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.

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?

As you can see from this photo I snapped last week, winter has arrived and covered all my flowers in snow. This particular flower is now under about 60cm of fluffy snow. Because of the snow dump, the La Balme area of La Clusaz was open for skiing last weekend, and I was there for first lifts on Saturday morning.

The powder covering the hill was untracked, but after a few runs in snow that was falling sideways due to very strong (and cold) winds, my friend and I stopped for a hot chocolate to warm our chins and toes. I was lost in my hot chocolate when a guy came over and asked something in French which I paid no attention to, concentrating instead on the steam from the cup in my hand. My friend answered in French then poked me out of my relaxed state. My snowboard, the guy said, had fallen off the ski/snowboard rack in the strong wind, then taken itself further down the hill and off the piste entirely. Nobody could catch it and nobody could see it. He pointed to the track it had made under the telecabine, which disappeared within metres, and my friend and I started searching. We decided to stop because the snow was as deep as our legs. We took the telecabine down to see if we could see where it had landed. We didn’t. We found a piste security man named Gilles who said he’d look for it, but that it was probably buried under the light, fluffy snow and wouldn’t be found until spring, presuming it wasn’t stolen when it did reappear through the snow. The snowboard is old and worth little, but it’s been a great powder board that responds well, and the bindings are comfortable and cost a bomb when I bought them, so I didn’t want to lose this board. Going back up the telecabine, one guy said if he found it, he’d keep it. Another guy said he’d lost his skis, and whoever found them handed them in and he’d do the same too.

I pointed out the last track of the snowboard to Gilles and he surveyed the angle of the snow and picked his path. He said he’d meet us at the bottom. Back in the telecabine, my lovely friend offered to come back during the week and snowshoe to the top of the telecabine (a couple of hours at least) so that we could continue the search on foot if Gilles didn’t find it. We watched him from the telecabine on our way down as he climbed with his skis over rocks, damaging his bases. The longer he was gone, the less chance of seeing my snowboard again. Seconds felt like minutes and minutes felt like hours etc. I’m sure you know that numb feeling where time is standing still for you, while everyone else around you is oblivious to your crisis and you wonder how they can carry on. About ten minutes later, Gilles arrived – with my snowboard! He found it! I hugged him, I kissed his cheeks and I shook his hand. I told him in French that I loved him. He seemed used to this reaction but I didn’t care: I was grateful beyond his comprehension.

The snowboard had slid under the snow and travelled around 100 metres before it hit a tree and rested. The only sign of it was 1cm of orange binding that acted like a tiny beacon which he spotted after some time searching nearby. My resolves from the experience:

1. I’ll never rest my snowboard or skis on that particular rack again; and,

2. I owe Gilles gingerbread too (along with the guy from the post office who I mentioned recently).

St Jean de Sixt is home to free-range chicken eggs, some tennis courts and of course some mannequins. If you want to go for a swim, you have to get on a local bus to La Clusaz or Le Grand Bornand. During the off-season, only one of the two bakeries is open and the buses stop completely (but that’s okay because the pools close too). The only traffic jams are caused by cows being moved up or down the valley. St Jean de Sixt is the epitome of a sleepy village.

So what’s this all about? Hidden behind the tennis course is the Bun-J (“j” and “g” pronunciation are reversed in French) Ride ramp, where you can fling yourself off a ramp using a variety of tools, such as this bike, pictured, which has no brakes so you’ve got no chance to change your mind once you’ve left the top of the ramp. Alternatively, you can slide off the ramp with a mountain board in summer or a snowboard or skis in winter. You can jump off the edge if that’s what floats your boat. St Jean de Sixt just got exciting! Way, way below the ramp is a ravine which produces a lovely spooky echo of flowing water as you bounce down towards it before being pulled with ropes to the other side. Back flips are applauded and last-minute swearing prompts evil laughter from onlookers.

