The Adventures of Kerri & Matt

We did ski 13 more lifts today, (8 new ones) but the mountains still look like mountains, and everyone must be getting tired of these pictures. We know you’re only here for the wipeouts, and we seem to be pretty good at staying on our skis.

So we took some time off skiing to rest our legs and relax by tobogganing down the mountain. On a 4km long toboggan run with a 450m altitude change.

Thus guaranteeing you some wipeouts.

See Kerri calmly riding down the mountain. 

Whoosh.

Matt tries to whoosh as well.

It doesn’t go as well.

Matt’s got is all figured out now. No hands required.

Okay maybe some hands.

Should have used all the hands.

Less whoosh and more smash.

And crash.

All the while Kerri continues to whoosh by.

See the majestic Kerri in action and live Matt’s experience.

Note: Kerri has several bruises, including one the size of an orange, that suggest that she also wiped out. Possibly even more often than Matt. But Matt is really bad at catching her on camera.

Here’s a view of home after many lifts to get to another mountain. Today we did a total of 16 lifts (Kerri did 17 for reasons explained below), However only 13 were new and we are well off the 34 lifts a day required to do every one here.

This is a different view of the valley, but you can’t see our home from here.

It was another 8 degree day. This is our snowman when we left.

And here he is at the end of the day.

Still no wipeouts but Matt is getting tired and spends a lot of time sitting in the snow.

Or lying on the snow.

After Kerri stopped to help someone recover their skis she couldn’t find him. She assumed this was him waiting for her at the bottom of the lift, but it was just another gentleman lying in the same position wearing the same super stylish outfit.

He was not the only one. They are everywhere.

 

Tonight’s meal was a traditional local dish of cheesy potatoes.

They had a second meal option, described on the menu as “for those who do not like cheese”. It included cheesy tomatoes.

This morning was a beautiful sunny day in the mountains.

So Matt put a giant bandage over his giant blister.

It didn’t slow him down too much. We took 16 more lifts, 14 of which were new. That’s 28/159, we still have a ways to go.

It was 12 degrees outside. The snow was melting off of the roofs and curling right under.

We went exploring today to another village. We had to make sure to head back soon enough because taxis cost $250 between villages once the lifts close.

The mountains were really pretty.

There were more trees over here too.

Then Kerri made a snowman and made him stand outside in the cold and watch her relax at the pool.

At dinner every night the 4th course is a cheese plate. We have learned that if cheese tastes so absolutely positively terrible that you can’t imagine anyone ever considering eating it, you probably accidentally ate some of the mould from the outside. Or maybe it is a just a really really fancy cheese. Fancy usually means oozing.

Today was our first day of skiing in the World’s largest ski area.

They have 159 ski lifts. We took 14 different ones today (16 lifts total).

All of the ones we took today were chairlifts or enclosed gondolas.  Almost all of them take 6 people at a time, and some can load 2 chairs at a time.

The village we are staying in is pretty big. It is almost all ski in / ski out hotels and restaurants.

They have tunnels so that you can ski under the road without getting hit by cars.

This is where Kerri decided to ski up this hill to get a pretty picture. That up part is much steeper than it looks. And the other side is vertical and all rocks. There are lots of ski tracks going up, but mostly boot tracks going back down.

She managed it though. No wipe outs on the first day!

The view up there was nice.

Of course this rather similar view from the chairlift was much easier.

The skiing conditions were great. It didn’t get slushy even though it was 5 degrees.

Eventually Matt had to take a break and adjust his boots because he has a super disgusting blister around the top of his sock. He took a picture, but I’m not putting it in here because it is gross.

Afterwards we relaxed before dinner in the pool. The 30 degree Celsius pool with the lazy river that leads to a waterfall.

And whatever this is. It looks to be three super powerful jets of water and it feels like it. It all focuses around a single point so multiple people can’t really use it. 

Kerri relaxed in the bubble bed area.

After all that we dug into our dinner. A five course French dinner. Tonight the main dish was rabbit or pig cheek. Kerri misses Italy, too much cream on everything. Matt is not unhappy it was all delicious (except some of the cheeses, still not a big cheese person).