J2Ski Forum Posts and Replies by AllyG

Some people in the group had lessons during the week.

I booked group lessons for 2 of the group, who had only done one week of ski-ing before, via e-mails through the Sauze hotel with the Sauze ski school for the special price of only 130 euros per person for 3 hours in the morning for 6 days.

Both pupils said the lessons were excellent and they had a great time and learned a lot. Their instructor was called Sergio and there were 8 of them in the group lessons.



In the photo, belonging to J2Skier friend Edmond, we have Billip1's daughter, standing to the right of the instructor as you look at the photo wearing a multi-coloured ski jacket and Edmond standing beside her,in a blue ski jacket. The photo was taken on Saturday, the last day, and you can see that there was plenty of snow by then as it snowed loads during the night and on Friday.

I went with them to the ski school the first day, to make sure they got the discounted price, and they were advised to take the bus to the Sportinia lift which goes directly up to the Sportinia level where the lessons start. The bus runs quite frequently, every 15 minutes I think and there's a bus stop very close to the Sauze hotel by the Clotes piste, although the bus does get quite crowded at peak times.

Normally, if you go up the Clotes chairlift, which is very close to the hotel, then in order to get to the Sportinia level you have to turn left at the top of the Clotes chairlift and ski down to the Lago Nero chairlift only a few yards away, go up this one, turn right at the top and then ski down to Sportinia.

But on Monday the Lago Nero chairlift wasn't going and we had to go up the Clotes chairlift, turn right and ski down blue 52 , take a sharp left turn onto blue 54 and then down to the bottom of the Sportinia chairlift and go up that. Those blue pistes were pretty icy on Monday and I took that sharp left turn and it was one of those nasty narrow gulley-like blind junctions and there was a skier who'd fallen over right across the narrow piste and in order to avoid him I had to ski straight onto the small rocks at the side of the piste (which had no snow on them), so that I fell over as well! :(

I was a bit worried about whether I'd damaged my hired skis so after ski-ing I asked Ian to have a look at them (he services his own skis) and he thought the gouge in one of them would come out OK. And when I took them back to Gros Sport in Jouvenceaux at the end of the week I anxiously asked them whether they were OK and explained that I'd done my best during the week to look after them, and they said it was OK as they knew how bad the piste conditions were.

The ski school held a slalom race and Edmond came second in his class, and they held an awards ceremony for their pupils on Friday night and Billip1's daughter and Edmond went, together with some of us as supporters! (Photo Ade73)



I booked my 2 hour private lesson on Sunday through the same ski school and it cost me 70 euros.

2 of the others also booked some private lessons just for the 2 of them, although I'm not sure which ski school they used as they sorted it themselves, and they said the lessons were very good :)

I took this one from Google Maps before the holiday to show everyone in the group where the La Torre hotel spa was, that guests in the Sauze could use at a 50% discount during the day time.

The full price was 25 euros so we only had to pay 12-50. It was meant to be full price in the evening but some of our gang got in there super cheap by negotiating with the spa themselves.

2 people in our group went there every evening after ski-ing.

As you can see from the map it was a 5 minute walk from the Sauze hotel. It would have been nice to have a hotel with its own swimming pool etc. but this was something we compromised on, and I didn't hear any grumbles about it.

Here's the Sleeps List, updated to today Friday 23rd Jan. Sorry I haven't been doing it for a while but I've been ski-ing (!) and travelling and writing my report (off-piste initially!) on the J2Ski group holiday to Sauze.

If anyone else wants to go on the List, or you see any mistakes, please post up on here to let me know.

Leechie going to Niederau in 1 days on the 24/01/2015
Lizzie-B going to Morillon in 1 days on the 24/01/2015
Hudman going to Tignes in 2 days on the 25/01/2015
Paulh764 going to Val d'Isere in 2 days on the 25/01/2015
NellyPS going to Les Arcs in 7 days on the 30/01/2015
Andyhull going to Niseko in 8 days on the 31/01/2015
GreenGoblin going to Val d'Isere in 8 days on the 31/01/2015
Shipjack going to Les Carroz in 8 days on the 31/01/2015
Tahiti gra going to Chatel in 10 days on the 02/02/2015
Wanderer going to Vigo di Fassa Dolomites in 22 days on the 14/02/2015
Dobby going to Hemsedal in 23 days on the 15/02/2015
Far Queue going to Soll in 36 days on the 28/02/2015
LOTA going to Nendaz in 38 days on the 02/03/2015
Gareth Fair going to La Thuile in 40 days on the 04/03/2015
Wanderer going to St Anton in 50 days on the 14/03/2015
Old Andy going to Somewhere in the Dolomites in 50 days on the 14/03/2015
Michelle63 going to Les Deux Alps in 65 days on the 29/03/2015

This is another of Piste Paul's photos.
I was surprised at how beautiful the views were in Sauze. I should think he must have taken this one from the balcony outside his bedroom.

Lizzie-B wrote:Actually it was me !! I was trying to find the J2Ski holiday thread on the Friday night to wish them all a good holiday and I used the wrong one,( page 91) but the last couple of messages seemed to be about Sauze so I went for it.( it was getting late - wine had been consumed). Then others followed suit....Anyway off tomorrow myself it looks to be a snowy week in the alps, could have done with it this week!!!

