Le Franco Phoney

Something that appeared in La Clusaz in recent years is this cluster of four statues carved out of wood. What makes these special is that they’ve been carved where the original trees grew. Their roots are still in the ground. The statue of Mary that they’re facing has been there for much longer, which makes the wooden carvings look even fresher.

I’ve zoomed into the two figures on the right, as the woman praying shows how the carved wood blends with the tree trunk. The man on the left has a walking stick which must have been delicate to carve without breaking.

The little girl pictured is facing away from the figure of Mary which seems a bit strange, but there must be a reason behind it. I have no idea who carved these or why the town decided to cut down the trees to make them into statues, and nobody else seems to know either.

The carvings can be seen just after the last roundabout in town for the direction of the route to the Col des Aravis (at the top of the one-way system). It’s a bit of an arterial so the rally cars and touring families/bikers that zoom past in summer no doubt enjoy the view in a flash. I’m not sure how many winter visitors notice the carvings in the snow while they’re carrying their skis and attempting to walk in clunky boots. So if you’re visiting La Clusaz in summer or winter, remember to take a peek before you miss it.

The tourists have mostly cleared out of the ski resorts now, signalling an early start to road work and the closure of pistes worn down through a combination of warm sun, rain and people sliding down them. However, some tourists remain, as seen wearing novelty hats (sometimes with bells), snowblades and jeans tucked into their ski boots. There should really be warning signs against all of the above, such as: ‘WARNING: That long hat down your back with shark fins will slap you in the face every time you turn’; or ‘WARNING:  Those snowblades will throw you onto your face as soon as you hit a bump or rock, and right onto your bum when you hit ice’; or ‘WARNING: Your legs will get cold and soggy because jeans are not waterproof, and those lumps they cause between your ski boot and your leg will cause pain’.

In the absence of these warning signs, we have this one to the right, pictured in just some of the telecabines in La Balme. It could mean:

1. Beware of stick figures entering the cabin trying to be scary.
2. Leaning out the doors will turn you into a stick figure (as opposed to the suit wearer).
3. If you dance in the cabin, the automatic doors will open as a means of natural selection

The sign really means “Fall risk at the opening of doors” just in case anyone out there was thinking there’s a trampoline below each cabin to have a bit of a bounce on. I can only presume that some of the cabins at La Balme are devoid of this warning in the hope that some of the silly-hat-wearing snow-bladers in jeans will presume there’s a trampoline.

WARNING: stereotypes a-plenty a-hoy! Please take the following with a giant grain of salt or two. Here we go. French men seem to love being women. Pictured are three of my friends at last night’s ‘Priscilla party’ at Le Salto pub in La Clusaz, who not only dressed brilliantly as drag queens (complete with makeup, gloves, and even a  Chuppa Chup), but played their parts perfectly. Along with the other men dressed as women, they stroked their hair, flirted with each other and men, kissed each other on their cheeks like women and strutting around like pros (in all senses of the word). The place was heaving, with a bar outside and literally twice as many people there than squashed inside. Radiomeuh took up a small corner with the DJs dressed beautifully in women while they bashed out some appropriate tunes.

To say the least, I was impressed. I can’t help but imagine a similar party in my native country, Australia, which, thanks to the Aussie sense of humour, would no doubt involve more stubby holders, thongs (the type that go on your feet) and bikinis, but that’s presuming the Aussie guys can get past dressing as a woman without being considered gay. Sadly, the phrase “Not that I’m gay” is still considered necessary if a man shows any part of his feminine side. Not so in La Clusaz! Hooray!

The night’s theme left us girls a little confused. The drag queen outfit is harder to get away with, and while one of the bar staff had told me previously to come dressed as a hooker (the same one said last night: “You didn’t dress up” which means either I always dress like a hooker or I didn’t do a very good job), and while there were a few other hookers, there were also girls dressed as pimps, lots of super heroes, nurses, drag queens and even a couple of homies. The variety made the night more entertaining. Bonus points to the imaginative guy who dressed as a pregnant woman from Romania.

The tourists have added a new annoyance to their tooting and barging: stabbing with their poles. Twice in as many days last week I was inadvertently (hopefully) whacked with skiers’ poles as they sat themselves down at the start of the chairlift ride or télécabin/bubble/gondola ride. One got me in the head, but that’s okay becuase I wear a helmet. The other one got me in the chest, then again half way through the journey up. When I asked him to mind his poles he looked completely surprised, as if he’d just noticed that he was holding onto them. Off the piste, the tooting cars continue. Oh, and special points to the Parisian car that tooted at a bus because it had stopped at the bus stop by the bus station. How dare that bus stop!

So, here’s the next symbol test from the La Balme cabin. It could mean:

• Keep your poles down here to prevent poking people in the head or chest.
• Exit to the left or right upon arrival (as opposed to blocking the exit while you adjust your goggles).
• The doors open outwards (what other way could they open?).

