Derin Day 7

No photography today. The conditions – snow and weather combined were probably slightly overwhelming for any 10 year old. All good experience though.

First of all we were tricked by the Lanches chair on the Grande Motte. It was warm and sunny at the bottom – but the top was freezing, in the shade, really high winds and humidity. We skied a little then I deliberately went off the side of the piste onto a very steep wall of deep snow – without warning Derin. This is to get her used to the wild and deep snow. There was no risk involved but getting Derin to work her way down it – sidestepping and slipping – was a learning experience for her – and hopefully allowing her to see new potential ways of “playing” in the snow.

Regarding skiing in the off piste this was not the day to introduce it to Derin as that requires very light powder for it to go well. The snow was very heavy and compact making it difficult for even very experienced skiers to turn efficiently. Consequently we were forced indoors twice to warm up and dry off (using the hand drier machines in the toilets) during this session.

We tried the Tichot lift with a view to working our way around to Le Lac – but were blasted frozen on the chair. Then – after abandoning that objective we tried the Fresse and with the wind behind us on the chair it was all good until trying to ski back down – frozen again!

In the end we stayed at the Bollin and Derin grudgingly accepted to do some technical exercises – but the cold is not very tolerant of that either. Eventually we were in the café warming up again and I was being educated on “Five nights at Freddy’s”.

Altogether we worked on hand carriage, angulation, pressuring the front of the boot and front of the ski – but only for a brief periods. Hopefully tomorrow brings a better day – though I’m already considering heading down to Les Brevieres to escape winds and cold at altitude. The snow should be good down there now.