HUGGINS TOURS |
Tignes 2006 |
Lavish Accommodation High Quantity Wines and Food |
High-Res Photographs Low-Res Photographs Holiday PreviewMatt & Ben's Photos (tip: the ones lower down are smaller files)GPS readout etc. can be found in gpsinfo.pdf (2.5MB)The HolidayIn conjunction with the RBSG Ski Club (South) we had 42 participants (plus 2 part-timers) in our holiday to Tignes. This included 4 from Exeter organised by Amanda Hadaway. Staying at the Mark Warner chalethotel Aiguille Percée most rooms had a balcony with views out across the slopes and of Tignes du Lac. As usual the hotel staff were very friendly and the food was generally very good, especially the afternoon cakes. We took advantage of the ski hosting that Mark Warner provide to show us around the slopes and after the minimal amount of skiing we were able to do in Val d'Isère in 2004, we were keen to explore the whole of the Espace Killy this time. The weather and snow conditions varied - when we arrived the snow was at least two weeks old though still in good condition. Snowfall from Monday evening to Wednesday afternoon meant that it was cold and we had deep fresh snow on many pistes - like skiing off-piste on-piste - until they were either pisted or turned into moguls by Thursday. On Thursday to Saturday morning we skied in glorious sunshine with almost all slopes and lifts open but still with soft snow. Usual Ski Groupings:
SundayAs the majority of people gathered at Gatwick we bumped into Jane and Nigel from last year's holiday - they were sadly not joining us in Tignes. The 3½ hour coach trip was sunny and notable only for the injury to Mary Russell during the interim stop where she twisted her ankle, an injury that would prevent her from wearing ski boots until later in the week. Another injury became apparent upon our arrival at the hotel: Annie had fractured her fibula on the Orange piste the day before during a week's warm-up with Ian in Val d'Isère. The RBSG Ski Club Chairman, Dave Beecham, was also there to greet us, popping in from his Ski Club of Great Britain repping in Val d'Isère. Much later, Bob and Christine arrived in their hire car, having followed their AA directions from Geneva airport, but taking the summer route. They found themselves just a few kilometres from the hotel, but on the other side of an impassable mountain pass, and had to take the route back and round the long way to eventually reach the Aiguille Percée. Perhaps the hotel staff felt sorry for them and allowed them to park outside the hotel for free (as opposed to €69 in the underground civic car park). MondayThe first proper injury of the holiday didn't take too long, as Barry, from the Exeter group, a skier with an instructor's qualification, had his skis dragged awkwardly under his feet by a drag lift that first stopped then leapt forward with a jerk with no warning. He was ambulanced down to the hospital in Bourg St Maurice where they found he had a compound spiral fracture that needed pinning - he stayed in hospital until a grand re-entrance to the hotel on Friday). Huggins Tours arranged themselves in the hosting groups along the usual lines - Paul and Simon managed to find the prettiest host, who turned out to be hosting the slow-intermediates group. Ian also joined this group (until the re-shuffle), still recovering from the Val d'Isère bug, as did the two Marks who had progressed from the leisurelies after their extra Canadian holiday last year. The leisurely group included Mary for the first run only as her ankle was too painful thereafter. All the groups skied around Tignes du Lac and Val Claret as this allowed for switching between groups at elevensies and a lunch which was taken at the Bagus Café, bagus being Bahasa Indonesian for "good". The skiing day was not brilliant due to the poor light and was punctuated by unusual falls by Simon, Linda (on the rope drag) and Steve. Simon also had fun at the bottom of a chair lift, falling over and having to duck under the next two approaching chairs. In the evening quiz, it was fairly inevitable that a Huggins Tours team would win, given that we populated 5 out of the 6 teams present. There was a tie for first place but "The Small and Therefore Disadvantaged Team in the Corner" emerged triumphant from the tie breaker which was to guess which woman was dating one of the male hotel staff. Team members were Richard Arthur, Colin Helps, Dave Peachey and Gemma Nahum. Dave Beecham managed to persuade a few hardy individuals, notably Vince, Nick and Mark Guilford to join him in a late night trip to the Alpaka bar. They returned at 2am while the snowfall continued all night. TuesdayWe had a couple of early contenders for wipeout of the week today as Clive practised a head-plant and Ged ignored the fresh snow and went for it big time on the schuss at the bottom of Trolles. The boarders Vince and Phil along with Stu and Andrea took a wrong turn near the glacier and ended up on the black unpisted Leisse - 2 foot deep steep fresh snow. They were later joined by the other boarder