Actually, this sign means: “Caution: automatic doors”, because if you hadn’t noticed that they closed by themselves, you might try to open them when you arrive, and imagine how disastrous that could be! The doors might actually open seconds earlier than they should! Okay, there’s a chance that if they’re opened too early, people could fall to their deaths before the cabin has made it to the station, but if they’re stupid enough to try to push these purposely stiff doors open before the station,  I’m not sure a sign for automatic doors is going to help them anyway. I just hope they don’t whack me with their poles on the way out.

Last night, La Clusaz held its annual carnival, with groups dressed in 70s disco outfits, cops and prisoners, Star Wars characters, Cleopatras being carried by mummies, various superheros, and even a ladybird. The parade is held early so that kids, like the one pictured, can watch. A power ranger handed his sword over to this kid and motioned for the kid to attack him, which he did (had I remembered to charge the battery on my proper camera, this photo would have been clearer).

With plenty of kids around before 8pm, the DJ playing the loud party music in the centre of the gathering put on “Why Don’t We Just F**k” by Greg Parys. I know, I know, it’s an English word, but I can’t imagine many parents wanting their kids swearing in English or French or any other language. Some kids danced away to the song, while a boy of about twelve just next to me teased a group of local boys the same age by wearing a mask so they couldn’t tell who he was. How did he tease them? He rubbed his mask up and down with his hand. His mask was the head of a penis. He couldn’t have timed it better with the music, although the group of boys watching looked stunned despite their preference to look cool.

For all the entertainment provided, this kid was by far the most entertaining to watch. Eventually, one of the stunned boys walked towards him and ripped his mask off before the boy grabbed it back and ran away. The boys still looked stunned.

Like all public events in La Clusaz, the parade ended with fireworks, signalling bed time for the kids and pub time for the oddly-dressed adults. I suspect the stunned boys lingered outdoors, being too old for bed and too young for the pub, and probably watched the kid in the penis mask steal his way into a pub before turning to taunt them from the window. I can’t wait for next year.

Each year, La Clusaz holds a show to illustrate the history of skiing. This involves a torchlit descent by the local ski instructors who mingle with traditionally-dressed skiers to show how skis have changed over time. Free hot chocolate keeps the spectators warm and happy. Pictured above is some of the action, including a woman skiing in a long dress with one long pole to help her balance, and four ski instructors attached to one long ski (the two at the back fell off on the first attempt skiing downhill, much to the crowd’s excitement), and an early version of piste security, who pulled an ‘injured’ skier into their sledge without removing his skis — delighting the crowd once more.

Before the action really began, the dancers bounced around to three songs, then a fire fighters’ old water pump on a sledge was dragged into the lights. I wonder if it’s the same one that they use each Bastille Day in summer with the sledge bit removed.

After the dancing, the firefighters squirting cold water on the cold crowd trying to stay warm (who didn’t seem to mind), and the torchlit descent, the skiers and instructors did their things on different skis to show the progression of the sport from wooden planks to telemarking through to snowboarding and parabolic skis. Three local kids did some cool jumps off a big kicker and the ski instructors did some (mostly) less cool ones after. The fireworks signalled the end of the display.

I love watching stuff like this — local, historic, interesting and entertaining. And amazingly, all totally free.

The influx of holiday-makers during French school holidays is obvious both in St Jean de Sixt (excessive tooting, car alarms sounding, drivers not stopping for pedestrians at crossings, general agro) and in the ski stations of La Clusaz and Le Grand Bornand (parents condoning kids pushing in queues, families up against other families in ski hire shops as the last bits of equipment go out the door, massive influx of one-piece ski outfits — often worn by non-skiers who seem to think being in a ski resort requires antarctic layering). So, here’s a sign from inside the La Balme télécabine/bubble/gondola. See if you can identify its meaning before scrolling down.

Here’s what it could mean.

1. Don’t wear a business shirt and pants in a ski resort unless you want to look even more out of place than those people trying to fit in (sometimes literally) with their 80s one-piece ski suits.
2. That goes for your shoes too.
3. Don’t stand when the cabin is empty.

Of course, if you know the La Balme télécabine, you’d know that there are no seats at all! So, on those days when the cabin is extremely crowded (so, that would be ten less than the ‘allowed’ number, which strikes fear in my heart) and you’re stuck in a position that was comfortable for the first minute but not for the remaining fourteen, with the man next to you breathing foul breath on you, this sign is rather taunting: “Look how much space this man in a suit and business shoes has in his cabin, which has seats, unlike yours, and he’s not even bothered about sitting.” How I’d like to change places with him on those occasions.

By now, you’ve no doubt figured out (or read) that this sign requests that you do not lean against the door. But let’s face it, if you haven’t figured out that you’re wearing the wrong outfit while taking a télécabine to the pistes, you’re probably not going to notice this sign anyway. Consider going home.

