The view from............ Val d'Isere and the Espace Killy

A snowHead

@Steve Angus, what happened to the photos in your last post? I can see only one Puzzled

A snowHead

Great records you have. Yes its all about building the memories as you say!

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

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Yeah I can only see one.

Val d'Isere is all booked for next March! Woop woop. Flying from Southampton too which is a real bonus.

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@Steve Angus, our youngest will be a seasonnaire next year, so we will come out to see him.
Hopefully my knee will be up to a lesson.

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@Frosty the Snowman,
Ski bum or working? And if the latter, for whom?

After all it is free

Hmmmm thanks folks re the photos feedback. Weird - when im logged in this end (or not) they all come up photos wise. I wonder if thats the case on all my past posts. Anyway will repost them all now.

@Steve Angus, Cool

photos.
Especially some great beach and coast scenes.

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Just been looking at the webcams (as you do in September!).

They appear to be building some sort of platform at the top of Borsat?
They appear to have built a bigger platform at the top of Belvarde, and a patio extension for the blood wagon QRA.
And there is a camel wandering about on the nursery slope. Shocked

And I've not touched a drop so far today. snowHead

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@Judwin, prompted by your post, I browsed the webcams. Did you look at the one with the view from the Lessieres Ridge? The state of the glacier is shocking, it's almost completely gone Sad

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The end of the Summer!

The second half of the Summer has been as busy as the first half - but we have been based in Val for it of course.

I have as usual written some bullet 'reminder' points to myself for what to include with this months update so IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER HERE GOES:

1) Glacier opening - obviously there has not been much rainfall over the Summer as we all know and we are in a stake of drought..... water fountains etc here were all turned off over the Summer months. Anyway Tignes and Val have basically said that the glaciers will not be opening until there is significant snowfall as things have receded so much! In fact the Val and Tignes glacier closed early this Summer and its probable that it won't be until December that ANYTHING can get open at this rate - not good!
2) Guffy - for those who have been coming to Val for a long time and either way if you ever stepped into the Pacific Bar you will have come across the manager Guffy and probably Vicky his wife.... well sadly Guffy passed away last week - cancer claims another one. Although he and his family had shut shop on Pacific a few years back and moved down the valley we all knew him and he will be sadly missed. RIP Guffy and condolences to all the family!
3) Ouillette - talking of water issues the lake up there failed to get enough natural water in it and the water level dropped massively and the aeration of the water became a problem so much that the fish became pretty docile - as a result they closed the lake for fishing early sadly.
4) In the last week the kids have gone back to school (see photos below) and it is all change at the school.... the maternal school has 2 out of 3 new teachers - Ben likes his new teacher and in the big school Olivia is at there is a new and first male teacher there - Olivia has him and she likes him. Also there has been a fair number of kids and their families leave the school and Val so its all go.
5) Olivia and Ben continued for the last month with their daily trampoline sessions and they have come on in leaps and bounds - in particular Olivia can now do both front and back flips - go girl!
6) As well as the Val fayre there is the amazing Bourg fayre and the sun really shone this year - it was hot! We really had an amazing day out. See photo below but one of the highlights of the day was the massive kids toy of life size self build wendy houses.... we spent ages building and rebuilding the various confirgurations - it was amazing!
7) Talking of fun things... last week I finally got to try with Olivia the Val high ropes course which is just above the Savonettes slope in the trees at the base of the Solaise mountain. They have route for all ages from 3 years upwards and the difficulty (scary level too) level can go from 'green' up to black! Anyway Olivia and I had about 3 hours there and we did all the routes - a LOT of fun. Although I did try and the black route at the end and boy it was rather tough - but I was also knackered by that stage too so retreated about half way around the course. Anyway I still plan to head back with Olivia for another go as it really is good fun and worthwhile - not too expensive either!
Cool

Now we have gone back to the inter-season the building works around town have done on steroids again.... today I was doing some wood staining near the Spar petrol station on someones window frames and also watched as they did massive maintenance works on the Isere river storm channel - quite impressive concrete wall resurfacing work going on!
9) No Summer would be complete without a whole host of sleepovers for the kids. So the last few weeks of the Summer saw lots of late nights for the kids and fun and games.
10) Winter is coming - I noticed this morning the first snows of the Winter on the highest peaks around town - the Signal in particular had a small layer on it - the mid day sun will soon melt it away of course at this time of the year but its a good start.
11) DIY season - as mentioned above now the kids have gone back to school its time to get stuck into what I call DIY season. I have a very long list of odd jobs here and there around town to fill me up for the next few months. One thing I have though over the next 3 months in the run up to the Winter is a trip back to the UK for a week this time next week and we are also heading back en famille for a couple of weeks for Oct half term. So lots of work to fill in with some fun things too.
12) Via Ferrata - see photo below - I have been watching a lot of people climbing this Summer through the binoculars and whilst Olivia and I could not get a chance to do the real thing we enjoyed having a go at climbing at the indoor wall in town at the leisure centre. I have never been to the wall before but I was really quite impressed with it - Olivia and I had the place to ourselves and having never tried climbing before (well not for some 20 years) it was harder than it looks!
13) Walks - as we get more into the Autumn we will be doing more and more 'self propelled' activities such as walks... we did an early Autumn walk the other day and walked the avalanche path up to the Village Perdu which was a really nice walk and I had forgotten how awesome the treetop village is up there - its well worth heading there on the way down to La Daille in the Winter if you get a chance - lots of fun even in ski boots!
14) LIFT PASSES - last minute addition..... looks like the prices have finally been agreed for this Winter after A LOT OF negotiations! Public rates are going to be €990 for a season pass but if you are local then it'll probably be circa €600 - depends on how many block booked passes the Vie Val Dis association decide to buy which will have an impact on how much the price of them gets lowered too!

