Day 4: Powder Everywhere
The morning chorus began much much earlier today, up and ready to go at 8:30am, got the croissants, porridge 
and no cheese down us before heading straight out for first lift! Dumpy hadn't stopped and was still farming down massive soft white flakes. Don't think visibility was too bad, didn't matter too much either way, we were ready to make up for yesterday.
As far as I remember we headed straight up Transarc, over to Arcs 2000. Oh yes, that's right, we had Mr Pope with us for all of about 4 minutes. Not quite sure what happened but something along the lines of straightlining a red, hitting a bump, tomahawking several times and knackering his ankle. Arsebiscuits. Unable to carry on, he made it slowly back over to 1800. Gutted for him cos this ruled out the next 3 days' riding, all of which was in pow. Finally managed to catch up with Guy, Nick, Dunc and 15 or so others. Went something like this:
Sloth: "Where do you want to go?"
Guy etc.: "Well, we've mostly been riding round 2000, so where's good?"
Sloth: "1600, without a doubt, Deux Tetes will be thigh-deep today"
...So we head on down to bottom of Comborciere lift, pretty much managing to keep everyone together. So much pow around even on piste it was awesome - up and down the sides getting as many spins in as possible. Got up the top of that lift, start riding down the red to the start of the pow run and...
Guy's crew: "Erm, we've not actually ridden a red before!"
Sloth: "Ok then, how many beginners have we got? Oops, should've checked that!!" 
Turns out half of them were beginners, so sent them off down the [knee-deep] red piste while we took off round the back. Leading everyone through, I totally forgot about the 2-3 metre drop, went straight off it and landed up to my neck. Lovely. 
That run just gets better every time, never seem to take the same route, always finding new stashes and new hits (Jarmarl and Good Stuff going off pretty much everything, Dan Black the Scout and me doing the smaller bits). Rode and rode till we could take no more, mostly around John (Mont Blanc) and Areola, only the 4 of us again as lost the others somewhere around 1600. Maybe they were waiting by the non-existent red chairs?
not a lot of time for photos on days like that!
Day 5: La Plagne
Might as well make use of those Paradiski passes, so over to La Plagne on that massive double-decker cable car. Goodey straight in with the nose-off and a couple of conkers they were too! Terrain different over there, not really as much to play around on, less trees, although we don't know it so well, so no doubt there are some great bits. Was a great-looking off-piste area with big bowl to start in, but couldn't work out whether there was any lift (or cliff) at the bottom, so left that one out. Rode around, Dan Black got airborne over our boards, found a spot to build a kicker. Steeper than we'd done before, so only needed a little wedge, with pretty steep run-out into untracked pow. As usually happens with these, not a lot was getting landed, but all good anyway. Dan Black scoring points for going for the 3 before attempting a 1. Get in. Lots of fucking bad language. Rode it out till last lift, Alain booking himself in as soon as we got back.
Petrol came over from Courcheval in the evening, so obviously we had to be ready in full Fancy That again, also eating another bulb of garlic and getting back on the vin rouge. Fancy That came off, out to Red Hot Saloon for a few ales and a game of spoof. The 2 losers, my self and my partner in Mutzig, Mr Dan Black, found ourselves back in the apartment in pants, picking out another round of Fancy That for each other, before heading back to bar. Pas Bon. Think I made a sly quick exit later for fear of waking up hungover and Alained yet again.
Day 6: Riding with Petrol
Took Monsieur Gasole out and about, up round Deux Tetes, through the trees, all the usual, then over to the park. Time to take the wall on, none of us had done this before and turned out nowhere near as hard as it looked. Think my 2nd hit was the best, managing to get a nice 180 in on the run-in. Jarmarl however was in another league, nailing it far too fast and straight over the top! Wicked. Obviously the Good Stuff had to follow suit. Dunno what else happened that day, think we lost Petrol at lunchtime. Oh yes, that's where we found out how much mustard Mr Goodey can take, stitched him right up with a couple of tablespoons of turbo Dijon.
Last Run Breakage
Well, we all know about the "never say Last Run" thing, and I really make a point of never saying it. So there we were coming down from the powder at the top of Plan Bois, late on in the day, already tired...went for this nice-looking little hit, no idea what happened, landed badly. On my ribs. Crack! Yep, that definitely hurts. Not what you need.
Read on in Sainte Foy Powder Mission
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