Les Houches

Chamonix ended up being quite expensive: I left my super red lunch box on the plane (and no one handed it in, so someone’s knicked it! Or they did a controlled explosion on it – nothing on the news though, so maybe not 😐 ); broken back tooth; broken rucksack. Oh dear!

We decided a day of ski technique work was required, so we spent Sunday in Les Houches. What a fantastic place with the most brilliant views of the Chamonix Aiguilles and Mont Blanc.

I’d been beginning to despair on the ski tours because my legs hurt so much going down hill and my toes cramped so badly. I knew I was doing things wrong, or inefficiently, because I didn’t used to get these problems, I just wasn’t sure what it was that I was doing wrong. It seems that I had gotten into the habit of doing step turns rather than parallels and I was trying to apply the brakes at each turn to slow down, and so my legs get completely knackered. Also I think I try to slow down with my toes as well – I think I must tense them on each turn – thus the cramp.

View of Sallanches

Anyway, it was great at Les Houches, and by just practising on the less demanding pisted slopes meant I could focus on what I was doing and get more comfortable with the speed. Then we had a go at the famous World Cup downhill black run, Les Verte – although I have to admit that at the one very steep bit I did automatically revert back to the step turns again (still afraid of the speed) but it was quite icy there. But on the whole my legs didn’t hurt and I only got cramp at the end of the day.