Here's some vids of me doing stuff badly in the Tignes Snow Park. I hope they work...

Click here for a bad Ollie.

Click here for me Bottling it on a rail.

Click hereto see How to fuck up a 180.

That evening, the skiers went back into town and grabbed a load of beers for everyone. We all met up on the mountain out side the Folle Douche and sat in the sunshine watching the band play. About 5.30 the band had finished and a Pisteur came and told us all to leave because the piste was now shut. We hit upon an idea to head down the mountain a little and cut into the trees to hide from him. Everyone looked pretty camouflaged in the trees as we sat there drinking more beer, everyone except me.

Usually I’d have blended in with my Grenade jacket and brown salopettes, but today was warm so I had my bright red lightweight on. It didn’t matter in the end though, we saw the pisteurs go by at equal levels on the pistes either side of us so we all laid flat and silent until they’d passed, letting out a cheer as we popped open the next lot of beers. About 5 minutes later we went back on piste, dodging piste bashers to get the last of the sunshine before it dipped behind the mountain.

We’d heard rumours that we’d passed the PDR and we’d done quite well, but then we started hearing rumours that the promise of £80 was bullshit. It turned out we passed with one of the highest marks in the company, but we were only going to get £30. Which was a real slap in the face, as everyone had worked their arses off on the promise of an extra week and a half’s wages. If we knew it was only going to be £30 I don’t think we would’ve been so ‘inspired.’

The next bit of money news which confirmed that I was right in my philosophy this year that ‘I’m here to snowboard, not to work’ was when my 3 ½ days leave was worked out from my retainer. A retainer we are told when we join the company, is somewhat like a ‘loyalty’ payment. Every two weeks, we get paid approx. £350, of which, £240 is deducted for a ski pass and rental, food, accommodation, then also a £21 per week goes into a pot, a ‘retainer’ which we collect as a lump sum at the end of the season. It’s designed to keep people around until the end of the season so they don’t have to recruit and train new people. Apparently though, the retainer is an accumulation of holiday leave. As such, I’d accrued 1.5 days leave each month I’d worked (5months x 1.6days = 8 days) so to take 3.5days leave meant I lost nearly half my £400odd retainer. Not a very pleasant surprise.

Anyway, nasty surprise, but fuck it. I didn’t come on a ski season to make money.

Soon enough Saturday night came along and we all sat slightly warily in the staff room chatting and laughing. Most people were happy to be going home, I was just happy to be there with everyone, but then I always am. I will really miss everyone. We had a few drinks before going to bed, nothing too much as Pete and I had said we’d drive one of the company vans from Val to the summer resort in Corsica in the morning. Pete and I had been told we were exempt from the 4.30am start everyone had because we were going to be driving all day.

We took that to mean we could get up, have some breakfast, get the van sorted, then leave. But apparently not. Tory went apeshit at me for not being up at 7 to help clean the hotel, I had the full ‘I can soon cancel your flights if you don’t want to work, I’ll find someone else to drive the van blah blah etc etc…’ Being treated like a naughty teenager does make you act like one… I had to clean the staff toilets as a punishment for being late. The staff toilets were really minging pretty much all season. It was disgusting, but I thought I could make it last until we had to leave, so I did. Pete had the clever idea to stay out all night with his missus and thus got out of any shit jobs.

About 10am we got under way, the van, a Peugeot Boxer which looked a real hunk of junk on first inspection turned out to be pretty nippy. We commented that having never driven anything of this size before, on unfamiliar twisty mountain roads, we did appear to be catching people up and overtaking them quite a lot. We christened it the Millennium Falcon, it was hunk of junk, but boy it was fast. We stopped off in Grenoble for a steak lunch (we had a float from the company for food, water and petrol which we did our best to spend.)

Pete took over the driving as we passed through some absolutely beautiful French scenery, and watched the landscape turn from Alpine mountains, to rolling green hills, to Mediterranean tree and sand covered cliffs. It was good to do a long drive with Pete. We’ve both travelled and lived abroad a similar amount over the last few years which means we can talk openly about what we’ve done and how good it was.

