crisp and clean.  He accelerated through the jump and cut clean corners after.  It looked fantastic just from sidelines.  

Chamonix

I slept in then did a slow tourist day in Chamonix.  Today was my first day off snow, did 7 days straight.  Feels good to rest. 

Made a new friend this morning. 

Rainy day in Chamonix.  Nice place, more developed and touristy. 

Church with a gondola behind. 

Typical shopping street. 

Crepe "Mont Blanc". 

Dog with Gore Tex onesie. 

Guide office. 

Every town has ski jumps, here are Chamonix's at the end of the street. 

Les Contamines Sprint

I'll start with a funny contrast. Here's the Norwegian and German wax room setup and staff. 

Here's the wax room of the Slovenian, Swedish, USA and Canada.  This doesn't really show it, but it's also the guest house' utility room and the ceiling really isn't very tall. 

It doesn't hinder anyone's performance, it's just funny.  

When I was in there the other night, Jure Ales of Slovenia had leaned his skis against a shelf.  One of the older ladies working at the place came by later, she doesn't speak English, but motioned that she wanted me to move some skis so she could get to the shelf.  I've never felt skis as sharp as Jure's.  It blew my mind.  I've gotta figure out if I can get mine like that. Amazing. 

We got to sleep in a little more before today's action which was nice.  Olle and I had breakfast with Phil Lau's father, Phil is known by his teammates at the mutant.  I've tried to watch his runs and agree - he's current World Cup points leader. 

Scraped a bunch of ice off car window, a good sign that it froze last night. Race course was ice.  It was wet yesterday and it froze perfectly overnight.  Several of the ladies fell - it just sounded difficult. 

So I watched many of the men's runs, including Phil's.  I watched him in La Plagne too. If I didn't get to go on the course too, it would tell you virtually nothing, or tell you the sport is so easy. He carves a singular line across ice and ruts and looks more effortless than any other skier. That's the mark of excellence, making something difficult look so easy.  It blows my mind after also racing the course how he cuts better carves on steep icy gates than I can on bluebird day blue run fresh groomed runs.  It's a treat to watch. To a spectator, I think it conveys "this telemark stuff looks so graceful and easy, why are all these other people skidding around?"  

I have to say I enjoyed both runs.  And survived them. Perhaps even had a few sections that felt good.  It would be very helpful if I could jump train with turns ahead and after at home because I rack up a lot of penalty time with those. 

But honestly, why race when this is abailable? I should just eat these all day. Fresh nutella crepes in the Alps!

Racing tomorrow is cancelled with rain. We ended up going to a bar with the French, some Swiss and the Slovenians. Some guy (not with us) was full asleep at the bar, presumably being a ski bum tired him out. Some other guy, again not with us, ripped off all his clothes (literally, all of them) and streaked past the girls smoking a joint outside and did a swan dive into a snow bank.   He came back holding his tool in a way that telegraphed that the whole episode maybe wasn't the best idea (or the crunchy snowbank part wasn't so good).  Not a good pic, but he's in the snow above the head of the girl with the leopard print scarf. 

Day off watching junior parallel sprint

Relaxing day.  Watched and did free ski runs to work on a few things. 

The course. 

Over to lunch.  

Tartiflette, cappuccino and rehydration French style. 

Les Contamines

Today was unrelenting winning.  I was winning so much it almost hurt, cause at times I wanted to cry I was winning so much.  

I had a solid uninterrupted sleep for the first time last night and just woke up naturally without an alarm clock. Breakfast surprised me with another anglophone - Tanner Visnick came over for this race.  Great to catch up.

I debated lounging today to give the legs a race.  Turns out Andrea and Stephane the FIS people needed a lift to the hill, so I offered to drive them.  Might as well ski then too.  They're great people - everyone in telemark is, and fun getting to know them. 

It's less than a 5 min drive from where we are.  Checked out the course setup, looks nice.  The loom is huge and thick, they must have made a mountain of snow.  

I looked up the hill and saw someone carving unprecedentedly beautiful telemark turns.  He comes down and says hi Erik.  So of course they were beautiful, it was Toby the German guy, who's number one or two in the world for last few years depending on when you check.  We rode the lift up then I went off to tourist ski.  

Top of mountain video! (in HD no less)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_LORMtQ-NkA

It only took a few minutes to climb up from lift. Very mild weather, I could have sat up here for hours. 

Oh yeah!  Mont Blanc sort of by my left hand. 

I was up there. Don't go too close to edge. 

Poma lift queues up pomas. You release them with the foot wand. Leaves them all in one place for maintenance and inspection and helps deal with packs of riders more efficiently. 

So I tried to get my camera out quick enough for the first sign but couldn't, it's hard when it's that steep.  I got it out for this one, but the yellow triangle is scraped free of numbers.  The last one said 60% grade which feels crazy steep. I know it looks flat from the angle but I'm not making it up. It is marked on the map as teleski difficle. 

Here's the top of the poma (HD too).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ARz0qv-fov4

Another piece of mountain technology.  They have solar panels and batteries on them.  They are avalanche control devices remote operated.  I don't know if they are bass canons or air pressure explosions.  But very clever and low op cost once installed. 

So I wasn't hungry for lunch until I saw this.  You don't pass up opportunities like this. 

This big dog showed me to my table. 

Winning so hard, man sometimes life just hands you a gem.  No wind, fabulous view, warm day, choice table. Thank you France. 

I had a chef salad with great tasting ingredients.  Then instead of a dressing pack the lady at the checkout has a big jar of fresh made dressing and a ladle and puts it on for you.  No choices, just today's flavour.  It was a dijon based dressing that was simply amazing. I had a cappuccino and this beer made locally with genepi flavour. Genepi is a wormwood liqueur but this beer just has some in for flavour. 

So turns out the big dog has a little buddy. The dog goes around and inspects people.  Very nice personality and just massive paws.  Here's his helper. 

Little chat.  It'd lie behind the chairs and try to stalk birds. I think it was better at stalking errant French fries. They have quite the life up there!

So this isn't the best picture, but the lift in the valley (not the one I'm on) goes both ways - you can load either side at the bottom.  It connects to the gondola at the top.  

The grooming fleet. 

Town from the ski out. 

Drive from La Plagne to Les Contamines

Driving in the alps is an absolute treat.  The views are spectacular as are the roads.  And I really like the little Mazda, the handling is great, the fuel economy blows my mind (110km/h on highways bounces between 3-5L/100km), and the power and torque are surprising. 

The road that was to connect me to Megeve was closed. Fortunately I know the French word for detour... So I followed the detour signs.  For the next 60 minutes my steering wheel was never straight.  It was like climbing a paved Pneuma then descending a paved Race of Spades. I felt like the turns matched GS course spacing. It's crazy they build them like this.  Uphill switchbacks were so steep and tight many were first gear.  Sebastian Ogier has so much home turf to practice on!  It was pure joy that such playgrounds of driving exist.  The fact that they even have multiple roads through these passes blows my mind even more. 

Uhh, right. Or left?

The affinity for Defenders here is much appreciated by moi. 

Detour. I wish I could have strava'd what came next. 

This was the other end of the detour section, so I can later try to map what road I was on.  It was awesome.  I'd love to M Coupe time trial it at 3am in a full moon in the summer when nobody's out there.