Things they don't tell you about winter in the alps and learning how to ski Swiss style.

It’s been a grey couple of weeks here in Chatel - not in terms of the atmosphere, it’s getting more lively by the day as more seasonaires arrive and locals return – but the weather has been snowing or about to snow for about 10-days straight now.




world's smallest pillow line



This isn’t a bad thing and is great news for getting the ski areas open early and for the season to come but the one sunny day that we did have was a real treat and myself and the missus made sure that we made the most of it by taking the dog on an epic walk, wading through snow up to our knees.

The snow normally comes overnight and I don’t mean the 3-inches of snow that has just ground the UK to a standstill but rather the sort of snow that takes a whacking great shovel just to dig to the car, in order to dig the car out so that you can start it. I keep forgetting to park the car on the road and not in the little parking area in front of our apartment and so when I wake up to go somewhere in the morning, I have to factor in an extra half an hour of snow-shovelling just to get the car to the road.

The thing that no one tells you about driving in winter conditions out here is that because the snowploughs plough all the snow to the side of the road, this snow mounts up and forms little walls so that if you want to stop or turn round, there is nowhere to do so – it’s like being in a giant scalextric track. I forgot my wallet the other day when I left home and ended up driving up and down the Route de Thonon just because there was a roundabout at each end and they were the only places I could turn round…

It’s especially difficult because I haven’t yet sorted winter tyres. I’ve seen in the various snow online forums the debates that rage on about whether you do or don’t need winter tyres. Having now been in cars with and without winter tyres and experienced proper winter conditions out here when the snow has caught out the local gritters and snow ploughs, I can say with confidence that if you are coming out here to do a season and are bringing your car, clear the moths out of your wallet and get them. They make the world of difference and potentially can get you out of some very nasty situations.

Yesterday, one of my bosses at the Morgins Ski and Snowboard School invited me for a day of skiing in Verbier. Of course, I jumped at the chance and it was a good chance to see some of the guys from the Warren Smith Ski Academy who trained me for my instructor exams, who have already started teaching there.

I hadn’t seen Rolf (my boss) ski before but I did notice the ‘Swiss Snowsports Pro’ Patente pin in his jacket and his skiing certainly lived up to this. It was about all I could do to keep up and by the end of the day my confidence in my own ability was more or less gone and my body was aching. The Swiss style of skiing is very distinct and different from the BASI style that I was hammering over the summer and it’s going to take me a little while to adapt to how these guys would like me to ski.

Verbier was lovely, although after the relative solitude of Chatel and Morgins, seemed like an urban sprawl. The conditions up high (only the top lifts and runs were open) were good with a solid base and fresh snow on top. Perfect for the fast carving that Rolf seems to like so much. It was a bluebird day and I’m glad that I had the sense to put on the SPF50 in the gloom of Chatel before we left.

Training with my ski school starts on Saturday with the ski director passing judgement on my abilities (or lack of after Verbier) and there is a private school coming up for group lessons on Sunday. The winter tyres are bring fitted to the smart car on Thursday so at least I’ll be able to get there to find out exactly how rubbish I am compared to the other instructors :)

Getting busier

When I arrived in Chatel, the village was fairly quiet, with only the local (mainly English) barflies hanging out at the Avalanche Bar waiting for the season to start.

Over the weekend though, there was a noticeable influx of cars with British number plates and new and different people. I guess I am one of them but because I was here two weeks ago, I am counting myself as a local.

I was having a beer the other night with my new best friend ‘Pi** Head Paul’ and although we are delighted that the punters are coming, it means that we don’t have the bar to ourselves anymore, at least not until May.

It’s snowed again and is apparently going to for the rest of the week. Speaking to my Ski School director Earnst earlier on today, it looks like the Morgins lifts might be open for some skiing this weekend.

I’ve spend most of the last week helping varnish the wood for the new deck at the Morgins Ski and Snowboard School. A new bar and terrace is going into their new building and we’ve still got a lot to do to finish everything off before the season starts.