There we are folks - back in another months time or so.

TTFN

The Amazing Summer fayre

Re-entre started

They have been doing a lot of ground works putting in new water tanks / pipe work on the Bellevarde side of the mountain - all in order to improve the on mountain water drinking and sanitation provisions. They have dug and installed pipes all the way from the top of the mountain back down to La Daille over the Summer - quite impressive earth works all in all.

Ive been eyeing up the Via Ferrata route opposite us here in La Daille - weather or lack of someone to go with or forgetting to hire the kit means I have not gotten around to doing the route this year... maybe next year.

These were amazing self build wendy houses at the Bourg fayre - you could buy one for €1000 odd euros if you really wanted to.... but either way certainly the most the most amazing toy ive ever seen! Kids loved building it too!

The high ropes course at the bottom of the Solaise really is very cool!

We had so much to sell at the Val car boot this year - got rid of most of it thankfully!

You know it makes sense.

RIP Guffy

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

The Val webcams are showing a sprinkling of snow above Solaise on Bellevarde and the highest slopes.

The STVI have postponed sales of lift passes because they are increasing their proposed prices due to the cost of electricity.

A snowHead

Really - news to me. The snow and weather is certainly here though.

A snowHead

It really is getting close to Winter now

I can't believe that it is now well into October and the evenings have of course moved in and the Winter is just around the corner! We have the first snowfalls of the Autumn that have gotten to about a third the way down the mountain so above 3000m there has been decent accumulations of the snow but below that down to about 2200m it is sporadic to put it mildly! Whilst it does drop down to below zero often at night it usually climbs nicely during the day in the sunshine. Perhaps the biggest giveaway is the trees turning brown. Time to get the thermals out! haha!

So the last month has been a mixture of work (handyman stuff), a trip back to the UK for a week or so and of course Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday being around the kids when they aren't at school. I have done some outdoor work such as revarnishing some windows for someone in town all the way through to painting an apartment! It has been quite busy!

My trip back to the UK was successful and I saw my mum a couple of times - can't believe she is still hanging on in there but she is. I have said my goodbyes to my mum more than one time now on the phone so it is a painful process that is for sure! Anyway when I was back in the UK I also managed to do some jobs at my mums flat that needed doing and sort some things out - so that was a success.

The first evening I was back I was staying in London with an old friend and after we had a meal out and some beers I decided to join the QE2 Lying in State Queue and queued for about 8 hours (so I was quite lucky really) overnight in order to pay my respects!.

Back in Val with the weather turning and whilst there is still a national water shortage left over from the Summer and a drought in the Savoie the reservoirs here in Val have now largely been replenished which is good news however they are not quite full yet. I read in the town council minutes that they were looking to approach the EDF to ask if they could have a little water from the Chevril dammed lake but EDF have already said no as they need it for hydroelectric power production. Fair enough in the current climate!

Talking of the town council one of the big talking points at the moment is the ongoing issue of energy prices and lift pass prices. So firstly the Vie Val d'Is association have been helped by the council to group buy thousands of season passes for 'locals' to then rebuy off them for a discounted price. So that seems to be sorted but the daily prices for lift passes has had to be raised from €60 (as advertised earlier in the Summer) to €63.... but as of this moment it seems like finally all the prices have been finalised! I believe to counteract some of the other costs they are going to economise on things like turning heated seats off this Winter and other initiatives - all in aid of trying to balance the books. Lets hope it works eh!

One of the other things this past month has also been Bens 5th birthday! The weather was not good on his big day so much of the party was indoors or downstairs in the car park where they could run around like crazy things. He was a lucky boy with some amazing presents and then I think the presents we got him he liked too - he's just getting into lego now (for our sins getting him into that!) and I thought some of the things he got lego wise were amazing!

Not wanting to leave her out I had a daughter day a couple of weeks ago and as well as a nice crepe in town we also went climbing - never been to the wall in the leisure centre before but it was pretty cool actually. Olivia really showed me up as how amazing she is and strong at things like that! Good on her.