Matt, but all four chivalrous chaps managed to take one Tomeuses chair and leave Andrea on her own on the next one in the blizzard which blighted the day. To warm up they finished with Trolles non-stop in 10 minutes, and then Phil and Vince did it again. The fast intermediates with Aaron did the black Face run and loved it, Steve describing it as the best (or worst) black ever - just when you've finished the worst bit an even harder bit is just over the next ridge. Margaret didn't have a good day as her poles were swept from under her as she took a rest on them and then she experienced chest pains which required a stay in Grenoble hospital for the rest of the week. Marcia managed to lose the rest of the leisurely group early in the day, when she stopped to speak to one of the twins in ski school. They were reunited at lunch - perhaps this prompted her to join the slow intermediates later in the week. The regimented antics of the leisurely group attracted the attention of the piste-inspectors during the day. Usual procedure was for the group to ski down each section of piste in each other's tracks and then stop for 5 minutes for a chat. Unfortunately this appeared suspicious to the pen-pushers from Paris who required Rachel to appear at the local gendarmerie later where they quizzed her for 2 hours. Luckily the fast intermediates feature 10 different routes and 10 different styles - with a 5 second break for directions. Bridget and Caroline were in ski school all week, but today Caroline had an asthma attack which required her to be rescued on skidoo. The skidoo driver descended rather quickly so Caroline had to hold on to him quite tightly! Ian had a day off and the sports massage he booked turned out to be a gentle Swedish massage - no pain no gain. At dinner Linda was very keen to arrange a 9am start the next day to ski Face before the hoi-polloi, a request which Aaron acceded to in the interests of a quiet life. WednesdayMuch more snow had fallen overnight, and continued, delaying the opening of some of the lifts and runs including the Aeroski, thus scuppering Linda's plans. This gave Linda and Stuart (or Mr & Mrs Woodard as they assumed in the shop) the chance to swap their skis for something more suitable to the conditions. Chris declined the opportunity as the explanation for the change was insufficient, a decision that he and Steve (who took an early bath) regretted, as only those on the lightweight wide skis could manage long runs in one go. Paul bumped into his doppelganger (C&A 1993) who hailed from Gloucester, mis-heard by Simon as Austria (or perhaps he thought Doppelganger was his surname). Simon was therefore bemused when his parting "auf wiedersen" was met with a blank expression. Sally lost her lift pass and Simon volunteered to accompany her to get one for the afternoon as her Mark Warner outfit and a phone call to the hotel were insufficient to convince the piste inspectors that she had a full-season pass. The leisurely hosting group whittled down their 10 participants at the start of the day to just 4 by the end. They experienced near white-out conditions in the morning where it could be very difficult to tell which way they were going - with only gravity to determine whether they were going downhill. Despite this Dave and Clare did the Carline run into Val Claret a couple of extra times instead of taking a coffee break. Better conditions were found on the lower runs down to Les Brevieres, though there Bob suffered a knee injury and packed up for the day. The fast hosted group were a bit depleted in numbers too, as Clive was skiing with the Ski Club of Great Britain today, so they joined up with the fast intermediates after lunch (very large omelettes in Les Brevieres). After rumours the night before that the FIs were as fast as the fast group there wasn't too much opportunity to test this as the fog descended on La Daille. The group took a very cold chair up past the Aiguille Percée, but they were prevented from descending the Sache piste by the blizzard blowing from its direction. Dave P and the two Marks went scouting for some decent beer that evening and eventually found La Caleche where they had several large vases(!) of Leffe accompanied by (free) olives and parma ham slices. At dinner Linda was easily persuaded to hire a GPS system which would track her every move on Thursday - the no-hosting day. Later a trip to Alpaka had been organised and most people went along once they could be dragged away from the pool table, and the prospect of relay pictionary. A few party animals went on to a couple of night clubs afterwards and Simon had a go at pole-dancing, downstairs at the Grotte du Yeti. ThursdayA few hours after his return from the night clubs, Vince was ready to join the big GPS day out. Chris & Steve also swapped their skis, though the snowfall had stopped and we were in for a sunny day on fresh snow. The GPS team of 8 took almost the quickest route to the Pissaillas glacier, including most of Face which was easier than on Tuesday. There