Sainte-Foy: The Brown Month

As the days grow longer and the nights grow warmer, as the birds begin to sing and the trees begin to blossom, we know that we have made it through the winter; spring is here. Only there aren't any chirping birds or flowering trees, we were just kidding about that - here in the French Alps, the arrival of spring is indicated by a large increase of brown in the landscape. As the snow melts with increasing temperatures, more and more rocks and dirt begin to show up lower down the valley, hence we have dubbed March 'the Brown Month'. The Brown Month isn't as horrible as it sounds though - the warmer temperatures (double digits, what?!) mean that a beer in the sun is actually feasible, and the snow up higher still remains quite nice. While it may not be the powdery snow we've come to love, the spring snow is more similar to stuff you'd find in New Zealand, which ain't bad. We've been told that green will follow the brown - as long as there is still snow for us ski on, we will be happy!

With only six weeks left of the season, we've been starting to get to know the area beyond Sainte Foy a little better. We were lucky enough to ski a day at Les Arcs with Kirk, who took us down a sweet backcountry run from Grand Col to Villaroger - we'd had our eye on it all season as it stares at us from across the valley. Les Arcs is stupidly big (77 ski lifts, more than we have in total in New Zealand?), so it was great having someone to show us where the good skiing was.

We made a visit to Annecy this week, which is a rather pretty town a couple of hours' drive away. If Queenstown and Venice were ever to get together and conceive a baby, we imagine it would look something like Annecy; mountains and a beautiful lake, with canals flowing through most of the city. That was a fairly poorly thought out simile, as clearly cities don't make babies and neither of us have even visited Venice, but just use your imagination.

Getting the guns out for the first time in about 8 months. Had to put the brightness right down on the camera to not blind the viewer.

 

To get a feel for ski touring which becomes very popular in spring, we skinned up some snowshoe tracks through the forest to a frozen waterfall and skiied back down. (Skinning = slapping seal fur or something of a similar texture on the base of your skis so you can walk up the slope but not slide back down. Pretty clever huh).

Phoebe had the skinning bit sorted out, but not so much the skiing down part.

Yeah I ski right onto my deck, what of it?

Posing at the top of l'Aiguille Rouge at Les Arcs.

It seems the best skiing at Les Arcs is in the avalanche risk areas... Doesn't seem to stop Kirk or Phoebe.

Looking down at Sainte Foy village from Grand Col before the ski down to Villaroger...

 

...and looking back up at Grand Col from Sainte Foy, after the ski down! Mt Pourri on the left, l'Aiguille Rouge on the right.

Bourg-Saint-Maurice sweet shop! Almost on par with the Queenstown/Arrowtown shops, let down only by the lack of fudge.

 

Lisa, Phoebe and Laura in Annecy en route to Gelato shopping!

The swans in Annecy are particularly aggressive. Never dangle your legs off the end of the wharf.

The summit of the Foglietta with Chris and Ben, before dropping into the North Face. Easily the most famous backcountry run in Sainte Foy, for good reason! Phenomenal.

Wooohoo!!

Weeehaaa!!

Wooo- wait, what?

 There are some glorious powder runs to be found in Sainte Foy, many of them requiring a bit of a hike to get to the best snow. Some of the hikes are fairly gnarly, but we've found that the harder the climb up....

...the better the ski down.