More tourist tests soon.

Amongst much fanfare from the schoolkids (the blue flags on the left) and the ski instructors (the red dudes on the right) and the general public (everywhere else), Nicolas Sarkozy visited La Clusaz yesterday. If his entourage had been in white, this moment would have looked like a human French flag. I’ve circled him in case you can’t already see him. Organised chaos ensued for a few hours as the French president visited a few sites and met with a group of important people. He was here to discuss the 2018 Winter Olympic games bid for Annecy.

What this photo doesn’t show is the dodgy building site just a bit further to his left — an ugly concrete mess that La Clusaz didn’t bother trying to make pretty despite the bunting and posters through town. The wire work fence in front of the site had one of these posters on it, so job half done. The photo also doesn’t show the man on the balcony just near me, who was out in his night robe and jimjams to greet the president. I wonder if he saw.

So here we have a president who everyone loves, right? Certainly, they love to pick on his height. All around me were French people saying things like: “No, I can’t see him, but no surprise there,” and “Just look for the short guy” from a mother to a child on her shoulders. Worse still came from at least one of the mass of police (of the important gendarme type) brought in for security. A day before his visit, one of them asked a local seller some security questions, explaining it was regarding “the dwarf’s visit”. Vive la France.

Pictured is the door to a very special tipi (or teepee if you prefer). Sitting next to a piste by the Merdassier area of La Clusaz, with a drag lift taking skiers up beside it and surrounded by a few other tipis that form a serving bar and a restaurant, the sign on this tipi says ‘tipipi’, and its a literal meaning. ‘Pipi‘ is the kid word in French for urinating, equivalent to ‘wee’ or ‘pee’ in English, and inside the tipipi is a perfectly usable toilet, complete with plumbing and a powerful flush, and on the day I went, an empty roll of toilet paper. No sink as yet, but I’m guessing (hoping) that will be plumbed in soon.

But don’t be fooled into thinking that this is a freezing cold tipi where removing your layers is going to lead to sucking your breath in because of the icy air: there’s actually a layer of wood and insulation between the cloth adorning both the interior and the exterior walls. And just behind the door is a heater in case it’s really cold. The day I snapped this photo, the air outside was freezing, but the tipipi was toasty warm without the heater on.

So, you can sit on the throne, listening to the sounds of the drag lift pulling the skiers up the hill, with the spacious comfort of the warm tipi surrounding you (see photo below).

This beats all of the other toilets in La Clusaz, although with some of the toilets that’s not a particularly difficult task. There’s certainly no competition with the Caves du Paccaly pub’s toilets, where the only toilet has a door right beside the men’s urinal, means that you need to divert your eyes if there’s a man taking a ‘pipi‘.

It’s a similar situation at three of the four toilet blocks available at La Balme, two of which include squat toilets with doors, but anyone who has worn baggy ski pants knows the dangers involved in pulling them down anywhere near a squat toilet: if the legs hit the floor, who knows what they’ll get covered in.

I’d say the closest competition goes to a restaurant at the bottom of the l’Etale piste which is decorated really nicely and includes a modern-looking skull and antlers — made entirely of wood — complete with feathers and lights. It’s certainly the funniest light fitting I’ve ever seen. However, the tipipi still gets my vote for the best toilet I’ve possibly ever enjoyed sitting on.

Just a few posts ago, I was talking about people who like gadgets such as pole clips. Imagine my surprise when I a man entered the same télécabine/bubble/gondola/egg (choose your preferred word for the enclosed ski lift) as me with a very special clip on his poles.

Notice that he’s a cross-country skier (look, we all have our prejudices and mine is cross-country skiing). More on this later. Ski poles are light and narrow, making them easy to hold in one hand. I would argue that adding a clip to them merely makes them harder to hold due to the wider distance between the poles. However, this isn’t just any pole clip, is it? No: this one has the face of some champion and a motivational caption (which I’m afraid I’ve forgotten, and my phone’s old 1 megapixel camera couldn’t capture).

But let’s get back to the cross-country skier bit. I was able to extend my arm out as far as it would reach towards these poles to take this photo because the cross-country skier owner was too busy getting undressed to notice. Two layers came off his chest, leaving one long-sleeved loose layer that looked good for sweat removal (urgh). He then unzipped his tracksuit bottoms from his ankles right to his waist — like a stripper — and rolled them up into a bag with his other removed layers. The skin-tight under-layer made me want to say: “No, please put those tracksuit pants back on,” but I resisted. The only other occupant of our télécabine was a middle-aged ski instructor, who looked over at me giggling silently while this guy got his bumbag (with water bottle holder) out and velcroed it around his waist. I’m surprised this gadget man didn’t still have one of the La Clusaz piste maps clipped to one of his poles — but perhaps it’s attached to his downhill ski poles at home.