Carving and Bumps

Hello Team. This week feels as though it's flown by since the last post. Helen and Olivia have had every morning skiing around the mountain since Sunday. Helen is gradually gaining her confidence after last winter's incident. I can see every day, just from her body language, that she's happier on her skis.

As for Olivia, it's very interesting to see her skiing develop. We have skied together for nearly four winters now, but in the last twelve months she has spent some extra time skiing with the Kandahar Ski Club. This race training has clearly developed her skiing, not only gaining extra speed but enhancing control. Have a look at her carving technique above, and the clean tracks left behind in the snow.

In the last few days the FIS World Cup Bump skiers have been training and entertaining Méribel. Today was the grande finale, with an awesome display of skill. Over the lunch period it was encouraging to see an excited cosmopolitan crowd gather which included both visitors to resort, plus locals, and of course television crews.

It's amazing to see the best in the world at the pinnacle of their sport. Very motivating, not that my knees could realistically cope with such demands, even if I felt I could train again to the extent of these athletes.

Snow conditions have changed constantly over the last six days. On Sunday and Monday we experienced some ferocious winds here, with gusts of up to 200 Kilometres an hour on the peaks. This meant that some aspects had been stripped of loose snow. However, I've been moving around the mountain freely since the weekend, and haven't noticed any serious loss of snow on the well- prepared pistes. Oh yes, it snowed again yesterday, so everywhere has been freshened up nicely again since these storms.

So, the next few days offers plenty. From Saturday onwards all of the lifts and pistes should open.....Let's not forget that Méribel is smack bang in the middle of the biggest ski area in the world. Plus, some sunshine is expected, I'm looking forward to that because we haven't seen much recently. Most importantly for me though, Harriet is flying out on Friday evening for a few weeks. 

Happy days.

Martin