My wife arrived in Chatel on Saturday after working her notice period at her job in the UK and is just looking to finalise some work out here for the winter. Perhaps we will be able to take some of the stress out of job searching by doing some skiing at the weekend.

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published here

COMING AND GOING (BUT NOT IN THAT ORDER)

It’s been an interesting last month or two since I got back from Saas-Fee in mid-September and I seem to have spent the last two months preparing for this winter, catching up with people and tying up loose ends.

So on Monday morning at 5.10am it all finally came to a head and eased myself into a very full Smart car and headed to the Eurotunnel. I was taking a combination of myself and the Mrs B’s stuff but it was still interesting to reflect that the majority of the stuff that I cared about was contained in a ski bag, a boot bag, a Tesco bag for life and an archive box.

The hound was lording it having been given the special privilege of sitting in the passenger seat for this one journey and looking very pleased with his progress from his usual spot in the boot.

Because I had to do the inventory and formal handover for our apartment in Chatel in the daytime and would have arrived at night, I stayed over overnight in Dijon and met my friend Katie L for dinner. I met Katie in a French class that I took to prepare for this winter and she has taken it one step further and actually moved to France to take a University course in Dijon to get better at French. It wouldn’t be right to blog what we discussed but it sounds like she is having a great time and getting properly involved in the lifestyle albeit with a few cultural ‘issues’..

Another early start sees me hacking along the motorway to Geneva with only Autoroute FM for company. I think I’ve been in the car for a total of 10 hours and the single best song played was Huey Lewis and the News – The Power of Love (as in the ‘Back to the Future’ movies). They may actually have played other decent songs but this one stood out as it was as I got my first look at snow-capped mountains which caused an involuntary stupid grin to spread across my face.

I’m now moved into my apartment and a pleasant surprise is that it’s much bigger and nicer than expected. I’ve moved a few bits of furniture around and changed a few things to make it better and the hound is pacing about trying to settle in and find somewhere decent to sleep after his big walk to the Avalanche Bar and a bit more friend-making in the village (having a friendly sheepdog is very useful for meeting people)

I’ll be having a crack at my massive to-do list tomorrow and getting the remainder of the things that I need for the apartment, as well as going to see my new boss at the ski school in Morgins. Chatel looks beautiful surrounded by snow-capped mountains but it’s still very quiet with not much going on. There is a stack load of cardboard boxes that used to be full of ski boots and other stuff outside many of the ski shops so I guess everyone is building gradually up to the season.

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published here

Even the Swiss get excited about new snow

So I'm now writing this winter for Natives as their snow and resort reporter for Chatel and Morgins, as well as providing similar blog content for the Dare2b Mountain Lounge website too.  I'm also in discussions with some guys who do video snow reports which might be a fun thing to do for the season.  Also, getting paid for all of this too....

Last week, my new boss Rolf from my The Morgins Ski and Snowboard School rang me to check my date of birth for some paperwork that he was doing. The conversation turned to general stuff and how he was coping with all of the preparations for the upcoming winter season (I'm heading out there quite early in about 2 weeks time so I am hoping that he'll need a load of ski tech work doing or some such).

He mentioned that the first snow of winter had arrived in Morgins and that everything had turned white.  At this point I said to Rolf, 'but hang on Rolf, you're Swiss, are you telling me that you get excited about the snow coming?' (Rolf is a greying father of two who has the look of a man who has seen it all)

'Yes' he said, 'I love it when it snows' and even though he's probably seen more snow than you can shake a stick at, the enthusiasm in his voice and the obvious big grin that I could hear down the phone line made me genuinely excited about the prospect of the coming season. 

I can't wait.

Published here and here

Job searching

I’m back in the UK now catching up with various domestic stuff. I’m on a bit of a deadline because I’ve got to be out in Switzerland at the start of December for my first season as a ski instructor.

the dog.  pleased to see me.

I’ve got a job with the Morgins Ski & Snowboard school in the Portes du Soleil which I’m really pleased about because it’s the one place that I’ve always wanted to work, ever since I fell in love with the place when I skied through it a few years back.

