Unexcused Absences

Our first trip to France in 2013 came sooner than expected. We have plans to return to our boat Après Ski in mid May, but Ted, the Minister of Leisure, suggested we take a ski trip to the Alps, and it would certainly be rude to turn him down, so mid March found us on a plane to Paris.

The famous cathedral in Reims

We arrived a couple days early to take care of some business in Paris and to visit our friend Dana, who because of her work schedule was only in town for an afternoon. Faced with a free day, we hopped the TGV east for about 45 minutes to the historic city of Reims, one of the major hubs of the Champagne region, to do some reconnaissance for June when we’ll be back in Champagne aboard Après Ski. Reims had received a foot of snow the day before, most abnormal for this city. And I bring that up because it seems that this year we have brought the snow with us wherever we went.

On the col (pass) between Courchevel and Meribel

Our arrival at Beaver Creek in mid January snapped a two-month snow drought. And when we flew back to Virginia in early March, we brought with us the “Snow-quester” storm. We even brought snow to Dallas, Texas, when we changed planes on that flight. Now here we were in northern France, where it rarely snows, and they’re digging out from under a foot of it. And the weather forecasts for the 3 Valleys ski area, our destination in the French Alps Saturday, were hinting at significant snow Sunday through Tuesday morning. Thanks to Ted, we arrived Saturday afternoon to prime conditions for a week of skiing in Meribel-Mottaret, in the heart of the 3 Valleys. We awoke Sunday morning to snow showers and packed powder conditions, so we quickly suited up and were on an early chair to begin our ski week. During our tour of Courchevel, one of the three valleys, the snow showers intensified, and by quitting time it was starting to pile up. At bedtime Sunday we could see that a good 4-6 inches had already come down.

Monday morning; buried cars, snow keeps falling

And then Monday morning happened. We looked outside in awed silence; everything was buried in white, and it was still dumping snow. The storm easily produced a foot or more overnight. Eager with anticipation (I believe Heather said I was “vibrating”), we were out and ready to go for the lift opening. The interesting thing about Monday was that because so much snow had come down, the mid and upper sections of the mountain remained closed (avalanche danger), so we found some fantastic powder runs on the lower slopes. Once the mid-mountain chairs opened around 10:30, we had another round of fresh powder runs. And when the upper mountain opened an hour later, we got a third go at fresh tracks.

Rock-hopping Monday afternoon during a break in the storm

Now for non-skiers reading this, you may wonder what all the fuss is about. Here’s the thing; people ski their entire lives waiting for the chance to ski deep untracked powder on a big mountain. At a place like Vail or Beaver Creek, with two- to three-thousand vertical feet and relatively crowded slopes, you may only have one or two runs a season (if even that) of completely untracked, deep powder. The 3 Valleys are eight times the size of Vail, and boast a six-thousand foot vertical drop, so there’s space for everyone. And in three hours we had enjoyed three separate sessions of pristine, deep, untracked powder.

Monday night; the snow continues

We skipped lunch to continue our quest for powder, and finally dragged ourselves back into the condo at about 1:30, exhausted (powder skiing is a workout). The snowfall continued off-and-on that afternoon, but by dinnertime it was dumping again. In this case, “early to bed and early to rise makes Kent a happy powder skier,” so we made it an early evening and woke at 7am with anticipation.

Tuesday did not disappoint. Incredibly, there was a second foot of new powder up on the mountain, and the weather was bright and clear. Because Monday had been stormy with poor visibility, the off-piste terrain remained untouched since Sunday afternoon. Near the start of our first run we headed left off the main track and found ourselves thigh-deep in untouched champagne powder. To paraphrase our friend Elizabeth from Vail, “you must be kidding me!!!” This was unlike any skiing we’ve ever done in our lives; there were quite literally tens of thousands of acres of untouched pillowy softness just waiting to be tracked up.

Kent scores some serious powder

Lunch Tuesday at “the beach” below Mt. Vallon

Heather working the deep stuff

Untouched powder in all directions

We were again treated to a staged opening of the mountain, so after over an hour of lower-altitude powder skiing bliss we got access to the untracked fields on the slopes of Mont Vallon, a 10,000 foot peak with 2,600 feet of steep (but not insane) powder fields set at the end of the Meribel Valley. Five runs and 13,000 vertical feet later, we were once again trop fatigué pour continuer (too pooped to participate). Life had been exceptionally good to us the past two days.

Clearing winter storm

And as if Monday and Tuesday weren’t enough, Wednesday we discovered that the Chanrossa peak in Courchevel had remained closed due to avalanche danger since Sunday, so we got a third day of over knee-deep powder, at least for a couple runs before it got tracked up. We had our friend Todd with us in hopes of doing a grand 3 Valleys tour, but it was not to be. By about 1pm the snow had returned, taking with it any semblance of visibility on the upper mountains, so we stayed close to home and skied the lower mountains. That evening we had the second-best fondue ever, at a restaurant called La Fromagerie – appropriately, “the cheese factory” – in Meribel village (our favorite fondue ever was back in 2005 at the Chalets de l’Arc, a short walk from the upper village in Les Arcs, also in the French Alps).

Mottaret village at the head of the valley

The snow continued overnight – counter to the forecast – and by Thursday morning there was yet another 8-10 inches of fresh snow in the mountains on top of the tracked – but still soft – snows from the previous few days. So we got a fourth day in a row of seriously deep powder. Nothing left to say but wow (although in another item of note Thursday, we took a single four-mile-long, 4,000 foot vertical drop ski run from the top of the Trois Marches lift all the way to St-Martin-de-Belleville for a gourmet lunch at La Voute).

The Alps are big; Mont Vallon

Friday dawned the kind of day the Alps are famous for; painfully blue skies and bright sunshine and white mountains in all directions. Our mission for the day was to ski as far as possible to a section we’d never been to at the far side of Val Thorens. We caught first chair from Mottaret and took a pretty direct route, only pausing to smell the powder a couple times, and it was still fully noon by the time we made it to the 10,600 foot Pointe du Bouchet, summit of the 3 Valleys. It was a long ways away; imagine skiing from the White House in Washington to Rockville, Maryland.

Meribel Valley from Col de la Chambre

It bears repeating; skiers dream their entire lives of a few runs in deep powder, and here we had enjoyed dozens of runs over four days of untracked, deep, incredible powder. So Ted, the undisputed Minister of Leisure, we thank you from the bottom of our hearts. It was truly a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

Val Thorens and Les Menuires

Meribel Village

A buried barn near Côte Brune

A hearty French breakfast

Lunch in St. Martin de Belleville

The Mont Vallon gondola

Restaurant le Caribou, below “Glacier de Thorens”

A vintage gondola from Le Praz

Heather up to her ears in snow

The view from halfway down Mont Vallon

“Ski Food”

A really deep snowdrift

A final powder shot