Skiing the French Alps: Round 2

Last weekend we were lucky to be able to head to the Alps again for some skiing. We spent three nights and three days with Nick's coworkers, spouses, and families in Les Trois Vallées ski area, which is the largest ski area in the world.

As I look back at last year's trip (please ignore the weird formatting...I've learned more about blogging since I started and need to go back and fix old posts still), I realize how lucky we got with the weather this time!  A trip to remember for sure!

Thursday: After a lovely TGV train and then taxi ride, we made it to our hotel in Les Menuiers, which is one village below Val Thorens, the world's #1 ski resort in 2013. We spent the night eating, getting settled in, and dealing with a crazy elevator. Apparently 8 French people must weight much less than 8 normal people. We couldn't even get it to go with 3 adults and 3 children!

Friday: Our first day on the slopes, and although the weather wasn't great, we were just happy to see peeks of blue sky and sun since we never saw any last year.  And it was my very first time skiing in fresh powder.  We woke up to 4-5 inches of snow, which made for some awesome skiing...much better than the ice last year!!

Sadly, our morning took an abrupt turn when we had to find ski patrol for one of the guys in our group who fell and broke his leg. Pretty badly, actually, he had to stay in the hospital for 5 days recovering from surgery!

At least we had some pretty scenery to look at while we waited for ski patrol!

After meeting up with Michelle and Skee and a delicious lunch on the mountain of beef bourguignon and mashed sweet potatoes, we skied down through the snow back to our hotel for some pool time.

Thanks to Skee and Michelle's great idea, we had a blind taste test of red Côtés du Rhône wines with everyone before dinner that night. Lots of laughs, funny descriptions, and fun had by all. Mark's bottle won, Nick and I came in second which we were proud of!  Conclusion: 6-10€ bottles from Côtés du Rhône Villages are the best!

We topped off the night with a delicious meal at the Italian restaurant in our hotel and some Catch Phrase.  Catch phrase is the best game ever.  Hands down. "Asians eat it...wild rice!" "Not jelly but...doughnut!"  "Big man that's not rough" (that one's gentle giant, in case you're wondering!)

Saturday: We woke to crystal blue skies, sun, and the stunning beauty of the mountains in full sight.  We knew this was going to be our best day for skiing, so bright and early we took a gondola up the mountain.  The views on the way up and at the top were stunning.  We got our first glimpse at Mont Blanc (although I didn't realize what is was until later), and skied down into the town of Val Thorens.

I didn't think it could get much better than that, until we took the cable cars and gondolas up to Mont de Caron.  The only reason we decided to do this was on the recommendation of a worker at our hotel who said the view was great because it is one of the highest mountains in Les Trois Vallées.  And, WOW, was she ever right.  The views were indescribable and at 3200m you could see everything...Mont Blanc, into Italy the other direction.  Maybe some of the most amazing views I've seen.

The cable car was just a little crowded to the top!

After picking our jaws up off the snow, Nick, Ben, and I skied our way down the mountain.  Definitely the hardest run I did the entire weekend, but so worth it for the views the entire way (and to say I skied down a 3200m mountain)!

The rest of the day was spent skiing with Michelle and Skee and checking out the other side of the valley in the Mirabel area.  It reminded us more of Colorado since there are more trees down by where the resort is.

Again, we had a fabulous lunch on the mountain, complete with German beers and stunning views out the window.

The night was spent much like the one before--pool/sauna time, then a blind wine tasting test (this time whites), dinner, and Catch Phrase.  We learned that just because two wines are exactly the same, does not mean they actually taste the same.  Since there was only one tiny grocery store in our town with a limited selection of white wine, we ended up with 2, almost 3, exactly the same.  But they ranked quite differently!

Our dinner was a traditional Alps dinner...raclette, fondue, and hot stone.  As terrible as I always feel after eating this, it's a must at least once a trip to the Alps.  Once again, the raclette was insanely large, and we hardly made a dent.  But of course, as is tradition in the Alps, we had genepi to aid our digestion of all that cheese.

Sunday: Another snowy day, and Nick and I set out for just a few hours of skiing.  But, the conditions were not great, it was really hard to see, and we realized 2 days is about our limit for consecutive skiing.  We cut our ski time short and instead enjoyed watching the World Cup of men's Giant Slalom going on near our resort and relaxing by the fire in the hotel.

Of course, all good things must come to an end, and our taxis arrived to take us to the train station and back to Paris.  Be sure to check out all of our pictures here.  (I had a hard time narrowing them down this trip, sorry!)