Late Tuesday afternoon and into Thursday morning,
the sky again thickened with clouds and the promised snow again
began to fall. Wednesday morning dawned looking pretty much the
same, and at breakfast Josh was thinking about bagging the day
and catching a bus on home. But as we downed the last crumbs of
slightly less than fresh baguettes with pitchers of strong but
barely tepid French coffee, hints of sun began to play across
the face of Bellevarde. Josh relented, a pass was purchased, and
again we clamored aboard the télécabine.
At the summit of Bellevarde, the sun began
to make some serious headway against the clouds, and we found
6-8" of new fluff to play with. I took a chance that Tignes
would have even more, so away we went to a high speed quad and
a low speed traverse with our eyes on the Funicular de Grande
Motte.
The Vickster decided to let the boys be boys
while she explored the vast Tignes playground on her own. Josh
and I boarded the great yellow caterpillar, and six minutes later
we were 3000 feet higher on the edge of a bright sunny glacier
and some limited but exquisite fresh track possibilities. Fifteen
hundred verts later, we jumped into one of my favorite off-piste
stashes below le Rocher de la Grande Balme, and it did not disappoint.
Not real steep, but oh, so precious. We did our damnedest to leave
our personal signatures: Josh, long, sweeping round Authier GS
curves; I, a narrow wiggle of Völkl slalom side cut. We patted
ourselves on the back heartily as we admired our handiwork, and
then rushed up to do it again...
...And got sidetracked by a quick bump run
down the other side into the col de la Leisse, and the call of
a still higher cable way. We ascended to the top of the world:
the summit of the Grande Motte, at 3420 meters (11,220 feet).
We pursued some wide open GS cruising back down to the stash to
admire our previous tracks from above, and surprised ourselves
by laying down a second set to match. Unbelievable - lines like
these would have been tracked out hours ago at Alta or the 'Bird,
but here, we was the kings. With 25,000 acres of skiing, the powder
pigs have plenty of troughs at which to feed.
But only for a moment, because it was time
for Josh to split. We found Vickie, and said our goodbyes, and
Vickie and I cried all the way back up the funicular for a grand
lunch of pommes frites on the terrace of the restaurant Panoramic.
I then lead Vickie on down the vast cruising terrain on high,
and then on to show her Josh and my handiwork. At last, a couple
of crisscrosses, but plenty of room for one more set. So set them
I did.
Vickie was pooped of skiing, and I was pooped
of powder. She went in for some hot chocolate, but I still had
one more mission to accomplish. The Skier's Code commanded me
to the summit.
I boarded the funicular, and rode it to its
end. I exited right onto the tram, and rode it to its terminus.
Below me lay 4330 vertical feet of terrain. I was bound and determined
to eat it all in one bite.
After 3000 feet of descent, I began to reconsider.
My legs shook. My lungs rasped. There's precious little air at
7000 feet. The slope was crowded with bad French skiers, all of
who seemed intent upon standing in my way. But I skied on, driven
by the Code. Not enough people have a Code to live by anymore.
Four thousand three hundred thirty vertical feet, non-stop. Twenty solid minutes of uninterrupted skiing. Try that at Jackson or Big Sky - whoops, you can't: they're just too little.