was a scary chair, Leissieres, to rival last year's to cross into the Le Fornet valley and the fastest speed of 84kph (52mph), as we later discovered, was recorded on the schuss down to the cable-car at Le Fornet. After a 45 min lunch the group just had time to do the Orange piste before ascending to the Grande Motte glacier. The black, mogulled Campanules piste delayed them sufficiently that they ended up catching the last cable car, at 15:30, to the top of the Grande Motte. Ged carried the GPS for a while in order to register a higher speed on one of the sections down from there, but the readings were obviously not taken frequently enough to register his maximum. The GPS was also claiming to be low on battery power and turning itself off. The group arrived at the Tufs lift a good 10 minutes before the last chair back to Tovierres. Little did they know that they would be sitting stationary in mid-air for 25 minutes. Shortly after 16:30 some wag on the piste below called up "c'est fermée", while Vince's company on the chair consisted of two northerners who it seemed didn't take too kindly to soft southerners and who discussed the case of the skier who froze to death on a stationary char lift in Tignes. Shortly after 16:50, and some time after hats and scarves had been donned, the lift restarted to much relief and some cheering. The black Trolles was insufficient to warm up some of their toes before a hasty afternoon tea. Vince asked one of the hotel staff to retrieve the chocolate cake from the bin, and was presented with about twice as much as he could eat. The full GPS readout, and piste map coverage can be seen in the Adobe file gpsinfo.pdf (2.5MB) Ian, Richard Gough and John Taylor skied very quickly today, especially John Taylor. Richard lost the tip off one of his skis on a rope-tow due to some idiot diving onto the drag and running over his skis. Later on the Orange red that did for Annie, Ian hit a hidden rock, throwing him head-long and making a huge gouge in the bottom of one ski. Matt didn't snowboard today as he needed a hospital check-up for palpitations (not caused by the extra-large omellete the day before). The slow intermediate group largely stayed together today and reported back on a diversion from a closed blue run that turned into a black run that the other groups had yet to discover, the Epaule de Charvet. It must be one of the longest mogul fields in the Alps. The leisurelies also stuck together, staying in the Val Claret valley. After lunch they did a couple of runs down Prariond then determined to go back to the hotel via bus. However, they bumped into Dave B at the bus stop and he scoffed at their stopping skiing at 2:30 so they took the bus back to Tignes, did several runs down Anemone and (on the final one) stopped of for a vin chaud (Erdinger for Dave!) at the café. Ian Huggins skied again with the Exeter group while Phil, Andrea and Clare skied together. John Barker arrived for his weekend skiing break in time for afternoon tea. For dinner, we had no in-hotel catering, so various groups made their own arrangements. Mark Guilford claimed he was going to a bar with three small tables (La Caleche again), but it turned out to be a large restaurant seating at least 50. Mark didn't eat, and had a late night out with a few others. Another group found a table football game in the Angel Bar, followed by the aftermath of a Quiz night in the Grotte du Yeti. Ian and Annie joined Amanda, Sandra, Resh and Alan (the two care-home owners) at a nearby very French restaurant which took a while for Annie to reach, even with the crampons on the bottom of her crutches. FridayBack in the hosting groups the fast and fast intermediates combined and promptly lost Gemma, Jumbo and Ian (father of one of the Mark Warner staff) on the first turn of the day. They were reunited after a phone call from Gemma which most of the group expected to be on their phone. Dave Beecham joined us during the day but shared himself between the various groups to get some varied video coverage. Phil and Andrea explored the ice cave on the Grande Motte glacier and then did Leisses again - this time more moguls than snowdrifts. The SIs skied down to Le Brevier, expertly guided by Sally. At one point Paul, who was standing still in the middle of a narrow red, started to resume skiing in his usual blasé fashion just as Mark G warned him not to move - and was promptly knocked over. It was shortly after this incident that Paul began to look UP the slope before pushing off, thus breaking the habit of a lifetime. Later Mark G was inveigled into a stint of role-playing by a French teacher who wanted to entertain her children. Mark duly slipped round the back and, as all the children were calling out for Mr Bear, roared for all he was worth. The children duly scattered - directly into the path of the oncoming skiers, one of whom was Mark W. Was this just a ploy to make Mark W fall over again? All the groups met for lunch above La Daille, but not all finished before the sun went behind the mountains