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Skiing Tignes 2016 and My First Vlog!

Mar 27, 2016 | Active Travel | 11 comments

Skiing Tignes TheRUnnerBeans

Apologies for my envy inducing mountain instagrams last week, I was enjoying the most incredible weather in France on our skiing holiday and couldn’t not share it.

Tom and I were on a skiing holiday with friends, staying at a friend’s dad’s chalet in Sainte Foy, the perfect location to get to a number of awesome skiing areas; most excitingly Tignes! I used to ski in Tignes & Val when I was younger, as did Tom, and so we were really excited to return.

It was also my first time vlogging- I filmed so much video while we were away, capturing our trip on my DSLR, Sony point and shoot, and Tom’s Go Pro…and it made me realise that I need a camera with a flip screen asap if I’m going to continue filming.

I would really love if you would watch and subscribe to my new YouTube channel to get it off the ground, and leave any requests for future vids (and blog posts, while we’re at it!).

Day 1 – we had the first BA flight out of Gatwick on Thursday morning to Geneva, in order to make it to the slopes for an afternoon ski. We found our ski legs at Sainte Foy, a small resort 5 mins away from the chalet. The conditions were perfect, bright sunshine, only a few clouds in the sky and incredible snow! I’d treated myself to some new Ski kit for this trip (after Sophie told me that baggy ski trousers weren’t cool anymore last year!!) I wore my North Face jacket (similar), Sweaty Betty salopettes (bought in the sale, yay!) a Head helmet (can’t believe that there are still people not wearing helmets on the slopes) and Decathlon goggles.

IMG_8755

Day 2 – Up for the first chair lift in Les Arcs (actually 10 minutes before the first lift, talk about maximising our ski passes). I’d never skied in Les Arcs before so it was fun to explore this huge new-to-me ski area. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky, and we couldn’t believe how empty the slopes were – one benefit of going outside of school holidays! We skied hard, making the most of the sunshine and snow, stopping for a coffee/beer around 11, then a late lunch on the slopes before skiing for the rest of the afternoon and making it back to the car for 5pm.

Les Arcs Skiing 2016

Charlie on the slopes TheRunnerBeans

Day 3 – Off to Tignes for the day, it’s a bit of a longer drive from the chalet to Tignes which made for an early morning to be there for the first lift after collecting our ski passes. We easily parked in the underground car park right by the La Maison de Tignes (with really reasonable parking costs) and hopped onto the Palafour chair lift. I’m very grateful to Crystal Ski and Tignes tourist board for giving me my Tignes ski pass for our two days there.

The Espace Killy (Tignes and Val D’Isere) is an enormous ski area, so we stuck to the Tignes area for our first day. We started as high as we could, heading up to the Grande Motte and skied down from there, back up the other side to the ‘Eye of the Needle’, it brought back some amazing memories of ski holidays with my family.

eye of the needle TheRunnerBeans

Day 4 – Back to Tignes again for our fourth day, and we made it over into the Val side too. First up was take on The Face, a black run that takes you down into Val – definitely best tackled first thing before the mogels build up.

Tom jumping TheRunnerBeans

The boys took us on quite a few black runs and off piste sections on our trip, and although they were a little nerve racking, the sense of achievement is huge! We had an amazing long, leisurely lunch on our last full day before skiing down for a glass of fizz at La Folie Douce – the famous on-slope bar in the world!

La Folie Douce TheRunnerBeans

Day 5- Our last day, my legs/knee were definitely pretty sore after 4 days of hitting it hard. Why do ski boots not become more comfortable? Mine were almost impossible to get on everyday! We decided to make the most of the half day before our 7pm flight home, so stuck to the Sainte Foy slopes again. It was the first day of the Easter holidays, and you could tell that the slopes were busier and the snow was beginning to get slushy – the right time to be going home!

I had such a brilliant trip, skiing, playing a lot of card games, eating a lot of cheese and enjoying some rose in the sunshine! Thank you Gotla for inviting us!

Tignes 2016 TheRunnerBeans

11 Comments

  1. Corey Melke Hinz

    Wowsers girl!!! That was a proper mini movie!! Awesome!

    Reply
  2. Elle @ keep it simpElle

    I’ve been skiing a few times and never worn a helmet! Even when living i Finland, winter was all about skiing and still, no helmet! Will defo think twice about that before I ski again!

    The video is awesome! Makes me wanna hit the slopes again! …I am even a little curious to try snowboarding to see which I like best!

    Reply
  3. healthyhappierbear

    Your pics look great and the video is amazing! Congrats 🙂

    Reply
  4. The Chi-Athlete

    OH MY GOSH, FUN! I’ve never been snow skiing. I should probably change that, now that I live so close to some good spots to ski.:)

    Reply
  5. Nicole

    Gorgeous photos! I was skiing in Colorado this week, so loved reading about your experience. Looks like the slopes were pretty empty!

    Reply
  6. Hollie

    That looks like it was so much fun. My husband is into nordic skiiing but I’m more into looking in from the ski lodge to be honest LOL.

    Reply
  7. Rebecca

    Your pictures are stunning and I love the video. I’m really liking your snapchats at the moment too. It’s nice to see you on there a little more.

    Reply
    • charlotte

      Aw thank you so much – it’s been my goal recently to do more video!!

      Reply
  8. andrea

    Love the vlog! It’s fun to see you in action and hear the voice behind the blog! Looks like you all had a great time

    Reply
  9. W. Purves.

    Great skiing – great weather – great pictures. I have signed up to your You Tube – at least I think I have! G.

    Reply
  10. Laurie

    great work! so weird (in a nice way) to hear your voice!

    Reply

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