HUGGINS TOURS

Alpe d'Huez 2005

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The Holiday

The weather was superb all week with bright sunshine and warm temperatures. Temperatures were more like mid-late March at times, especially pm, making it the warmest January ski holiday that most of us can remember. Bizarrely the weather forecast in the hotel indicated a temperature including wind-chill of between -18 and -27 each day at the top of Pic Blanc, though only Friday was particularly windy. Temperatures in the sun were warm enough to wander around the resort in a jumper, and at night cold enough for the snow machines to operate. Despite many of the toughest black runs being closed, including the 16km long Sarenne, we had plenty of runs to ski and a variety of snow conditions including perfect, icy, soft, rocky and even a variety of mogul conditions - hard, soft, steep, shallow, icy. Off-piste was not tested much, but appeared to be crusty and difficult. Nobody tried Le Tunnel black which was open but narrow and rocky and reserved for excellent skiers only - fast group ski host Adam said "I wouldn't want to do it in its current condition".

Food at the hotel was excellent, as usual, with the cakes being better than last year. Our only minor gripes were that it was sometimes possible to select the "wrong" option, and that the menu was designed for gourmets so, for example, the waiters and waitresses had to confirm 20 times that conchiqlies (sic) were pasta shells. We also drank the hotel out of Merlot and Viognier, but that was hardly their fault! Staff at the hotel were very friendly as indeed they were throughout the resort - we've never had so many lift attendants smiling and saying "bonjour" or such happy shop staff. Lunch stops invariably supplied huge meals, including the local tartiflette, pizzas bigger than the plates and endless green salads.

Our group included 22 from Huggins Tours and the RBSG Ski Club South (with much overlap), plus 13 City Fliers organised by Richard Arthur and 5 guests of Ian Huggins, dubbed "No Relation Tours", four of them from Exeter, though some of Amanda's friends are now begging to come next year.

Sunday

The early start on our day of travel obviously took its toll on some of the party, with Paul putting pepper in his McDonald's coffee, not recognising his boot bag on the carousel, giving Simon car keys to open their room and knocking his chair over at dinner. Vince arrived with his own brand-new snowboard which was available in one colour only - brown. A last-minute drop-out was Alex Porter due to family illness. Also, Kevin Head arrived with a broken arm sustained on a December skiing trip. Dave Beecham was already in the resort, skiing, when we arrived, having spent the previous night at a five-star hotel with a 5-course meal included. Bob and Christine avoided the early-morning wake-up by flying EasyJet from Luton. They kept quiet about the car they hired to get them to the hotel from Geneva Airport, otherwise we would have had them ferrying us around the resort. Most of us opted for the "simple" lift pass, rather then the comprehensive Visalp pass, apart from Colin Helps who went swimming on several afternoons.

Monday

We had what appeared to be a highly convenient lift near our front door, but we soon found out that it was rather slow and none too comfortable - akin to lobster pots suspended in the air, and also affectionately known as "the cages". Dave Beecham suffered a bout of illness, but was out telemark skiing by the afternoon. We had our first injuries of the week very early with Kerry suffering a knee injury in an innocuous fall whilst getting off a chair lift. It turned out to be quite serious, a fracture requiring the use of crutches for the rest of the week, though Kerry demonstrated remarkable cheer. She had all 4 foot 9 of Greta for physical support as her roommate. Dave P, Ruth, Jo and Bridget joined ski school. Others skied with the hosts, today and for the rest of the week, whilst Ian Huggins organised a break-away fast group. The endless Chamois moguls finished off Steve after lunch (and a heavy night the day before) - just when you thought you'd finished them, another set of moguls appeared . . . twice. Rather more convenient and quicker than the lobster-pots was the green run which took us back from the top of the village to the bottom. It had a totally flat start (unsuitable for snowboarders) and looked brown all week, but was never impassable and the tunnel (not the Tunnel piste) was fun at high speed! Mark G was surprised to learn that Lisa, the Bar Manager, spoke very little French to he endeavoured to teach her some more, including "avez-vous un Hoegarten" (which they didn't, so they went and bought some especially). On several of the early evenings some of the party (including Dave H, Dave B, Nick, Caroline, Colin and Mira) went to the Hotel Chamois bar above the Underground Bar, for the Ski Club of Great Britain rep's social hour. Steve and Paul reached the final of the knockout quiz with Paul winning on the date of the last foot & mouth epidemic, as Steve couldn't be bothered to stand up for 1967.

