Le Franco Phoney

I’ve been away in Méribel this week, which is why it’s taken me until now to do a blog entry. Méribel is far more bling than La Clusaz or Le Grand Bornand, and I was expecting to be totally out of my element despite spending many seasons there as a ski bum. Apart from a group of young chalet hosts who drove me away from where I was seated with their attempts to impress each other at how hungover they were, I was pleasantly surprised overall. First up, CoreUPT skis were everywhere! Candide Thovex apparently has more of an influence on the bling kids than I thought! Another surprise was seeing the artwork of Charlie Adam, who I wrote about just the other day, on the front of the Méribel piste map and on various bits of resort advertising. It seems that La Clusaz is having more of an influence on Méribel than Méribel is on La Clusaz! I’d never have thought that possible, and it makes me proud to live here. Here’s some Candide action, although I recommend you go directly to candidekamera.com and watch it in full screen mode to really get the most out of the vid. Enjoy.

After seeing the fresh snow at the end of June on the peaks of La Clusaz, some friends and I were motivated to do a road trip to Tignes for a day of skiing on the glacier. We arose at 4.30am and left La Clusaz within half an hour. We took the easiest route to get there, through Albertville, stopping only for breakfast snacks from a boulangerie. Here’s what happened:

1. Arrived in Tignes at 7am to find the funicular closed due to high winds on the glacier.
2. Ate a second breakfast and came back for a half-day ticket at 10.30am (handy, as it’s cheaper, and the snow will have softened up).
3. Funicular opened, tickets bought, high winds kept the telepherique closed, but two drag lifts open.
4. On snowboards, two of us ice skated up a t-bar, while the other friend opted out and just had a hot chocolate in the sun.
5. Dodged racers on skis at the second ice rink of a t-bar, and made it to the snow park that had something resembling snow (all other pistes icy).
6. Friend got scared about all the cool dudes doing cool things, so we ice skated back down the piste and joined friend for hot chocolate.
7. Left the resort by midday.

However, the drive home really made up for the disappointing snow. Before hitting the beautiful Barrage de Roseland — a big man-made dam that reflects the most lovely blue hues amongst the green peaks surrounding it, we came across this old hotel. Out the back was a structure made for a pool and a water slide, but neither were there. Inside, a great square-spiral staircase wound right to the top. As you can see from this photo, the façade is growing trees. Some of the windows have some glass panels in them, but most of them are now just square holes. My friend, an avid Candide Thovex fan, realised straight away that this was the building used on the Coreupt ski team website, of which Candide is now a member. Just a week earlier, she had discovered (and visited) the boulangerie used to film the short video which I wrote about here, where Candide is abducted by the Coreupt team. In case you’re wondering, it’s in le Petit Bornand. And yes, she has photos outside the boulangerie and the hotel, complete with a large grin in each picture.

So, what happened to this hotel? Was it ever finished? Or is this the shell from a hotel that was once grand and frequented by tourists? It seems odd that some of the windows have glass panels if it wasn’t ever finished, but at the same time, the structure doesn’t show any signs of decoration marks on the inside. And surely they wouldn’t have added that wooden cladding if it wasn’t near completion. Maybe the construction workers went off to sample the snow on the Tignes glacier and were so mortified at the lack of snow that they moved to Utah. What do you think?

I really should have written about this days ago: Xavier Bertoni from La Clusaz won this year’s X Games Men’s Ski Superpipe last weekend, doing some very cool things while riding switch. He’s the first French man to win this competition since Candide Thovex, also from La Clusaz. Snow sports really are taken seriously here, with five year-olds training to get into the local ski team via their own ski team called ‘Pre-club’. At five years of age, I was still stumbling around in a leotard and trying to figure out how to get from first position to fifth position in ballet. But here in La Clusaz, I’ve seen five year olds chucking themselves of kickers with their parents applauding them for landing 360s on their skis. No wonder the La Clusaz kids are winning stuff.

Here’s Xavier’s incredible run:

Coreupt’s TJ Schiller won the Men’s Slopestyle, with teammate Colby West coming third. Colby also finished fifth in the Superpipe. A good result for Coreupt.

No, that’s not a typo, there’s a new ski ‘posse’ called Coreupt (or coreUPT — they can’t seem to decide), and Candide Thovex is in with them. The news isn’t actually that recent, but I’ve only just discovered the (very short!) video (see below), which is kind of an odd one, and since Coreupt seem to be based in Tignes, perhaps the Candide Invitational 2009 will be held there instead! Coreupt seem to be collecting a pretty good team of riders. Anyway, I heard a rumour that Coreupt equipment will be available for testing on the last weekend of November. Don’t blame me if I’m wrong — I’ll be going to Tignes that weekend anyway for another snow fix before La Clusaz’s lifts open in December.