If people want to chuck themselves off an astro-turfed ramp, good for them: it’s the blindfolded ones I feel sorry for. Usually, it’s some guy who is about to get married or celebrate some important birthday, and his mates have bundled him into a car with a blind fold and accessorised with either handcuffs, a gorilla suit or other ‘zany’ fancy dress, or a leopard skin thong. Sometimes, it’s all of the above. The poor guy in the blindfold is harnessed up, then led down the ramp backwards and attached to a rope, like he’s abseiling, until he reaches the flat bit near the end. Each time I’ve seen it, the guy gingerly places one foot lower down the ramp, unaware of what is next. I reckon it’s probably more scary than the jump itself — it’s certainly a lot longer. A chair is perched at the end of the ramp for the blindfolded man to sit in, which then gets gaffa-taped to him so that it doesn’t end up in the ravine way below. Just before the Bun-J Ride man kicks the chair off the ramp edge, he removes the guy’s blindfold so he has a moment of horror before the fall itself. Shrug and smile or scream uncontrollably, they all end up over the edge. I’m guessing that the ravine below is partly covered with the same type of presents that the cows leave behind on the roads during their traffic jams.

Someone very close to my heart participated in last weekend’s Defi Foly and he did his runs with his waterproof camera stuck to various places. The video from his snowboard is rather bumpy! This one, however, taken from a stick in his hand, proved quite stable, but unfortunately made it harder for him to balance once he was in the water (I think he was more concerned with keeping the camera balanced than himself!). So, if you want to experience the speed of the snow ramp at around 65km/h, click on the video below.

He left from the first height out of three. Imagine how much faster the speeds are from the top height without any turns. I guess the force of hitting the water from just the first ramp is enough for most contestants.

Okay, it’s time to come clean: I’ve been in Australia for the past few weeks, but I had plenty of blog topics to keep me writing about France. By the time you read this, I’ll be holidaying on an island on the Great Barrier Reef before heading to Brisbane for a family wedding, then back in France next week.

Until then, I want to write about how easy it is to idealise a home country when living abroad. It’s natural for anyone to compare countries, but I’m now comparing France to an Australia of ten years ago. In that time, a lot has changed: toll roads; skim-milk Big M flavoured milk; water restrictions from drought; new stadiums; and slower traffic just to name a few. Although I’m a fan of the low-fat flavoured milk, having to restrict showers to three minutes, using the government-provided egg-timer on a suction cup for the shower tiles is not as attractive. I guess I’ve used Australia as my normality guage for other countries I’ve lived in. I have idealised my country.

For example, I explained to my French travel partner that he wouldn’t need to pack a rain jacket because ‘Melbourne is having a drought and it only rains a few times a year so we’ll be fine.’ It rained two days after we arrived, then again the next day, and then again the following day. At least that might prevent shower times from dropping further. Then, after parking the car outside a shop advertised as ‘Open 24 hours a day’, we noticed, as we walked up to the door at 6.59am, that the staff were just unlocking the door after being closed overnight. I guess they just didn’t specify which days they’re open 24 hours.

When we spent a day snowboarding at Mt Buller, we hired equipment rather than lugging our own from France. Our first attempt to hire failed massively. We had our equipment fitted and had chatted to the ski technician about where we live in France and how pointless it would be to bring snowboards with us from there just for one day. His assistant then asked for a credit card. Apparently, my debit card isn’t good enough because there’s a risk that we’ll flee the country with, shock horror, very old ski hire crud including smelly boots, damaged snowboards and heavy bindings. I asked my partner if he had a credit card, but like me, he only had a debit card. They said if my driving license had been Australian and not British, it would have been okay. Errr, what? Common sense did not prevail and they said the risk of us not returning their old, worn out hire equipment was too great. We were stupidly honest with them about only having French debit cards, which are labelled only as ‘Carte Bleu, so on our way to the next shop, we agreed to give them a Carte Bleu debit card and not tell them it was a debit card. It worked and we hire some equipment.

Idealism shattered, I’m pleased to say that the positives have by far outweighed the negatives: friendly shop assistants; native birds tweeting outside my mum’s house; great food; a return to sunny weather; a fantastic city to explore, and so much more. I still call Australia ‘home’.

…but I’m still looking forward to winter in the French Alps.

The year of 2009 has so far been good, if not a little odd. For example, I saw this car wedged in some trees after it skidded off the road backwards. This happened in the afternoon when the roads were completely dry from sunshine all day. The car is from this area (the 74 in the number plate gives it away), as was the car in my front yard one morning last year and the one in the creek opposite at 2am one morning. Maybe they’re just bad drivers here.