Tuesday

More injuries plus falls and equipment failures. Dave P managed to spike Ruth in the face during one of the ski school exercises in which they carried their ski poles in front of them. She required two stitches and it might have been worse had she not been wearing sunglasses. Graham Waller suffered a serious knee injury in another innocuous fall where he span round. Another fracture I believe, and crutches for the rest of the week. Steve discovered that he had dodgy bindings with the groove for a size 9 boot being worn out and the binding slipping to size 10 when the ski was taken off. Ian's group skied over lots of stones at the top of Les rousses, with Ian coming off worse, as he discovered on the next schuss. Steve's penknife was required to remove a large chunk from the bottom of one of Ian's skis and later to stop Vince's bindings from rotating on his board. In the leisurely group, hosted by Gail, Phil slipped backwards while standing at the side of the slope and landed in the catch-netting. It took a bit of effort to extricate him, and a couple of passing medics offered their assistance, no doubt believing it to have been a high-speed crash. John Llewellin skied on snowblades in the afternoon and the two Marks took their private lesson with the lovely Karine, one of the ski school tutors. They skied without poles for most of it (including a black run), practising carving and other newfangled techniques. Mark Guilford in particular raved about it. Some of the group tried to visit the town's modern circular church in advance of the evening's organ recital, but had to wait until later in the week to get in.

Wednesday

Vince learnt that Adam's fast hosting group could officially not take snowboarders, so today his group decided to shadow the intermediate group as they took the "scary chair" over to Auris. The chair passes under the altiport runway and then plunges about 200m down into the valley before rising again on the other side - Alton Towers eat your heart out. Fortunately it was possible to take one of several good runs down to the bottom of the valley to pick up the lift on the way back. The Auris area was very quiet with some excellent runs, but one stony slope in the shade and a bare piste under the Auris Express chair. Today two of the City Flyers lived up to their name and flew from the altiport. The Lobleys had a private lesson in the afternoon involving a bit of moguls and a bit of carving. They were most impressed when the instructor pointed out their carved tramlines behind them. Dave P had a run-in with another of his ski school group today, knocking over Jo Ferguson and running his skis over her hand. No stitches required this time, but Dave was gaining a bit of a reputation with the City Flyers, and to distinguish him from the other Daves, he became known as Dave The Impaler. Strangely enough, Dave was not spotted skiing once the Sun reached its peak - did he hide himself away until dusk every day? It obviously wasn't Jo's day as she was later clattered by another of her ski class, both of them ending up in a heap with no skis. As the Ski Club of Great Britain members (Ian, Richard, Mira, Dave H & Dave B) joined the rep, Kris, for the day, Stuart and John formed Adam's depleted fast group for the afternoon and finished quite early, as it only took them about 5 minutes to ski down from the top of Marmottes II to Alpe d'Huez. The other hosted groups finished late perhaps in anticipation of a leisurely day with no hosting on Thursday. Vince and Colin had a go at the snowpark's jumps, once they had found it. After dinner the quick team quiz was nearly won by Paul & Simon's team, and Phil remarked upon how good their score was - 19½. Unfortunately they had put Mars instead of Mars Bar for "mother's watering hole", so the other Huggins Tours team won with 20 points and were treated (?) to marshmallow-flavoured vodka shots as a reward (later in the week they were toffee flavoured). Richard, from the Exeter crowd, was unfortunately taken ill, apparently picking up Dave B's bug. He was never quite the same again for the rest of the week.

