France Ski Trip Day 5: Slide to the Left

Today we ventured over to the valley left of ours called Courchevel.  I will be referring to the other valleys as the one to our left or right.  Most trail maps have Meribel in the middle with a somewhat birds' eye view as if the bird was approaching the valley at altitude.

There was definitely a different feel to this valley.  When we arrived at the top of the right-most edge of the valley it was actually quite windy and shady...therefore cold.  I believe the picture below is from the top but I didn't really use anything to mark where one day started and another ended on my camera.

Photo Credit: Me

A lot of ski school classes liked to patron this valley.  I say this in relation to the amount of ski school classes I saw on Day 1 which was not all that many.  Down at the base villages there were usually markers set up for the rally points of each level of class.  There were even skill descriptions to accompany them such as parallel turns, side-step up the slope, etc.  My friend "Robo" did not discriminate when skiing through these classes, interrupting their lines of follow-the-leader. Often, Jason and I would stop and just watch...we knew the result was going to be chaos or another lucky pass by Robo. His technique of turning back-and-forth using the whole run did not lend itself to avoiding others.  I believe we agreed his turning technique improved by the end of the trip.

After skiing all morning and getting lost several times trying to find a good place to stop, we finally found a small village worth taking a break in.  A very busy sandwich shop provided us with huge hot sandwiches and a basket of fries.  We grabbed drinks at a local bar.  Lunch was about 1.5 hours later than we expected that day and we were hungry!

Photo Credit: Me

Exhausted from afternoon skiing we decide to head to Meribel-proper for dinner.  One of the pubs down there was advertising a burger and fries for 6 Euro...not too shabby.  This was followed by a couple other bar stops both of which were British as well.  A side story will follow about how they transport Guinness up to these high slopes.  We found the bars to be pretty nice and the bartenders were friendly.  An overall good finish to a great day skiing.  The last bar we stopped at was holding trivia on Thursday, we made note to come back that night.

Wednesday was our break day, learn all about it in the next post!

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