It seems that all the hard work that I put into my applications to ski schools was worth the effort. I was only applying to French speaking Swiss ski schools so I took the time to translate my covering letter into French, had a French and English version of my CV and attached a decent picture of me skiing to my emails.

In the end, I had five jobs to choose from in Grimentz, Crans Montana, Champery and Morgins. In the week after my gap course in Saas, I stayed in Switzerland and went along to four interviews, two of which were in French. I speak reasonable French but this was another level and I found myself a little out of my depth. I don’t think I’ll be putting ‘advanced French’ on my CV again...

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Post Saas blues

My next Fall Line blog will probably cover this but just from a news perspective, I am now officially a BASI 2 level ski instructor and will be hopefully coming to a resort in the Alps near you soon.

Myself and the missus left Saas Fee on Sunday (it was a real wrench leaving let me tell you) and I've got 3 interviews to go to with various ski schools over this coming week.  So far we have visited Crans Montana, Grimentz, Nendaz and plan to go to Verbier tomorrow.  Plans to go to the Swiss Portes du Soliel later this week.

I'm struggling to adapt to normal life after what was effectively like a 9-week stag do with an epic ski trip thrown in.  I'm not saying this lightly either, I've got my wife here with me and it's all a bit odd not doing exactly what I want all the time and not seeing the usual people who came to mean so much to me over this summer.

It's very strange and it's going to be even more weird I think when I get back to even more normal UK and the dog and all the trappings of domesticity.

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Officially a ski instructor

So I have finally got over the hangover from Friday night’s epic celebrations of 13 out of 14 of the gappies passing their BASI level 2 qualifications.

some ski instructors

I passed and, for those that plan to, we can now be let loose to teach real people on real mountains all over the world. I’d like to be able to tell you about the party we had to celebrate but I remember nothing of it until I woke up on the floor of the hotel lobby at 5.30am. I blame the altitude.

The final week of the BASI level 2 exam was a pressure cooker for some people and an opportunity for others to put into practice everything that they had learnt over the last nine weeks.

My fellow gappy Alex had a full on Cinderella story, being told that he had some serious issues with his skiing three days into the 2-week course. With the mountain being shut for a few days over, he had to develop his skiing to the level required in a very short time. I kind of knew that I had passed when I was assigned to help him and over an incredibly intense 3-hour ‘Dave private lesson’ we made the changes that he needed to make stick and he passed.

The trainers call you down the hill one by one to tell you your result and I was first down the hill to get the nod to whether I had passed or failed. I couldn’t get excited about my pass though until I heard how he had done. I can’t begin to describe how happy I was for him because, like me and only one or two other gappies, he actually plans to teach skiing in the alps and I know how much he wants to pass on his love of skiing to others.

We had an amusing night in the Alpen Bar one night of the BASI course when a few of us ranked all of the gappies in skiing ability terms. This then moved on to ranking all of the Warren Smith Academy coaches in order of ski ability too. It’s pretty hard to determine differences in ability between BASI level 3 and 4 instructors (even though there were some surprising outcomes) so we fairly quickly moved on to ranking the good looking women in Saas-Fee. Predictably, Lydia the barmaid in the Alpen Bar was the clear winner.

As I write this, I’m sitting in a hotel in Martigny trying to plan a schedule for the three interviews that I have lined up this week with various Swiss Ski Schools. Most of these are going to want to know that I can speak French to a decent level because I said that I could – the fact that I’ve been in Swiss German speaking Saas for nine weeks has not been helpful to strong French language skills. They will also want to know that I can ski so I made a video of myself skiing on the last day of BASI that I can take with me to show them.

This is the last blog about the summer gap and I’ve had an absolutely wonderful time over the last nine weeks in Saas. It’s the sort of place that really gets under your skin and I just know that I will be back, probably to train for level 3 next summer. The Gap has been like a combination of an epic ski trip and a stag weekend, except that it keeps going and getting better week after week and your skiing gets really grooved. I know that I’ve made four or five mates that I’ll keep for life and I’ve met Olympians and World Cup skiers and snowboarders.

I don’t know if my blog has helped anyone who is thinking of doing a gap course but if there is any doubt, just do it – you won’t regret it.

published here