| VAL THORENS UPDATE |
3 January 2002 |
|
As I drove in to town Concrete Schoolyard
started to sound from my one working speaker.Not only one
of my favourite tunes, but also wickedly appropriate for this
man-made monstrosity that I love. At this point I was still
happily unaware that this season the slopes too would be made
of concrete. The students in town on the BUSC Third Event preferred to drink (see right). But the fact is, we season workers like moaning, or appear to. Some skied. Content to complain to each other, and anyone else within earshot, about how this didn't compare to: last season; the season before last; or any of the enormously impressive number of seasons notched on their livers. The true snow snobs preferred to avoid any contact with piste at all. Maintaining a disdain of hard-pack so intense that they would rather have no ride than a bad ride. A view seemingly not shared by nannies. Several of whom have been sighted slinking bedwards with creatures barely able to remain erect even in terms of standing upright. Anyway, we got a dump of snow. A bundle of joy deep enough to impede buses and bury cars. For two fantastic hours we attacked the off-piste, heedlessly shredding bases and ripping out edges. Until a consensus was reached that the snow was only deep enough to hide the rocks, not actually to cover them. It seems that freak weather conditions had laid the snow only on cars and in the path of approaching transfer coaches. So we're back to the pistes. Which now have a layer of snow on top of the ice, and for the most part are quite good. Much the same as life out here. I made next month's rent selling cigars around the bars on New Years Eve; and still had enough drinking time left to now not know where I was drinking. Except that wherever it was the Ski World staff were there and their blouses weren't. Boogie nights started at the Tango yesterday.
The theme evening which proves once and for all that every
Scandi is a potential porn queen. The Frog and Roastbeef still
has a carpet as thead-bare as the goal-mouth of a primary
school football pitch...but reigns undefeated as the Brit
workers' local. Check out www.powderblue.nu
for more insider info.
Report from Jon Trigell -
Natives Resort Reporter in Val
Thorens Mail
this page to a friend | |
Maybe
we shouldn't have been grumbling. Most French resorts didn't
have any snow at all, or so little that they were limiting
punters to a half day's skiing. Rumours of riot police in
the Deux Alpes lift offices to break up mob violence should
have made the odd hundred metres of sheet ice perfectly acceptable.