Thursday

As mentioned, no hosting, so there was the chance to arrange a Huggins Tours group today, starting with 17 people who braved the scary chair again over to Auris. During the coffee stop, one half of the party found an unexpected cliff near the top of the Rhodos piste which could be quite a jump if taken at speed, as Steve discovered. Dave Beecham tried to video us taking the same crest later, but it wasn't quite the same without the element of surprise. By the time they'd done that, the coffee stoppers had finally finished and disappeared, and the two groups weren't reunited until a late lunch at DMC 2100 again. Rebecca met up with Caroline after lunch for a swim in the heated outdoor pool which could be seen from the lobster-pots lift. Most of the rest of us headed down towards Oz on the Poutran red which turned out to be icy and stony in places. Montfrais was much better and by reaching there some of us had covered the far extremes of the resort in one day. Vince had trouble with one of the drag lifts which included a steep muddy section followed by a sharp left turn, and Stuart nearly had trouble as a snowboard shot in front of him into some deep snow, chased by its owner. After a vin-chaud, Steve, John, Stuart and Vince, now joined by Richard, had a go at the jumps in the snow park, landing some big ones, though Stuart overestimated his ability to land on snow blades. As tonight was the hotel staff's night-off, Simon had booked three tables for a total of 26 of us at Le Passe Montagne, a traditional local restaurant near to the hotel. It was certainly cosy thanks to the log fire, and the food was excellent, notably the odorous raclette (the cheese-melter for which you'll see in some photos) and the oxtail and Madeira sauce topped with mashed potato and paté de fois gras all in a jam jar.

Friday

Gail's leisurely group couldn't get enough of Auris, so headed over there again, whilst the others ventured up to the glacier. Some of the independent group were taking an early pit stop at the side of the piste, quite close to the rude rock sculpture, when the intermediate group passed by on a chair lift. Later, Amanda was spotted practising with Richard who had recovered from his illness of the day before. Lunch was at the top of Signal from where Steve descended with no turns and whizzed home to do some shopping. The difficult Chamois moguls soon finished off Vince, but the hosted groups carried on for quite a late finish. It was the last day of Ski School and though they didn't have a slalom race, they did present the participants with certificates to indicate the level they had achieved. Christine took a parapent jump, taking off at the third attempt and observing the resort from far above - even scarier than the scary chair. Ian didn't manage to keep quiet about his birthday very well (the unrelated Hugginses, now nicknamed the Huggy Bears by Amanda, leaked the news the day before) and provided champagne for all after tea as we watched Dave Beecham's video show. Dave had been on his proper skis so had zoomed ahead a few times to catch our best (or worst) moments. There were some good shots of the birthday boy, but the most impressive skiing was by Dave himself doing moguls, as filmed by Adam. After dinner Paul and Simon did their party pieces including "The Beau Gendarmes" to much applause including from Jane who came downstairs in her nightie to watch. Mark Guilford was unwell.

In honour of Ian's birthday there was also a cake and a card at dinner and a trip out to the town's night clubs. First was the Sports Bar, a piano bar featuring a very French singer/pianist entertaining the crowd on his electronic organ. The songs were very varied and most people either loved it, many dancing non-stop, or hated it. After that we ventured on to Smithies which was more of a youngsters' dance club with technotrance music, which some of us enjoyed, like Bridget who braved the streets of Alpe d'Huez in high heels. The "headbashing" music, as Paul called it, was not suitable for others who formed a breakaway group downstairs at the Zoo bar. We happened to leave both clubs at exactly the same time and Paul led us to the Pacific bar, a Mark Warner favourite where we found Dave B playing pool and Andrew the nanny rather the worse for drink (luckily no kids for him this week). The barman chucked us out at 2am thus rescuing us from being incapable of skiing the next day.

