Week 14- Avalanche Week
Week Ending 12/3/6

We started this week with yet more snow and yet more avalanches. A flashing yellow ‘no pedestrians’ sign appeared across from us demarking the possible avalanche zone on the road into town.

About mid-day we started hearing the first rumours about an avalanche that had blocked the road into Val. By about 4pm when it started to get dark, it was clear that we weren’t going to be getting any guests tonight. An avalanche had cut off the road just before the Dam at Tignes and it would be at least tomorrow morning before anyone would be able to get thorough.

It left close to 3000 people stuck in Bourg St-Mourice. My company accounted for around 450 of them, most of which had to sleep, New Orleans style, in a gym for the evening. We speculated that maybe they could play badminton or practice their head-over-heels onto the crash mats to keep morale up… When they arrived on Monday morning, we felt it prescient not to ask if they’d tried it.

The snow didn’t stop either, I think it was either four or five days out of seven it was chucking it down. At one point towards the end of the week, you couldn’t see the road from our bar. The white-out was so thick, first the mountains disappeared, then the restaurants opposite, then the trees, then finally the road. You could just about make out slow moving shadows as the cars edged cautiously down the road.

With the snow came high winds too. I got bored of sitting in the hotel and thought I’d try out the zero vis conditions. I met up with Katy who was on her last day of boarding before going off to Egypt to work in one of the summer hotels. As we approached the top of the main, 8-man chair lift that bridges the Val and Tignes valleys. The wind got stronger and stronger until we got to the top of the lift where the chair was almost blown backwards. Generally there’s a 30 second or so walk or skateboard push you have to do before you get to the top of the piste area and strap both feet in. The wind was so strong that I was able to put my hands on my waist and puff my jacket out, turning my whole body into a sail which pushed me to the piste!

Party-wise this week, it was pimps and prostitutes night in town and as such it was time to get dressed up in drag again… It’d be probably be getting boring by now but it seems that one of us generally pulls if we’re dressed as women which we don’t if we go out normally. I however got nowhere near that point as I got way too drunk before we even left the hotel and spent about 5 minutes in one of the bars before pushing my homing button due to the room spinning so much.

It was a productive five minutes though, we got loads of free flavoured vodka (for dressing up) poured into our mouths as we lay our heads on the bar. Then I got a bollocking from pretty much all the girls for wearing their best clothes. In my defence, I wasn’t even planning on going out in drag until the last minute, so most people had already gone when I was thrown some clothes by Pete while raiding one of the girls rooms. Innocence due to alcohol intoxication…

Foolishly I was so hung over the next day that I missed one of the two blue sky days this week. I ended up joining everyone else sitting on the balcony enjoying the sunshine. We sat there trying to spot avalanches. I didn't see any, but I heard one. It was like a low, rumbling, thunder sound.

There have been a record number of deaths from avalanches this year, both in Val D'Isere and in the Alps. The poor snow at the start of the season then these recent massive dumps hasn't left much of a base layer for the new snow to cling too. What brought the reality of it home to us was when one of the guys from the chain of shops we hire our skis from was caught in an avalanche he himself started.

He and a friend were off-pisteing between two steep runs. He decided to jump from a rock into a load of deep powder while his friend watched. He triggered an avalanche which carried him half a kilometre downhill, where he was found pummelled to death by the rolling snow with a broken neck and back. His friend watched it all happen from the top. The moral of the story is don’t fucking off piste when the avalanche risk is high. The best way to survive an avalanche is not to get caught in one in the first place.

The guests all left on time this week, no avalanches blocked the road, all we need now is for the sun to come out and the avalanche risk to go down so we can all get out and play in ‘the worst snowfall for 15 years’ as one local called it. Sweet!