Anthony can't make it through the year without skiing in the Alps at least once. He heads out for a long weekend with a group from Ubisoft to Tignes, which is attached to Val d'Isere, in the French Alps, chosen because of the high altitude for spring skiing: base elevations 2100m (6890ft), and 1850m (6070ft) respectively.
By the end of the weekend, he feels he's earned some office cred from the trip, even if he is lost for most of the conversations carried on in French. He is a) one of the older people on the trip, b) the sole American, and c) from California. So the French are probably not expecting much from him, ski-wise. But Anthony, in case you've never been on the slopes with him, is a hot-shot skiier. It's a thing of beauty to watch him come down a steep black chute (whereas I look like like a helmeted Michelin-man careening down a mountain, with loud screaming sound-effects).
The weather is gorgeous - blue skies and great spring conditions. Even with his high Tahoe and Colorado standards, he is still like a kid in a candy store skiing in the Alps. One of Tignes's claims to fame is that it contains the worlds second-longest black run, called La Sache (which appears to mean "knowledge"). From up here, Anthony passes by the rock formation called l'Aiguille Percée (the aptly-named "eye of the needle"). The full run is 10km, through a valley and ending in the village of Tignes Les Brévières. Anthony and his co-worker go from top to bottom in roughly thirty minutes of hard, fast skiing. At least, that's his estimate. That would be about three or four hours for me, then.
The ascent alone is 1200m up -- that's about 4,000 ft of vertical -- and takes about an hour (again an estimate): a gondola ride followed by a long chairlift. Unless you're in the gondola that got stuck mid-mountain for eight hours a few months back. Then it takes longer. But that, thankfully, is an experience that Anthony misses.
For their last night, they go out for a special three-course Alps dinner that consists of tartiflette (a potato & cheese casserole) followed by cheese fondue (potatoes and bread dipped in melted cheese mixture), followed by raclette (melted cheese scraped off a rotisserie onto potatoes, sausage and bread). Luckily, Anthony has probably skiied twenty to thirty thousand (+/-?!) vertical feet today and also skipped lunch to get in more time on the slopes, so he can afford the three million calories he ingests.
By the end of the weekend, he feels he's earned some office cred from the trip, even if he is lost for most of the conversations carried on in French. He is a) one of the older people on the trip, b) the sole American, and c) from California. So the French are probably not expecting much from him, ski-wise. But Anthony, in case you've never been on the slopes with him, is a hot-shot skiier. It's a thing of beauty to watch him come down a steep black chute (whereas I look like like a helmeted Michelin-man careening down a mountain, with loud screaming sound-effects).
The weather is gorgeous - blue skies and great spring conditions. Even with his high Tahoe and Colorado standards, he is still like a kid in a candy store skiing in the Alps. One of Tignes's claims to fame is that it contains the worlds second-longest black run, called La Sache (which appears to mean "knowledge"). From up here, Anthony passes by the rock formation called l'Aiguille Percée (the aptly-named "eye of the needle"). The full run is 10km, through a valley and ending in the village of Tignes Les Brévières. Anthony and his co-worker go from top to bottom in roughly thirty minutes of hard, fast skiing. At least, that's his estimate. That would be about three or four hours for me, then.
The ascent alone is 1200m up -- that's about 4,000 ft of vertical -- and takes about an hour (again an estimate): a gondola ride followed by a long chairlift. Unless you're in the gondola that got stuck mid-mountain for eight hours a few months back. Then it takes longer. But that, thankfully, is an experience that Anthony misses.
For their last night, they go out for a special three-course Alps dinner that consists of tartiflette (a potato & cheese casserole) followed by cheese fondue (potatoes and bread dipped in melted cheese mixture), followed by raclette (melted cheese scraped off a rotisserie onto potatoes, sausage and bread). Luckily, Anthony has probably skiied twenty to thirty thousand (+/-?!) vertical feet today and also skipped lunch to get in more time on the slopes, so he can afford the three million calories he ingests.
Photos from: http://www.meilleurduchef.com/cgi/mdc/l/fr/recette/tartiflette.html, http://www.lacuisinedefabrice.fr/2009/04/07/fondue-savoyarde/,
and http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raclette
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