Saturday

For the last day Gareth's intermediate group resembled an old style Huggins Tours group and Stuart took the opportunity to take some stills in the fine weather. Some of us filled in the only major open run that we hadn't done - the black Col de Cluy in Auris - and stopped for elevensies at the bottom of it. At lunch almost everybody met up and afterwards Ian and Richard were most chivalrous in escorting Bridget and Ruth respectively back down to the resort. Most of us then went up to the glacier where Paul had his little accident. Whilst skiing down one of the narrow tracks, he caught an edge and ended up hanging over the edge of the run with only his arms up to the armpits actually on the piste and, no doubt, fingers up to the knuckles dug into in the snow. His skis weren't in a position to allow him to push himself up, and had he let go there were a couple of large rocks just below him. Luckily Simon and Richard had stopped for the wrong Mark Warner rep and so were behind Paul and able to heave him back onto the piste whilst Steve directed the rescue operation. One of us at the bottom quickly whipped out his camera, so you can enjoy a photo of the aftermath. Once back on the straight and narrow, Paul skied the rest of that track with no turns, arriving at the bottom at speed and damp, but smiling. The fast group had been attempting the moguls just below Paul at the time, and the rest of us also did them, quite easy for John and Stuart on snow blades and certainly easier than Chamois.

The groups met up for a final vin chaud and heard the tale of Bob's contender for wipe-out of the week when he lost both skis and Saff and Christine had to dodge out of his way as he passed them upside down. It couldn't compete with Paul's though, and he won the wipe-out of the week medal, presented after dinner that evening. Jane won best mogul-basher after skiing with the intermediates all week and she and Nigel seemed keen to become Huggins Tours regulars in future years. Mira won the assistant ski-host award for regularly advising Adam on the best routes (in the fast group). Mark Waddoups again won the most improved skier award, cheered on by his best mate Mark Guilford who offered such support as "he only wins it by pretending to be useless on the first day every year". Upon being offered the award, Mark G maintained that "I didn't want to win it! I just didn't want HIM to win it!" This totally incapacitated Mark W, leaving him howling with laughter in the corner. Perhaps they should both try the intermediate group next year . . . or separate groups. Stuart made a presentation of our collection to the Mark Warner staff, thanking them for their friendliness and excellent food and ski-hosting. Dave Beecham presented Stuart with a collection as thanks for organising the trip and he in turn thanked Paul, Richard and Ian who organised their own sub-groups. We rounded off the evening in the bar with marmot impressions and many calls for a return to Val d'Isère next year. Some of the more adventurous went for a late night at the Pacific bar, including Colin, Mark G and all three Daves, with some of them lasting past 2am, shortly before we had to get up.

Sunday

No dramas this year on the baggage front, and we were the first coach to arrive at the charter flights check-in area, so most of us checked in very quickly. Steve and the Lobleys had a slight lie-in, but some of us saw them at Geneva anyway.

Watch this space for news of the movie of the week's on-piste activities which will be available in the near future.

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The Party (40)

Paul Huggins
Simon Huggins
Ian Huggins
Steve Pearson
Bob Jones
Christine Jones
John Llewellin
Pauline Silver
Bridget Cooke
Julian Lobley
Rebecca Lobley
Stuart Mazdon
Vince Patel
Philip Street
David Peachey
Mark Guilford
Mark Waddoups
Dave Beecham
David Hamilton
Colin Helps
Caroline Duncombe
Nick Martin
Mira Tysoe
Amanda Hadaway
Richard Gough
Kerry Mitchell
Greta Evans
City Flyers
 Richard Arthur
 Ruth Sanders
 Mark Houghton
 Nicole Cooper
 Mike Grafton
 Jacqui Grafton
 Graham Waller
 Jenni Waller
 Kevin Head
 Jo Ferguson
 Trevor Houghton
 Peter Dennell
 Keith Frost