Woke up this morning to super heavy winds, first time here in the valley, not a good sign as most of the resorts around have been closed or opened late the past few days because of wind. Eric went to the bakery to get us a baguette and talked to a local ski instructor who told us to go to Grands Montets, because of the wind direction it should ok there. After breakfast we hopped on the bus and headed there, once there we saw that it was closed and that people were going to Balme the furthest out resort to Chamonix, the crowds for the bus were huge so went and had a coffee in the resorts restaurant. After an hour we got on the bus to Balme and it was open, we took the gondola up and wow great snow on piste and blown powder off piste about a foot.
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| Base of Balme |
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| i cant stop smiling |
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| Eric smiling as well you just cant see it |
We kept switching between piste and off piste as the off piste was harder to ski and wearing our legs down. After a few hours we stopped at an old hut that was a restaurant as Eric had lost a contact in his goggles, but the waitress wouldn't let him use the bathroom unless we bought something so we had a hot chocolate. It was actually a very cool old place
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| Restaurant a the top of Balme, very cool old place |
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| Huts at the top of Balme |
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| Hot chocolate |
After we decided to try the other side of the mountain and to get there skied some off piste, we came to split with the tracks we were following all fresh untouched powder. Eric wanted to follow the majority of tracks when a German guy skied up and told us to follow the single track that without a GUIs the other way was dangerous, we ended up taking his advice but we would have been ok following the group tracks. It was still a fun powder run.
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| The mountains around Balme |
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| Eric enjoying the surroundings |
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| Mountains around Balme |
From here we did a top to bottom run to a small town then took their Gondola back up, very cool how you can ski thru towns. Once back up we did more mix of Piste and Off Piste until our legs were tired and called it a day. With this mornings heavy winds we were lucky to even ski!
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| Bar in town |
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| We had to ski thru town to get to a Gondola |
Once at the bottom we took the buses back to Chamonix, at the apartment a young lady was walking to our main entrance and this door has been a pain in the ass to open so being the nice guy I am I went to open it for her and jammed my finger tip in, mother Fker that hurt and my finger nail is now all purple. After we changed and went into town for some hot wine with Grand Manier in it awesome drink! Stopped in at a bar, it's the oldest in town and a very cool historical building, then dinner an eatery near the apartment.
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| Oldest bar in Chamonix |
I love French food and at this place the chef took our order and brought our excellent meals out.
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| Fried Cheese, cured ham on a salad at Cousin Alberts |
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| Chamonix |
To top off the evening we walked to the sports complex, our passes allow us to use the pool and hot tub but, we just checked maybe tomorrow, I told Eric we need to buy speedos, that's what the euros wear and sure enough every guy had one on LoL! After we walked back into town and each had a crepe mine was Nutella/banana yumm now were ready for bed, well see what the weather does tomorrow???
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