With all the best intentions of blogging on a more regular basis, other than regular check-in’s and posts on the Facebook site, it’s invariably difficult to find the essential combination for the posting of text, image and video… power and wifi! Since we last spoke we’ve covered a fair distance in desperate search of good skiing conditions. This years conditions are odd, as we keep seeing massive dumps of snow preceded by rain and warm conditions, which is making for very difficult on and off-piste skiing. It’s also making for some dangerous back country skiing which has put us off being too adventurous on decent powder days. This, coupled with the number of avalanche reports across the whole of the Alps, has prompted us to take avalanche equipment almost every time we’ve skied, even for presumed safe on-piste skiing.

After leaving the expensive Aire in La Plagne, we made our way to our next destination of La Rosiere. As we didn’t want to drive a long distance, La Rosiere seemed like a perfect choice. Although the SatNav insisted on informing us that the D1090 was closed (this will become a recurring theme) we took a risk and ignored her, hoping that it would only be the Col De Petit St Bernard that was closed, as it is most winters, which was beyond were we needed to get to anyway. After about an hour of driving up the mountain with our fingers crossed, we made it to La Rosiere without incident.

Parking is limited and is restricted for motorhomes in the town between 23:00 and 08:00, but we took a risk and parked up in the town anyway (the signposts were covered in snow, wink!).

The weather the next day was overcast and cold so we decided to do some sightseeing around the village and grab some food and drinks in the afternoon. After buying a postcard and sticker for Mark’s collection, we went for pizza and wine at a local restaurant. After dropping off the leftovers of the half eaten pizza back at Maggie, we made our way to Le Comptoir bar on the promise of wifi where we compiled the most recent blog. On the journey down to the bar Jess noticed brown skids with every step that Mark was taking, it turned out that hiding under a thin layer of snow a dog turd was lying in wait and ready to snuggle into every groove of Mark’s left snow boot. After a five minute moonwalk in deep powder, Mark managed to clear an acceptable amount of said dog turd to make it into the bar unnoticed, there was no wifi.

After our second night of sleeping in La Rosiere, we awoke to a ‘tap, tap, tap’ on the door and were greeted by a local policewoman. She informed us that as of the 2015/16 season, it was forbidden for Camping Cars to park up in the town overnight, saying that we should use the local campsite that was only about 200m down the mountain road. This didn’t really affect us as we were planning to move on after skiing anyway! We left for skiing at about 10am, bought our lift passes and walked up to the nearest chair lift. Just as Jess clicked into her ski’s, Mark laid his onto the piste and one starting sliding away- one of the brakes had fallen off!

After retracing our steps for about 20 mins, we realised it must have fallen off shortly after getting our skis out the back of Maggie, as we found the brake to one side of the road where it had been placed to avoid being run over by passing traffic. After a quick stop in a local ski shop, the brake was re-attached with a larger screw as the thread had gone, and we were on our way once again. It was a fairly overcast day, however on our journey back from La Thuile to La Rosiere, we saw the most amazing cloud formation, that we could only describe as a cloud window!

In the absence of warmth, comfort and in serious need of a shower, we decided that we were well overdue our first campsite stopover. We arrived at Le Grand Bornand Camping 10 minutes after the reception closed, so we searched for a vacant spot and hooked up to the electric. After the much sought after shower in fairly decent facilities, we continued with our Game of Thrones marathon, realising how little we had left to watch!

January 21st- Our first bluebird! Due to the weather, we left the van in a hurry and headed towards the bus stop, in the hope of finding a rubbish disposal point en route. As luck would have it, 5 minutes later we were stood on a fairly crowded bus in full ski gear, with a large bag of rubbish in hand! After a fairly awkward and smelly journey for all on board, we arrived at the main ski lift and finally found somewhere suitable for the rubbish. Once there, we had a choice of 2 bubbles to take us to the top. Although neither were fully equipped for powder ski’s, we managed to choose the smaller of the two. Some shifting and fumbling later, with the help of the lift operator, we were sat very cramped in the miniature bubble with ski’s positioned around us at all angles.

In Le Grand Bornand, we found that most lifts and runs lead to or from the same area, but due to limited numbers of people skiing here, it felt more spacious than it could have done. The runs were fairly varied, but became quite icy in patches. Regardless of the recent snowfall, the resort still insisted on firing the snow canons, which left an irritating residue on your lenses each time you passed them, but at least they were focussed on prolonging the ski-ability of the resort. Wanting to take full advantage of not only the skiing but the sunshine too, we relaxed with a couple of Vin Chauds on deck chairs and a late lunch in the restaurant, before we made our way back down the mountain. The descent down was mainly off piste and almost under the first bubble we took up that morning. After avoiding many obstacles along the way, we also came across a couple of brooks that left us with no other option than to jump. Although it is usually ladies first, in situations such as these it is always safer to let the man take the lead- Mark of course obliged. Doing his best Road Runner impression, Mark attempted to make the gap, however was unfortunately faced with a backwards slide into the icy waters below. From observing his poor attempt, and doing almost the opposite, Jess executed a perfect landing on the other side of the brook. Fortunately for us, this particular campsite had a heated swimming pool, perfect to wind down in after a difficult run home. We relaxed in the pool for the evening, followed by a shower for the second day running (!) and completed our household chores of washing up and tidying Maggie to create the perfect environment to finish our Game of Thrones boxset.

The next day we began our journey towards Grenoble, deciding to stay somewhere nearer the airport as we were expecting the arrival of friends who were coming in on an early flight over from London.