I've been back from the glorious Alps for 2 weeks now but not had chance to get near a computer for various reasons, so heres my slightely belated account of what went down...

The week leading up to Switzerland was anything but quiet. Spent the Monday and Tuesday in Glasgow visiting the University and loitering round the city. Wednesday was spent going north yet again for a Geography fieldtrip in the lakes (beginning to think I spend far too much time on the M6!) so my only day in college was the thursday which was spent warming all my tutors that I wasen't going to be in lectures for 10 days as I was going skiing!

Good friday was chance to pack before going down to Dick's for 3pm. Boarded the Caravelle and set off south (for a change!). On the bus was Dick, Helen, Steve, Stu, Jim, Danny, Carrington and myself. We were met at Dover by Sean and Sarah who had hitched a lift with Andy and Emma Cunningham. Went into an extremely busy docking terminal before deciding that the few hours wait would be better spent having a anp on the back seat of the bus. Eventually boarded the very very full, and wobbly ferry. Stuart proclaimed that he felt cheated that he'd paid £40 to get the same sensation on his night out the night before! The journey from Dunkerque through to Morgins is about 10-12 hours depeding on how many Belgium tourists are clogging up the fuel sations! Eventally got to Rosie's mid afternoon, Chalet looking as welcoming as ever and Rush looking very excited. Went and got fitted for boots and skis in the local shop and picked up copious amounts of wine before returning for the evening meal.


Day 1
We split off into a few groups so people could ski at their own ability. Team extreme, consisiting of myself, Sean, Splatt, Cuni and Carrington got the early bus and first lift up to the Foilleuese. Conditions looked good with it having put down a fair bit of powder so we set off heading over tot he bowl and then to Champery. Eventually the pace just became to much for the oldies so me, Sean and Graham set off on a misson. We made it to Les crosets on the other side of the resort and had a few runs through the snow park before realising that it was lunch time and heading back over to Morgins. Unfortunately conditions detieriated and we ended up skiing with about 10m visibility looking the Boshaus restuarant, after numerous runs we found it and had a lunch of Chocolate chaud and croute de fromage! Disaster struck when left the Boshaus as my ski binding unexpectidly broke. After a bit of bending I manged to get it to fit back on but decided to leave the others and ski back to Morgins to get the hire shop to fix it soon. An hour later I was back on the slopes with a brand new pair of skis! Got myself back over to Champery and called Sean to discover they were on there way back. Spent the lsat few hours skiing back perfecting my style to some extent before meeting them at the Foilleuse and then getting the bus back to Morgins.

Day 2
Set off for a hard day with Sean and Carrington today, hitched a lift over the border and round to Pre la Jeux then up and over into Ardent and up the valley from there. Eventually found a valley called the 'Canyon de Physcott' that me and Sean had skied the previous year. The weather was really appaling and the skiing was difficult, it was so cold I was loosing feeling in my fingers and my face was burning from the wind and hail... no wonder we were the only people on the slopes! Manged somehow to get to the refuge of Avoriaz where we hada tactical pizza in a restaurant full of excentrict frenchmen. Unfortunately the weather didn't better, it just kept snowing harder and harder and watched the avalanche catagory go from 3 to 4. yay. Mustered the courage to leave the restaurant and began the journey back. Met out pick-up (Dick) in the car-park just on time.

Day 3
Today was mission day. Set out with Steve to challenge ourselves, first headed over to Les Crosets from Morgins and grapped a chocolate chaud in the once again detieriating weather. Our aim was to do the infamous swiss wall, allegedly the hardest slope in Europe and thats what we did. Its a 45 degree black mogul run with a near vertical drop in at the top. I'd done it twice before a few years ago and found in fairly difficult and but still loved it, this time however due to the condition it was covered in powder which meant it could be skied a but better. After our triumph we nailed it to Avoriaz for another pizza in the same place... once agian superb! In afternoon we did some serrious milage skiing over to Ardent, Pre la Jeux, Linga then through Chatel to Super Chatel, Torgon before skiing down into the center of Morgins. Must of done upwards of 40 miles that day.



Had a great evening back at Rosiesm hooking up Danny's laptop to the TV and watching back to the future... '21 Jigawatts!' Then to bed.

Day 4
Today Chris and Andrea came over from Chamonix to visit is for the day, weather was glorious with a fresh dump over poweder having come down during the night. Did the same journey as me and Steve had done the previous day but too Popey, Sean, Cuni and Graham along for the ride. Had yet another great Pizza in the same restaruant, but this time basking in the sun! Weren't moving quite as fast as we should of been and were a bit alte going over to Super chatel side so had to ski very very fast to get to the last lift before it shut! Got there just as the guy was closing up and persuaded him to wait until we were all there... very lucky!

Went out for a meal that night to a restuarant in France. Had a huge meat platter to start followed by a selection of very salty meats, and then a mint liqour sundae (I've never manged to finish the desert before as the portions are truly enorous, got put to shame by Sean last year who shoed off by downing his in one! But managed to stomach all of it this time!) Did the whole creepy museum thing downstairs and then back to Morgins, got dropped off at the T-bar with Stu, James and Danny for a few drinks before staggering back to Rosie's at some stupid time in the morning.

Day 5
Had a more lesiurly day today, set off from Pre la Jeux with Dick and Helen and the rest of our crew from the previous day and went out to Les Gets, lots catching lifts but got some fantastic views of the whole area, could even see Mont Blanc. Hurried back to the Chalet to get ready, say bye to Chris and Andrea and then down the valley to the thermal spa. Had a really good session doing all the crazy mood rooms and many different saunas and playing in the whirl pool. Managed to event everybody other than our party fromt he circle in the centre of the whirlpool!

Back to Rosie's for an amazing fondue, and feeling utterly stuffed with molten cheese headed to bed.

Day 6
Last day skiing today so we all decided to go over to Les Crosets. Most went in the bus but some of us decided to ski over. Weather was great so took the opportunity to nail the Swiss wall again. Had lunch at a very very expensice restaurant with three of us ordering £75 worth of cheese fondue... hmm cheese...

Had a very fun ski back with Sean, Sarah and Carrington with much snowball fighting. Got in a last few runs up and down the Foilleuse before joining the others in the Crystal bar. Helen very nicely paid for my ski hire as the machine in the shop woulden't take my card with a big crag down the middle from where i'd fallen over. Back to rosies for a last fantastic meal and then waatched Lord of the Rings with everybody... who all slowly drifted off to sleep until at 1am there was just me and Sean left! Up early and on th ebus, bid farwell to Rosie and Rush and had the obligatory group photograph before hitting the road.... 22 hours later we were home!

Abosolutely amazing week with some very very top people, all credit to Dick for making it happen and Rosie for having us!