Le Franco Phoney

Pictured below is the map of where some crazy unranked skiers and snowboarders will be doing cool tricks and daring descents right here in La Clusaz tomorrow in the lead-up to the Radikal Mountain competition. Those who qualify will get to do it all again at the weekend further over on the l’Etale peak with some of the world’s upcoming freeride champions. After the Candide Invitational stopped a few years ago (although Candide Thovex still lives here and is still awe-inspiring to watch as he flings himself with ease over kickers at La Balme on random days), La Clusaz has struggled to come up with a worthy replacement. Evening jib sessions proved the most popular and accessible for locals and tourists alike, but last year’s Radikal Mountain was a major let-down — mostly due to the lack of snow. Although it was probably more challenging for the riders and perhaps more likely to show who can really ski in any conditions, its position on a peak near l’Etale made viewing a bit difficult. As the map below shows, this year’s qualifying competition will take place up at La Balme, in the Torchere valley, allowing a better view of the action. It’s a pity the final competition isn’t taking place there too.

With more than two metres of snow at the altitude of the competition (and even more up higher!), the whole area has turned into a winter sports haven for all of us. No new snow is predicted for the weekend which is unfortunate, but with so much snow already there, the competition is already likely to be ten times more interesting than last year. You’ll find me camped out nearby with a sandwich and some awe.

Last week, I returned to England for a few days of work mingled with a few days in London and Cambridge to catch up with friends. Opposite the Turnham Green tube station is this Chinese restaurant — with its name slightly altered for the worse. Obviously someone’s idea of a joke, I wonder how long the sign has been like this and how much longer it will remain.

London done, I headed to Cambridge, where I was greeted by pirates, adults in nappies (giant babies) and a whole variety of other costumes as part of the Chinese boat races held for charity last weekend.

Pictured are the pirates and some men dressed as women. It’s always amusing to see men decorate themselves as their idea of a female: a 1960s housewife, complete with a dodgy dress and a scarf over their hair seems to be the norm.

I don’t remember ever seeing a woman dressed like this, but top points to them for making themselves as dowdy as possible, then adding the biggest pairs of boobs that will fit in their dresses, as if to counteract the frumpiness.

The next day, a restaurant just outside of Cambridge provided a laugh for us all when we went to the toilets. The walls and doors were made of frosted opaque glass, although outlines were still possible to see if someone was close enough to the glass. Out in the communal hand-washing area, a toilet seat was raised off the ground as a bin for hand towels. The thought that this (hopefully repainted and thoroughly disinfected) throne probably started life collecting a different type of waste made me shudder as I opened the lid to place my hand towel inside.

Thankfully, my trip returned to happiness with some cupcake goodness. Friends of mine in France go on about how lovely those French chocolate ‘cake’ slices — made up of layers of mousse and pastry and something sweet and crispy — taste, but I’d prefer a cupcake any day, and I’ve yet to see any decent ones here in the Aravis region of France. So, I made the most of it, sampling both the lemonade cupcakes and the chocolate cupcakes offered by FireFly Cakes which provided me with the sugary-soft and moist sponge I’ve been missing. I’m having cake envy just thinking about them now. They all went within the day.

Yesterday was a really beautiful day for Le Bélier marathon here in La Clusaz. Participants who climbed the five peaks of the resort either walking from 7.30am or running from 9am were grateful for the cooler morning temperatures after a few weeks of hot weather, but the sun drilled down, making the finish line a warm place to be before midday.  I noted last year that skis are always somehow in the picture no matter what time of year it is, and this year was no exception. Although there was no cow bell attached this time, this girl was holding a pair of alpine skis, presumably waiting for her mates to finish the race. Having seen one French girl  complete the walking race looking like she’d just walked out of a fashion magazine, I wondered if she too had walked the race with the skis over her shoulder. After the other local offerings this month, including the stuffed hog on wheels, donkey ‘rides’ and a cow van, nothing would surprise me.

