Day 5: Skiing on Christmas day
Skiing on Christmas day is always different, and at the same time, always the same. Skiing is the same, the mountain is the same, and in the case of Courmayeur all the restaurants were open. What is different is it is Christmas day…
The weather was awful. The temperature was well below freezing, and there was driving snow and low cloud. The snow accumulated fast on the mountain and made for some great skiing conditions.
After 4 days of skiing in brilliant sunshine to be suddenly in cloud was a shock
Cloud Lifting
Unfortunately the low cloud made skiing difficult. Nothing like vanishing in to thick cloud (fog) halfway down a mountain.
Also, one of our group had something happen to his skis which was weird. Whilst on a two-man lift ice formed on the underside of one of his skis. This meant that one of his skis would not run. The ice was removed with a ski pole.
On one of the chair lifts ice formed on the bottom of the skis
Spent the day skiing whilst wearing a Santa hat. Shame the Mark Warner ski hosts didn’t enter in to the spirit with silly hats….
The previous day there had been an avalanche of snow, rock and ice on the far side of the valley, the scar on the mountain side was quite remarkable.
Courmayeur avalanche
