Today was pretty much bon.

:-)

Chris is much better, both from sickness and injury, and it's really good to have my wife back.

The morning started grey, turning to rain in Morzine, though higher up God had the heavenly sugar sieve out and was dusting the mountain tops. Initially we were going to walk back along the track that I photographed yesterday, but the rain was hard and ice-covered trail so slippery that we abandoned in favour of going up to Avoriaz in the cable car again.

Oops.

The wind was gale-force up there, and the snow so thick it was a near white-out. We put on tinted glasses that helped a little by allowing us to open our eyes, and stumbled across from the lift around the back of the nearest building into calmer air. Up ahead we could see where the wind was driving the snow through a gap between buildings, so we took a lift up to the next level and wandered around for a bit before realising this was not fruitful either. Returning back down the mountain showed that it was now snowing on the slopes around the Prodain lift area, but moisture still fell as rain on Morzine town itself.

I had arranged through Viber to meet with Ben at the top of Prodain lift again at 2pm, and after another change of ski boots & lunch we did manage to join up. The wind was just as strong at the top, but this time I had proper ski gear on, and the conditions were much less difficult. We started off gently on the green Proclou run, then the blue before heading off on the (long, previously 'impossible' from Sunday's outing) Mossette/Prolays run to the Chaux Fleurie lift that took us up to the swiss border, then dropping back down the Grand Plan run to Lindarets & the lift back to Prodains. Up to the Grand Plan I'd managed a clean record, but this last run was the most challenging of all, and I had a minor fall first, then a bigger one that's left me a little tender tonight in my chest, but nothing too serious.

There were some funny moments, like when a group just decided to stop in the middle of a narrow section of piste and I had to shout "coming through" so they didn't move. Lots of dodging happening as other novices wove their way down the slopes, trying to hold speed down and relying on others to not run into them.

After 2 hours, 11km of skiing we called it an afternoon & headed back down. Ben had dinner with us tonight at the hotel, to complete his day off, and by now will hopefully be back in Les Gets.

A good day then.

*edit*
I have the ski tracker app that outputs data in (among other things) a format suitable for google earth, but can't find a way to incorporate that into the blog - yet.