Some 597 swimmers braved the unusually chilly water of Lake Annecy yesterday to complete a 2,400-metre race. Registration was somewhat subdued, with rain dolloping down, but the clouds cleared and the race finished with blue skies and hot sun. A few extra participants weren’t timed — the life guards. Pictured is one of many huge Newfoundland rescue dogs who swim the race with a life guard and save people who look like they’re starting to drown. Thankfully, we didn’t see anyone drowning on the day, and the dogs seemed to be in more photos at the end of the race than the racers. The winner was Damien Cattin-Vidal in just 27 minutes and 43 seconds. My two friends came in at just over an hour with many of other breast-strokers, while the last person finished in just under 1 hour and 45 minutes. Well done to everyone!

La Clusaz has just ended nine days of horse competitions, named “Jump’In” which saw a whole lot of massive trucks and temporary stables take over the under-utilised Salon des Dames car park at the entrance of town. I know absolutely nothing about horses or the competitions, but I was impressed at just how high and daintily these well-groomed, heavy animals can jump. Before each competition starts, the riders are allowed onto the course to check out the jumps. As you can see from one of the photos I snapped, a black labrador also got to check out the jumps and nobody seemed to mind. The mountains behind the course provided a very scenic backdrop.

The last three days of the competition saw riders from all over the world compete, with an English-speaking commentator talking alongside the French one (a rarity in these parts). The weather was sunny and humid and I felt sorry for the riders and horses while I sat in the shade with my ice cream. I also felt sorry for the four riders who went down a narrow path littered with pedestrians — on Segways. Everyone just stared while they waited for the pedestrians to get off the pedestrian path so they could continue. Thankfully, they avoided entering the jumping arena, although that could have been quite amusing I guess…

This is how the green fields of the Paquier area of Annecy could have looked in seven years’ time had they won the 2018 Winter Olympics bid. However, favourite contenders Pyeongchang in South Korea won, leaving the Paquier full of a crowd of people who sighed and muttered before walking away, ending the party that had been happening all day in the lead-up to the winning bid announcement.

There was, however, one group who kept partying. They were the ones holding the placards protesting against the Annecy Olympics bid. I imagine they’ve all woken up with hangovers this morning.

With just weeks to go before the decision of who will host the 2018 Winter Olympics is announced, I spotted this graffiti in Annecy. In case you didn’t guess, “NON” in French means “NO” in English, and this sign is right by the lake on one of the entrances to the Bonlieu Centre which houses the tourist office. Foot traffic from tourists and locals alike is heavy, so whoever defaced the sign picked a very public place. Plenty of people want the bid to be a success, but lots of locals are against the whole plan. A car around the Aravis has been plastered with posters for months showing the the € (Euro) currency symbol in the colours and form of the Olympic rings, and a variety of e-mails are still being bandied around saying how evil the bid is and how much it’s costing the villages involved.

The winner of the 2018 Winter Olympics will be announced on 6th July. I’m expecting to hear celebrations into the evening whether Annecy gets the vote or not.

Pictured is a bizarre racing track that has since been demolished in Méribel, which I snapped from my view on a chairlift on Sunday. It was part of the World Cup race for telemarkers, which involved the usual flag poles for the racers to turn by, with a jump half way through, then this big dome for them to loop around, followed by some skating on the flat area behind this dome before finally reaching the finish line just in front of the dome. The racers face back towards the mountain they’ve just come from. It was an interesting race to watch, but a bit difficult for the spectators to see the dome part, as you can see by the empty area behind the red fence to the left of the dome. The skating behind the dome went right by the spectators, who made lots of noise for any French racer, particularly the local ones, and went almost completely silent for anyone else. By 3.30pm, when the racing was all over, the pistes bashers were flattening the dome.

Having just one day to catch up with friends in Méribel and hit the (surprisingly well-maintained after a month of no fresh snow) pistes, I missed the end of the race and the prize-giving ceremony. However, I did get lots of telemarking advice from the lovely Roddy (who telemarks just as well switch as he does going forward), saw some table-top dancing at one of the piste-side restaurants, and sampled the delicious food from The Den, which used to be Pizza Express. The snow is great in Méribel at the moment, with the pistes covered with man-made snow and this week’s high temperatures likely to make the pistes as slushy as April conditions, pleasing many snowboarders who have had to contend with rock-hard ice for the past month. The sun is so warm, in fact, that I wonder if La Clusaz will have many pistes open by the end of the week. Will winter return before spring takes over?