there. The slow-intermediates were joined by Mary Russell (ankle getting better) and Nick, while the leisurelies were joined by John Barker who was unmistakeable in yellow gloves, long scarf and skin-tight black leggings. The slow-intermediates decided to tackle the black Face run but Mark Waddoups took the sign at the side of the piste literally - he decided to descend it on his face. Apparently he managed half a turn before sliding a few hundred feet in various orientations, passing Paul, Simon, Nick and Ben in his eagerness to reach the bottom, bringing the rest of the slope to a complete halt and filling Mark G and Kate with trepidation at the top. The skier who rescued Mark's skis handled Face as if it were a nursery slope! Nick was the only person to witness both Ged's and Mark's wipeouts and judged the latter to be superior. The moguls needed flattening anyway. Gemma went off with Dan the Barman to explore the "Lost Valley", no, not a euphemism, it's a rocky crevasse above La Daille which involves 10 foot drops and taking your skis off to squeeze through gaps in rocks. Barry rejoined the Exeter group for some varied skiing - a bit of fast carving and some moguls. The leisurely group took a trip up to the Grande Motte glacier, though without Dave P who dropped out having fallen twice during the day and cracked the back of his skull so he was feeling a bit groggy by then. Before dinner, we had a session reviewing old photos provided by Steve Pearson from holidays in 1996 to 1999. Somebody noticed that Paul was currently wearing the same shirt as the one in one of the photos, though it is now a little faded. There was also discussion about the possible venue for next year's holiday, with St Anton looking like the favourite. In the bar later Linda was provided with her GPS readout and it turned out that the GPS hadn't failed, but the readings stopped roughly at the bottom of Tufs, before the group got stuck on it. After a lack of chicken for the whole week, we now had the option to eat it for starter and main course - an option that many people took. Alternatively we could have unshelled prawns for starter and in the seafood risotto. Gemma was the only party animal to stay out to the wee small hours. SaturdayThe last day of skiing did not start well for Steve or Richard both of who had stomach upsets, but both skied in the end. Five of the fast intermediates hired snowblades for the day even after the man in the ski shop said they were exchanging a Ducatti for a moped. At first this seemed true as their speed was drastically reduced while they got used to the new technique required. With well-pisted slopes their speed returned, though only John, Vince and Stuart continued on blades in the afternoon, Chris and Linda preferring their wide skis again. The leisurely group started off with the same group as Friday, but after a heavy lunch at Les Brevieres it was down to 5 as only the hardcore of Dave P, Phil, Sarah and Clare stuck with Rachel. Jumbo joined Dan the Barman for the Lost Valley which they completed quite rapidly to join the other fast/FI people who had just gone down the Epaule de Charvet moguls - easy on snowblades. Dave Beecham did a bit more videoing in mixed light as we had a sunny morning and a cloudy afternoon. The pistes and the Bagus Café (for lunch) were both deserted because most tour operators do their changeover on Saturdays. As a bit of fun on one of the last pistes Linda made a few jumps over the mounds of snow to the side of the piste; however the last one she attempted absorbed her skis and catapulted her into the snow face first - hence the fat lip you'll see in a few of the photos. Ian, Richard and John whizzed over to do Sache black down to Breviere (technically an on-piste black but in reality an off-piste mogul safari). They also tried a very similar black run next door to Sache called Silène. Awards were presented at dinner with all going to the combined Huggins Tours and RBSG Ski Club group.
Ian then thanked Stuart for organising the trip and Stuart in turn presented the Mark Warner staff with the usual token of our appreciation. Most people then got a relatively early night, except for Vince and Matt who thought there was no point in going to bed to get up at 4:30am, so they visited a few night clubs. SundayThis year Vince was the only person to send his bags off on the wrong coach which at least meant that his luggage was ready and waiting when he arrived at Geneva airport. There was a one hour delay during which time Bridget attempted to set of a security alert by leaving her bag in the scanning area while Phil, Clare and Andrea passed security checks into departure Zone A instead of C. Back at Gatwick Stuart just had time to sell another two DVDs from last year's holiday - to John Llewellin and to Jane who we saw again with Nigel. A compilation of high-quality photos will be available on CD from Stuart. E-mail your requests to him at the address below. Top Back to Ski Trips Back to Huggins Tours | The Party (43)Paul Huggins | |