Perhaps the most annoying thing the last month though has been a puncture on our car.... but its complicated as I think the puncture they repaired was replaced by our spare tyre which itself had a puncture in it... to make matters worse the locking wheel nut has threaded and can't get the wheel off and I got a tyre inflator so I could get to Bourg to have it looked at and they fixed that flat but now it has leaked a new leak somewhere else on the tyre so im really stuffed this evening.... really hoping that my friends tyre inflator shows I can get some air into it so I can get emergency help down the valley tomorrow (I managed to break our new tyre inflator this morning too when inflating the tyre so its all going wrong at the moment........ arghhhhh! Wish me luck tomorrow!

On the flip side I have decided to set up a new Facebook group trying to match up those looking for ski / snowboard etc lessons direct with the instructors / providers.... so hopefully that will get off the ground. If you are interested in signing up or having a look at the group, and I would welcome the word being spread, then go onto Facebook and look for the group name of 'Snowsport Lessons International Community' - THANKS!

So off back to the UK en famille (lets get the car sorted before then eh!!!) for 2 weeks of half term so looking forward to that!

So all that is left to do is to finish with some photos from the past month.... it seems as if within a few days of using photos from Facebook the links seems to be cut which won't be a problem when I am doing daily updates in the Winter but at this time of the year monthly will get annoying when no photos are showing within a short time. So to that end some photos from Radio Val adorn this update only.

See you next month as I shift back to daily updates as the snow falls and the ski lifts open.

TTFN

Sad that vandalism took place on the Village Perdu

They seem to have been working on the storm channel for a long time now! Just when I think they have finished the work they seem to dig it up again!

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

Glad to see your reports are back Steve! Always enjoying reading them over my morning coffee.

Fingers crossed for a fantastic season!

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It must be winter coming (despite the very mild weather!) as ive started checking here for your updates! Look forward to reading them again this winter. Hope you all have a good winter.

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Great sign of winter coming soon when your regular reports appear. Smile

Good luck getting car sorted. I wrote mine off a few weeks ago. Wrangling with insurance, who offered me half of what it would cost to replace like for like rolling eyes

Can't say I'd noticed heated seats in Val D'Isere. If they're switching them off, looks like getting heated boxers to go with the heated gloves, boots and gilet then.

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Val D'Isere and Tignes (formerly Espace Killy)

Could snowHeads come up with an apt short name for the whole area, that was formerly known as Espace Killy? Nothing too risqué now. Definitely no double entendre on the theme of Grand Mottes, or anything like that. :Perky

After all it is free

Little Britain

Gap Yahshire?

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Val T. I'm sure that would work and not cause any confusion.

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Espace Surrey

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Nannyville.

Espace Tovière
Espace Bellevarde
Domaine de Ski du Chévril
Les Portes de l'Iséran

You know it makes sense.

A new area motto/tag line:-

French also spoken

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

x 7 (that's not my suggested resort name).

How about Montagnes de Squiggle?

Logo depicts a quick 360 look around the top of a mountain. Then an attempted flatliner down. One wrong turn to the left. On rejoining the piste, swept wide to the right by an out of control kid.

Wonder if anyone used this image before?

A snowHead

A snowHead

@PeakyB, Guessing you're implying 'The Resort Formerly Known As ...'

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

@195062, you inferred correctly Eh oh!

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So @Steve Angus, which of your colleagues was rocking a TDC puffer jacket on Snowdon for the Green Space Dark Skies project?

(Last night's Countryfile about 38 mins on the right of the shot).

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@Grinning, Could be virtually any ski instructor!!! But I dont think he works in Tignes.

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Hi @Steve Angus, how time flies! it's been another year. This season we have decided to go to Tignes instead for a change, breaking our long held Xmas Val Di'sere tradition. I wonder if you (or anyone here) can recommend good ski school / instructors for kids in Tignes? (I've also just sent a message to Clare asking if she is available) We have a group of 4 kids, between 9 and 11 years old. Between 18 and 22 Dec. Private or group lesson are both ok but most importantly is it needs to be full day lesson as I've realised some ski school doesn't provide lunch care.

Thanks!
Alvin

After all it is free

Snow!

Temperatures are finally starting to fall.

Autumn has arrived late but may be it will be a very short one and we will get winter on time.

At least there is now some snow at 1850m asl in the town. This will probably melt at that level but the prospect of snow sooner than later is looking better. Let's keep our fingers crossed that enoughsnow falls to enable the kifts to open at then end of this month.

Sorry guys a little out the loop at the moment as my mum finally died on Saturday so am staying in the UK for a couple more weeks to get on top of the huge to do pile organising the funeral but also executor of the estate etc. Hope to actually get into 'snow' mode soon / reply to the above points and all the rest of it when I can but for the next 2 weeks not thinking about anything to do with skiing and snow im afraid! TIA as I know plenty of nice messages will be posted - appreciate!

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@Steve Angus, so sorry. Thinking of you.

Help!!

The view from............ Val d'Isere and the Espace Killy

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