Back for Round Two: TAPIF: Skiing in the Alps: Check!

I finally went skiing in the Alps and it was AMAZING!

Yes, it was rather expensive and we had to wait in line for an hour to get our rentals and there's no way I'll be able to walk for the next week, but it was so worth it. The slopes I've skied don't even begin to compare.

Fell and got stuck right after we got off the lift. Great.

We took a bus up to Sept Laux, which was about an hour away, then, like I said, we waited another hour to get our rentals. Considering that skiing is pretty much the ONLY thing attracting tourists to the area, you'd think they would have a more efficient system. But then again...it's France, efficiency isn't exactly king here. We finally started at around 11:00 on the easy slopes (piste verte), which were surprisingly terrifying, at least the first time. Just as they started to feel comfortable we decided to try a harder piste (piste bleue). And this is where it got interesting.

We took the longest lift I have ever seen up to an altitude of 2,100 meters, where we had an absolutely amazing view of the alps, so we gawked at those for a while and then started making our way down. The first chunk was challenging but manageable enough. In order to follow the same route, we then took another lift where we once again had stunning views, and then it became a bit harder. At one point I managed to run into a big wall of snow, and I couldn't get my skis to straighten out properly, so I kept sliding back into the wall. I must have run into that thing like four times before I figured it out. To be honest at one point I was having a really hard time controlling myself, one of the others fell really awkwardly, so to be safe we just walked/slid on our butts for a part of it. We weren't the only ones; one guy came up to me, also walking down, and asked how much longer to the bottom, he had had enough. I'm not surprised, the increase in difficulty from piste verte to piste bleue...not as small as I had thought. Eventually we got through the "scary" part (this is all relative, I saw groups of kids no older than eight zooming past us), got down to Maddy - the only one out of all of us who knew what she as doing and had been waiting for us for who knows how long - where we had to take yet another lift to the last leg of the route, a piste verte (thankfully) which rewarded our efforts with more pretty scenery.

All in all, it took us almost two and a half hours to do the route. Between warming up and spending half the morning getting our skis, this was the only more interesting route we did, but to be honest I don't think I could have handled more. I haven't been this exhausted in a long time. But wow...just wow what an amazing place.

Okay, on a separate note: I know I tend to go a little crazy on the photos on this blog. But honestly how can I choose just two or three when a place is this amazing?