January is traditionally a quiet month on the slopes in the French Alps: school holidays are over and everyone is recovering financially from Christmas, leaving the mountain to the locals and the seasonnaires to play on as a result of all their hard work in December, when staff often get no days off for weeks or work very long days. To compare the two months quickly, the tailback of cars in La Clusaz at the end of the day can last for around two hours as the stream of traffic from La Balme meets the stream from l’Etale, and then they both hit town and meet more traffic, and the snake continues down through St Jean de Sixt. In January, it’s third gear all the way through with few cars on the road.

However, last weekend, La Clusaz went from quiet to car carnage due to three different events being held — each appealing to different audiences. Over at l’Etale, the Radikal Mountain event was being held, where freeride skiers bomb down cliff-faces, jumping metres of rock in the process, to a panel of judges below. Also at l’Etale, on the racing piste just next to the freeride event, were kids from all over the region competing in a slalom event. That meant parents and lots of cars in the already overflowing car park full of Radikal Mountain media vans. Meanwhile, no wonder the display for the La Balme car park said “FULL”: the lower car park had turned into a tent city with snowboard companies showing off their 2012 stock for industry workers to test as part of the Snow Avant Premiere event.

So, on the weekend, we had cool dude skiers, their fans and media people, plus a huge influx of kids and parents and all the staff required for a slalom event, as well as every snowboarder who works in a ski shop in a 200km or more radius! Also add in the usual weekend crowd from Annecy, bolstered by the sunny, spring-like weather. The result? A snake of cars from all directions trying to get out of La Clusaz at the end of the day.

If I saw any of the benefits of any of these events, I wouldn’t mind so much, but the Radikal Mountain day-time event is so distant it’s like watching an ant, the racing kids filled the snack bar I was in and made a racket, and the snowboard event is only open to shop workers. Radikal Mountain did also have a freestyle jib session in town on Saturday night, but it’s stupidly early at 7pm, so by the time we got there after dinner, the whole thing was over, and of course, the pub nearby, which was rammed, including a heated outdoor area, was only for invited people. The bouncer pointed us to the ‘bar’ (a black stand with a keg of beer and a man looking bored) for the public: apparently, we’re meant to enjoy drinking alone in the cold with no outdoor heaters and in full view of the cool dudes who are nice and warm. The four of us shrugged and walked away. La Clusaz, can you make things a bit more public — or at least spread out — next year?

Last weekend, La Clusaz hosted the world cup of cross country skiing, or, in French, le coupe du monde de ski de fond (which rhymes quite nicely).

The high wind on Sunday closed any higher parts of the resort that had snow worth skiing on (although the wind blew that away too), a friend and I decided to check out the world cup. Please understand that I have no interest in cross-country skiing: I have tried it (once, in a competition for my university, and even the people who knew what they were doing fell on the downhill sections and looked unsteady at the best of times), and I think downhill skiing or telemarking is far more enjoyable – both for participation and watching.

But with nothing else to do, we walked to the hill in the distance of the photo and tried to figure out which countries had which outfits; we established, much to the horror of my French friend, that France had the terrible black and yellow lycra, perhaps inspired by the nasty Burton one-piece from a few years ago.

The highlight of the day was this guy carrying the flags of France, Norway and Sweden. I know, that’s not much of a highlight. I just can’t hype this sport. Anyway, the reason it was a highlight is because he seems to be hedging his bets pretty well there. I mean, those two Scandinavian countries are always going to do well in this sport, and it makes sense to carry a French flag in the somewhat Xenephobic environment of the Aravis region of France.

Meanwhile, I carried around my tiny plastic ‘Annecy 2018′ flag, but chucked it out when waving it caused the plastic support stick to bend.