It's OK it wasn't you, Lizzie-B. What happened was that Bald-eagleman went off-piste and we all followed him without looking where we were going :(

I hope you have a great time on your holiday :)

Anyway, I'm going to scarper out of here before someone else goes off-piste looking for the Sauze holiday thread! ;)

Piste Paul's photo of the bottom of the Clotes piste, with his son standing by their skis which are leaning on the fence.

You can see the travelator/moving carpet in this photo, on the right of the nursery slope. We could go up this in the morning, to save us walking up the hill to the chair lift, and then ski across to the chair.

I bought a one day lift pass from the Clotes lift station for the final Sunday, and it was slightly annoying because it didn't have a 'chip' in it so I had to manually stick it in at the turnstile. I was wondering if I'd get an extra day because of only ski-ing for 5 days (as we were in Val Thorens for one day) on the 6 day lift pass I got from the Sauze hotel, but I didn't so I had to buy an extra day for 35 euros :(

Yes I know that Icy, thanks, that's why I always take mine off and I had in fact lectured the group on this very point already ;)

But I can't very well insist that everyone else in the group takes off their rucksacks, can I? According to the person involved it was because he hadn't done up all the straps so there was a loose dangly bit that got caught on the chair :(

And it was very unfortunate for him that I happened to be the one sitting next to him on this occasion, although I didn't go on about it because I'm much too nice to do that ... :)

Mind you, I can't afford to be too smug anyway, as the same guy who got stuck on the chairlift very kindly skied back round with me in Val Thorens on Thursday when I accidentally left my rucksack in the restaurant where we stopped for elevenses!

The most important thing about that gondola down to Sestriere is not to get out half way by mistake! We were sitting with our backs to Sestriere, so when it stopped we assumed it had reached the bottom, but the piste patrol guys in the gondola with us laughed and told us not to get out!

It may well be that the runs down into Sestriere from the top of the gondola weren't open when we were there on Saturday, as I didn't see anyone ski-ing down.

We went down in the gondola, then up the chairlift which seems to be number 28, looking at the piste map now (we didn't bother to look when we were there) and then we skied down a red which seems to be number 3 and ended up at the meeting point we'd arranged with some of the others (mobile phones are very handy on ski slopes) in the Borgata area which is where that big B is on the piste map, next to the lift home number 21.

I hung around to co-ordinate things on my mobile and the others went up the chairlift number 17 which goes pretty much up to the top and then they came back to me down the red 9. And in the meantime I'd managed to meet up with Felthorpe and her husband, Ian W and his family, Brooksy, Far Queue, and Piste Paul and his son. After lunch I'm afraid I bullied them all into having a group photo taken outside the cafe (Piste Paul's photo). It's only half the group (14 people) but it's the highest number we managed to get in one place at the same time (not counting supper in the hotel!).




After that some of us went up the chairlift 17 (first time for me) and then a couple of them went up to the top to do the black down and 4 of us skied down the red 8. This was steep, with icy patches, and quite lumpy - not an easy ski! And at the bottom of the steep bit you have to turn right at the wooden sign post - I could see it was labelled Borgata so I thought that was the right way to go, and we skied back to the starting point down the blue.

Then we went round again only not altogether, and it was at the top here that one of us (not me) got blown off the edge of the piste and was lying on the very steep slope hanging on to the wooden fence with his ski stick before he got rescued by another member of our group (ski-ing in groups is an excellent idea I reckon!). The piste was a very narrow icy track at this point.

After that nasty scare we skied down the 9 this time which comes out right opposite the cafe we were in for lunch. I thought this run was actually easier than the 8 we went down before, but I have to confess that I'm not too sure we were on 9 all the time - we just kept ski-ing down and we weren't too bothered about which piste we were on!

We went back then, and I confidently said the chairlift there, number 21 was the correct route home. I seem to have become rather relaxed about pistes and lifts and not bothering to look too carefully at piste maps (especially when it's windy and cold and I don't want to take my gloves off!).

And at the top of the chairlift we had a quick look around and I could see which mountain we wanted to get up to so I told the others to ski straight down to where I assumed the gondola was. However, we couldn't see it, but after looking at the sign post and asking people, we realized it was a few yards further along a flat blue - it's a very well hidden gondola back up to the top of Sansicario!

I had two nasty scares that day, because it was in the morning that one of our group who was sitting next to me on the chairlift got his rucksack strap stuck on the chairlift and couldn't get off and I had to leap off and yell 'stop stop' to the lift operator! Maybe I should learn 'stop' in Italian for future group holidays ...
And the lift guy stopped the chair and rushed out and the poor guy fell off the chair and landed flat on his back in a pile of powder which was luckily right under him, sinking into it like in those old Tom and Jerry cartoons when they crash through concrete. And the lift guy took his skis off for him and got him up and we slunk away, saying 'Grazie' (about the only Italian I know) and 'sorry' (because we didn't know the Italian for that).