Pre Christmas Skiing Is Racing By

The weather here in Meribel has continued to be absolutely stunning, blue skies and sunny almost every day since the last blog post. The mountain has stayed quiet with great skiing still available on the pistes. Last Tuesday saw the FIS Ladies World Cup tour come to Courchevel, so my mate Canon and I skied across to watch the Slalom race.

Being a Tuesday I didn't think that there would be many people watching, which meant - I thought - I could easily find a few decent viewpoints to watch and shoot the race. What a Wally I was, there were loads of people, and it was really tricky finding a good spot. However, wearing my brand spanking new ESF Ski Instructor's uniform helped the cause it has to be said. Being a Slalom race meant that there were two runs, and I started at the top for both of them. At the first run I was checking my settings on Canon, when some of the course workers suddenly exploded and shouted out "Allez JoJo". 

I looked up and saw that there was a forerunner just about to leave the start gate. The cries were from some Meribel course workers who were getting excited, then I realised why, the forerunner was wearing a helmet with Meribel advertised on it. How cool is that? Later when I got home I went onto the FIS website and found out the name of the skier, it is Josephine Forni, sure enough from Meribel.

Anyway back to the racing. It was fascinating watching the world's best female slalom skiers, all of whom displayed awesome skills and control on a very icy race course. Here are some photos I took with Canon during the day, you can click on the images to enlarge them.

A few nano seconds later look what happened to the same skier. Now that's what you call a ping.

Look who else was watching the World Cup as well, from inside a thicket of trees. Eddie the Eagle!

The holiday season is now upon us, and I've been teaching for a few days now with some regular clients. And I must say, it is so nice being back in action again. We've been over to Courchevel and skied on the new 'blue' piste from the top of Saulire towards Courchevel Montriond (1650). Then on Friday we went to Val Thorens to sniff out some gorgeous pistes, which we found, but unfortunately couldn't see a thing due to very poor visibility. And today Chris and I skied up and around Les Menuires, St Martin and back to Meribel. The snow conditions are holding out very well considering it's hardly snowed in the last five weeks.

However, early weather data models are suggesting we might get a hefty snowfall on Christmas Day and Boxing Day. Now that would be a wonderful present. The other half of mh2ski, Michael, is returning to Meribel this evening so we will be firing on all cylinders. If you enjoyed this article, you might like to read about our first ski experiences of the winter before Michael returned to the UK, click here for the link. We both wish you a very Merry Christmas. Please feel free to share away on Facebook, Twitter and Google+ by using the social media buttons below. Or leave a comment, it's dead simple to use, and we love to hear from you. Until next week, Live With Passion. Martin.