People seem resentful sometimes when you can talk about multiple things you’ve done that they’ve only seen on the Discovery channel. It’s hard to describe the feeling you get when you feel bad because you know you should keep your mouth shut as you know you can ‘trump’ their story. It’s not a one-upmanship thing, it’s just you do do a lot more stuff than most people when you travel a lot. It was really refreshing to have conversation’s like ‘Name your 5 best sunsets, which country and why.’

Pete: Watching the sunset over the Great Wall of China,
Me: Coral Bay Western Australia before a cyclone,
Pete: Sailing across the Atlantic on a 40ft yacht, flat water as far as the eye could see,
Me: Fiji, Nanuya Lei Lei, Palm trees on a pink sky etc etc.

We got to Marseille and boarded the huge ferry bound for Corsica. The Napoleon Bonaparte was massive, it even had an indoor pool and Jacuzzi! We grabbed a quick salad to stave off hunger before dinner, then sat in the ‘Galaxy Club’ watching the sun go down with a couple of drinks (courtesy of the company!) We thought about the guys that had flown home today, and also those that would be spending these few days at the hotel on ‘pack up’ tidying, scrubbing, washing, moving, etc etc.

As we sat there giggling (I think maybe due to the excess oxygen in our systems at being down at sea level.) We commented on how usually while travelling, you compare life now, to that of everyone at home, then think ‘poor bastards.’ We’d had such a good day’s drive, and it was so nice to be so chilled watching the sunset, we thought it was funny to think about the guys still in the Alps, poor bastards! This is totally the way to finish a season!

We got off the ferry the next morning and decided to drive into the hills to see if we could find a nice place for breakfast. We were in no mood for rushing to the resort, knowing what the company is like, we’d probably have to work once we arrived.

We grabbed breakfast in town a little while later, then unfortunately I didn’t recognise Jonny’s number on my phone when he called and said ‘where are you?’ We went straight to the hotel after that, but it didn’t matter, we didn’t have to work in the end.

We spent the afternoon on the beach skimming stones and twatting pebbles into the sea, baseball bat style with driftwood. That night we joined the few department heads that were out there drinking beer and having a BBQ. This was is such a great way to finish a season!

Next morning we had fun at the airport as we had no flight details, just the knowledge that the company had booked flights for us. It wasn’t a problem on Corsica because there was only about 3 planes in the airport. The problem came for our connecting flight to Gatwick from Nice. Easyjet hadn’t heard of us, Air France had no record and as far as we could see, there were no flights to Gatwick anyway. It was too early in the morning for head office in London to be at work and no one was picking up the phone at the hotel. Being Pete and I though, neither of us were too concerned, we’d both been to enough places in the world to not worry about this kind of stuff any more. It turns out Nice is quite a big airport, it actually has two separate terminals and we were meant to be in the other one. We got our BA flight in time and returned to England.

Would I do another season? Yes, absolutely. Would I work for a company again? I don’t know, probably not. There are definite upsides to working to for a big company; You don’t have to worry about anything except having enough money for booze. You have an instant circle of friends that become more like family. If you play it right, you can sometimes get a free roadtrip through the south of France! Most importantly though, if you have no money at all, it will get you out in the snow.

However, you do have to put up with being treated like you’re at school sometimes (which I suppose is fair enough as there are a lot of 18-19 yr olds on gap years) and obviously, you can’t go and expect to actually come away with any money at all.

If there is a next time, I’m going to go the ski bum route. Save up lots and just get a pad for 5 months. Maybe a couple of easy 10hr a week jobs in an internet café or something. I’d be a ski bum, and I’d let nothing get in the way of my snowboarding. I’m better than I was at the start of the season, but I’m still not as good as I’d like to be!

But for now I think I need to briefly grow up and get all professional again, get me a mortgage a house and a flatmate… Then maybe find someone who likes working summer seasons and do a 6 month room share with them so I can go off again… How hard can it be? I’ll let you know how it goes.

Thanks for reading snow506.

Matt
blueskiesnvodka@hotmail.com
(if you haven’t read it already, can I also recommend my old backpacking site at www.wheresthatluckybastard.com)