Meanwhile, in the snow park on Monday, I saw a snowblader land in a heap after trying a small kicker. He didn’t move in time and the next jumping blader then landed on his mate. They were then landed on by a third blader. Where is their common sense? Most of us check that a mate has landed safely and cleared the area before we take the jump. A kid barely old enough to be on skis somehow dropped off the huge red kicker in the park, much to the disgust of some La Clusaz team dude who was training teenagers how to do big tricks off it. Everyone had to wait while this kid zigzag-snowploughed down the landing zone, while his mother apologised profusely to the La Clusaz team dude who just shook his head.

Over in La Balme, the cool kids were trying out next year’s snowboard range. Their presence meant that bling came to La Clusaz. I missed the public testing day without realising, and was told I could not enter or try any boards. However, I know a ski technician who was allowed in, so together, we shared inverted camber snowboards, double inverted camber snowboards, and a few other boards too. While I waited for him at the gate with my own snowboard, a man asked me if I liked my board. I said I wasn’t sure as I had just bought it off a friend, and he said “Oh, it’s just that I’m the head of Rome snowboards in France, so I always like to ask people if they like their Rome boards.” Actually, I wish I could now tell him that I do quite like the board.

At the end of the day when the testing was over, the man at the gate let me in. However, my snowboard—a 2007/08 model—was not allowed. I had to leave it at the gate. Did he think I was planning on dumping it? What on earth was that about?

La Clusaz is now returning to normal with the bling snowboard tests over and this week’s bladers all too tired to keep going or injured from doing stupid things. This means I can write part two of my thoughts on French bakeries very soon. Tasty.

Well, what a start to winter: La Balme here in La Clusaz opened last weekend, providing an entire area of untracked powder — and a few rocks underneath. With my snowboard relatively unscathed, I popped over to Tignes with some friends for Sunday and Monday. Despite the sunny weather on Sunday, the wind was strong, causing the fresh snow to feel like pellets of rice hitting us in the face at times. The glacier was mostly closed, again, like last time, due to high winds. The run down from the glacier was still rocky, presumably due to the high winds stealing all the snow.

Meanwhile, Monday was even worse. A friend in Val d’Isere texted me in the morning to say she was looking at a blizzard, while the rest of us chickened out of the 9.30 start we had planned. The fog and snow stayed, so we ventured out after a long breakfast and played on a free piste (thanks Tignes!) at Val Claret that was pretty much untracked until we arrived. That would be because there were only a few other suckers out there, but it was fun to try to see the kicker before actually hitting (or missing) it.

One of my friends chickened out of skiing, opting for ‘defrosting the car’ instead. This involved sitting in her car with the engine running and her feet over the heater vents on the console until she thawed out. By the time she was warm, the centimetres of snow on her windscreen had melted away. Meanwhile, just up the road from her, my handbrake-turn-loving friend had put on his snow chains and was happily pulling on his handbrake all around the ever-white roads of the resort.

So, two days of cold fingers on this visit, plus the day of boarding on the glacier in antarctic-style conditions in November, added to all my previous visits which mostly involved snow or high winds has led me to believe that Tignes actually means “bloody freezing” in French.

With even more snow falling in La Clusaz, my mountain-biking buddy from a few weeks ago and I took the opportunity to visit a friend in Tignes and hit the piste for a pre-season slide.
Although the wind prevented the telepherique on the glacier from opening, all the t-bars were open, and as the only snowboarder out with four skiers, I’m currently sporting a bruised behind from the t-bar…erm…bar. In case you don’t know, skiers rest the bar at the very top of their legs where their legs meet their cheeks. Snowboarders, however, have to go up sideways and take all their weight on their inner thigh and the cheek nearby. It also works your muscles a bit more when riding a t-bar on a snowboard and after the fourth journey up, I was wishing I had skied instead. My forward leg was like jelly.

The snow was fresh and powdery, but visibility higher up was not so good. So we stayed lower down and I played on a friend’s 2006 Nidecker Diablo (pictured) which was lots of fun. It’s much softer than my Burton Custom, but it felt just as hardy when going at speed. This board didn’t flap, yet the extra softness provided great suspension over the few small bumps that I could find on the well-flattened piste. I managed to find some powder that had blown into a gully the whole way down one side of the t-bar and that’s where I noticed that the board had that sinking feeling. Just one centimetre shorter than my Custom, I expected it to float just as well. It did float, but it felt like the back end was sinking – a feeling I haven’t experienced on a board before.

We ended the day in Tignes with a hot chocolate and drove back to La Clusaz, satisfied that the first day of the 2008/09 season was a good one. Meanwhile, more snow is due to fall this week. Winter is coming!