Skiing Holidays in 2003

Christmas and New Year

Yet again we went to Val d'Isere (for the xmas week) and Tignes (for new year) and skied with Christophe Moser.

The visibility was poor most of the time this year due to many small snow falls, but we had two sunny days and lots of powder. This picture below is of Ann making the 'third track', after Christophe and Bill, in some lovely powder on the back of Val's Solaise area:

At the end of the Christmas week we transferred to Tignes and stayed in the Crystal chalet hotel with a large group celebrating the 30th birthday of Sophie, daughter of Chris and Miranda Ward - Chris is one of Ann's partners at Deloitte & Touche. The social highlight of this week was a fancy dress party on New Year's Eve. Some interesting pictures from the theme "what you want to be when you grow up" are below:

Andrew from the Lost Ark	Anne Curwen 'happy clapping'
Sophie (the birthday girl) - in the Army now	The King and the Clown?

Gressoney

Towards the end of February we went again to ski with Carlo and his great team of guides in Gressoney in the Aosta valley. He's asked us to give you a link to their website:

http://www.guidemonterosa.com/english/index.htm.

Carlo owns a small comfortable hotel that his wife, Emanuella, runs with his mum where we stayed:

www.hoteldufour.it/english/index.htm

This year we also met their new daughter, Matilda, who is 7 months old and was somewhat bemused by these odd English people grinning at her!

We were once again very lucky with the weather - as the pictures below show the sky was cloudless for almost the whole of our trip - with just one day of snow to freshen up the slopes. We were still skiing virgin (untracked for you non-skiers!) slopes a week after the snowfall, courtesy of the helicopter. All together a fabulous holiday!

The weather meant that our heli-trips gave us fabulous views not only of the Alps but also the Grand Paridiso and even the Dolomites	Some of the 'landings' weren't really - sadly Carlo didn't think Bill's argument that we shouldn't pay if the heli didn't land was valid!
This is what it's all about - standing on the top of the world with Carlo pointing out the various peaks in true mountain guide style!	Yes - it was as steep down there as it looks and what's worse, there was a big crevasse at the bottom of the first pitch so a fall would not be advised.
But this one was even steeper - and so narrow that our skis wouldn't fit so we were roped down backwards	This is Carlo skiing down the powder on the glacier - you can tell by the style!
Actually, maybe this is what it's all about - tracks on a virgin slope! not to mention the views...	Bill relaxing at the Guglielmina hut - a mountain refuge at the top of the Alagna valley (in need of some external redecoration!!)

Chamonix in March:

Ann and Andrew (see pic above at fancy dress party!) organised a long week-end for a group of Deloitte partners and their partners, 17 in all. We extended by an extra 2 days, since the conditions were so good.

Our highlight was skiing the 'pas de chevres', an off piste run from the top lift at Agentiere to join the main glacier from Mont Blanc / Aiguille du midi to Chamonix:

Here we are half way down. Typical spring skiing. So hot we are not wearing jackets.

Here is Ann being roped (yes again) over some rocks at the end of the run

Our last Fling in April:

With such good snow conditions and a £5 flight to Turin - admittedly with taxes and return flight, a bit more, we though a late blast in Gressoney would be fun for Bill's 45th birthday.