J2Ski group holiday to Tignes January 13th 2013

Looking at these pics really is a pretty good substitute for (not) being there :)

Good stuff Ade!

I'm out there the first week of Feb. These pics are getting me even more excited!

Where's that little tunnel?

That little tunnel is called "the hidden valley" the guys I was with knew the area and conditions very well but there were people there that didn't and they looked a little freaked out so be careful as it can be avalanche prone. Here's another couple of photos of it


The last one was looking back up the valley. At times there wasn't room to have my board sideways it was so narrow but a great run. Piste L is another great run apparently but we couldn't get on that for avalanche risk but this valley is very close by.

Far Queue wrote:


Neigh lad, Shergar blew us out and went with some Tesco trip instead.

Are you sure it was him and not My Lidl Pony? -)

Thanks Ade.

Will look out for it. Does look quite intimidating though :/

Here is another photo, taken by J2Ski member Joe Colin, who skied with me and another member of the group every day, either with the chalet ski host or in our private ESF off-piste initiation lesson when the chalet staff had their day off on Thursday.

It's the Alpage restaurant, where we met the chalet ski hosts each morning at 9-30 a.m.
To get here in the morning in time to meet them, we had to leave the chalet by 8-55 a.m., walk 400 yards down the road to the piste and the Sache gondola (which opened at 9 a.m.), take this gondola, ski a very short way on a blue to the Aiguille Rouge chairlift, go up this, and then ski down about 100 yards on a red to the Alpage restaurant.
There were never any queues for the lifts, once the gondola had opened. In fact, the only time I ever had to queue for a few minutes was to get the funicular out of Val d'Isere, and on the last Sunday when they delayed opening the lifts whilst they made the pistes safe from risk of avalanche.

Anyone not there by 9-35 a.m. got left behind, and if they were in my group they had to text either me or the ski host, nicknamed Bonjour Andy, to try and catch up with us somewhere :-)




I've edited a bit of the piste map to show where this restaurant is, in relation to where we were staying in Tignes Les Brevieres (I've circled Les Brev in black - lower right corner, and labelled the restaurant).

We often came back home this way as well, because it's at the top of the Chaudanne lift which is the quickest way back from Tignes Le Lac. It's also a handy hot chocolate/lunch stop :)

This is another of Joe Colin's photos. It's of me, ski-ing down the red Cugnai piste at the top of Val d'Isere.
I really liked this piste, and there was no-one else on it apart from our small group, and our ski host, Bonjour Andy :)
At the top it was extremely difficult, because it starts off as a very narrow steep bit of road (which I side-slipped down although one of the others managed to jump-turn down it). And then the piste turns sharp left off the road and it was really wide and fairly deep in powder.
The first time we went down it the powder was practically untouched, but I liked it so much I asked Bonjour Andy if we could do it again, and this photo is taken during our second run down it, after we'd chopped it up quite a bit.
In fact I fell over on it the second time, but it was a very easy gentle fall - I just overbalanced and sat down with my skis still on, and it was so steep that getting back up was easy :)
And after this unpisted section they'd pisted it and we rocketed down it, carving our way down like on a roller coaster, and it was brilliant fun :)



This is part of the piste map to show where the Cugnai piste is - it's centre top of the piste map.

This is another of Joe Colins' photos :)
I'm not too sure but I think this is the top of the Aiguille Percee chairlift, with the red Cyclamen piste in front of you.
This chairlift was the long way home for us, via either the black Sache, the blues, or the reds down into Les Brevieres (which is behind you as you look at the photo) from 2,748m down to 1,550m.