Yesterday we met up with Jerry (Cumming-Bart) who is over from Watford for the week with his brothers, Jack and Justin, and two other friends Terry and John, all of whom we have met previous years.  Jerry, Jack and John where meant to be booked into Karin’s place, Les Marmottes, but due to a double booking, they had been placed in the Hotel Boule de Neige opposite which is very comfortable and which serves real French food every evening.  Justin and Terry are staying in a studio apartment in Chantemerle, owned by an English girl who originally wanted to buy our apartment.

So we had a party of all levels, from beginners through to intermediates and a very gung-ho Terry.  With that in mind, we invited Terry to join us today when we met up with a couple of the Snowheads (from the forum) who were holidaying in La Grave but came over to ski with us for the day.  Knowing they were expert skiers, we were rather worried we would not keep up, hence our lesson on Sunday, but luckily after a couple of hard days skiing La Grave with a guide, which is all off piste, they were happy to go at a steadier pace, albeit at a still faster pace than we would normally take.  Graham and John were very patient with us and even gave us a few tips for off piste skiing.  My afternoon culminated in some really serious off piste.  Chris elected to meet us at the bottom due to his fear of heights.  The rest of us took the chair lift up to the Cucumelle where we skied across the top of the Crête de la Balme, eventually having to remove our skis and hike the last bit due to lack of snow at the top where it had been blown away by the wind.  Well, I never thought I would be hiking up and then skiing down but knew I had to take the opportunity whilst I could, and Graham and John had promised Chris to look after me well.  The guys led the way down and Terry and I followed.  Terry said later that when he looked over the top of the ‘crête’ he had cr*pped himself and I went up in his estimated by 100%.  I took a fall on the last slope and lost my confidence making me fall over on every turn I made after that.  It was pretty steep and I knew if it had been an ordinary piste I would have had no problem but the snow at that point was not good, it having a crusty layer.  The guys did say it was not good conditions (were they just being kind I wondered cos they made it look so easy) and told Terry after I had gone that this was likely avalanche territory!  Jerry told me that Terry was still shaking later that evening.

Graham and John came round for some dinner before heading back to La Grave where they had to be back by 7 pm to return their hired test skis which they had been trying out for free.