Hope this bodes well for the season ahead. This week winter arrived with a vengeance in the Alps!!! It’s now been snowing off and on for 6 days even down to the village level. As I look out of our chalet’s window all I can see is a complete white out. And, lots of snow has fallen at altitude, upto and including Avoriaz.
Here are some pics (some from the chalet and some in Avoriaz) showing how conditions are a changing:
Just a reminder that with Winter around the corner we are taking bookings for our highly personalised, ski weekends this forthcoming season (Special Offers for full weeks in February) and right now prices are still at last year’s level !!!!!!!
Summer is over but the beautiful weather in the Alps continues with temperatures still reaching 20 degrees during the day. In August we had many guests from the owner of Morzine Source Magazine’s wedding, stay at the chalet. We broke our own rules and accommodated more people than we usually do – it was huge fun!
Just in case you are reminiscing about Summer a touch, below are a few pictures taken by our guests from the chalet over the last few months and a couple or so from our travels:
A big thanks to Jonathan Callow (he of the red card fame – see video on last blog post!!) who kindly updated this video from a few years back – made it vertical, added some music, etc. Obviously, he felt a little guilty. He’s also promised a video of the morning we spent skiing with his son (Seb) last week – hope you all look forward to it.
We were in the ‘Back Country’ high above the Nyon bowl (in Morzine) on a little off piste route that I know, just after a large dump of fresh snow……..
Had to put these few final things on to cap a great season for our personalised ski weekends. The video tells it’s own story!
Fab sunrise coming up over Lake Geneva – having just dropped off our Russian guests, our Russian guests (with the Tsar) who, well had a typically Russian few days – thankyou for the Beer, Wine, Genepi, Port, etc. & disposing of the remants of our Whisky, Gin, Pastis!! Yep, glad it was the end not the beginning of the season!
And, my new friend and top skier Jonathan Callow (well until he ski’d into me over concentrating on his GoPro – luckily no injuries!) and his son Seb also v good skier (good luck with your GCSE’s). Look at that snow in Chavannes, Les Gets for mid April.
Thanks again to all our guests – really hope you enjoy the blog.
Must have been the best March snow conditions for years!! Lots of snow after the early falls in March (even down to the lake, Geneva that is) and lots of butiful sunshine. The good thing was the temps never got into the high teens so Spring skiing conditions remained fab – no heavy afternoon slush this year!
We were joined for the second time this season by Alan & Dave (of the ‘Lawless Boys’ fame) and this time they brought their charming wives Sue & Pat. A lot of territory was covered and despite some early nerves ‘The Boys’ were able to ski all day with their Wives (apparently a first for a long time) – see we do look after our guests and cherish their needs!! The first day we were able to cruise perfectly pisted, different blues – all day (my memory was tested a bit) in the Morzine/ Les Gets area, in lovely sunshine, stop for a nice lunch at ‘La Cornette’ on the Nyon Plateau and meet up with our other guests for a drink or two at the end of the day.
Judy Scott Langley and her fellow medical professionals (most of whom were inexperienced skiers) were well looked after by Rita and Judy did manage to do that Black run in the end!! They were also well entertained by Dave and his fantastic poetry recitals after dinner, enjoyed England winning the Grand Slam (well those who didn’t adjourn to the bars of Morzine, where they had a lot of fun returning to some of the haunts first sampled on St. Patrick’s night) and one night we even got the vinyl out (for the first time this Winter) but think the medical girls had left by this point. A few glasses of Whisky were drunk that night so my memory is a bit hazy.
Finally, over Easter Belinda and her very plucky daughter Amy came to the chalet for the first time. Both extremely capable skiers but alas we never made it to Morgins cos Amy had a dreadful cold but she did keep skiing into the afternoon. Hence the plucky tag:))
We think everyone had a good time and we’d love to see you again. Here are the pics:
This is likely to be the last post of the season so thanks to all of our guests this Winter. As usual we’ve had a marvelous time looking after you – hosting, cooking, guiding, transferring, taxiing, etc. We hope you’ve all enjoyed your time with us and the Chalet Margaritka personalised ski experience and obviously we’d love to see you all again!!
All who came in March just had the most fabulous conditions and weather. After lots of snow even into the village in early March, spring sprang and all our guests enjoyed great skiing in butiful sunshine:))
Once more we had a good combination of guests who have become friends and new guests who settled wonderfully into the laid back comfort, ambience and views of the chalet. Andrew Gilchrist “I guess you take that view for granted now but it is just fantastic. I’d die to wakeup to that every morning”. Andrew and his friend Stewart just toured the whole of the PDS circuit on their boards and in the evening helped to entertain our regular guests The Brennans, Val, Cath & Alison.
Watching the England v Wales rugby match was more than a tad difficult with a chalet full of England rugby fans. On the bright side since the weather was so good we obviously had to do the tour to Morgins (twice – going different ways around) among other things. Here are the pics:
Many old friends visited us in early March and they were rewarded with some of the best snow conditions at that time of year for years. Cold air came in during early March and hung around for well over a week. This meant it was like the old days, snow at night and early morning with the sun then coming out to warm things up nicely. It did this consistently during the first week of March and beyond. A perfect recipe for great powder skiing and good times. Nicki, Tim, Helen and Mark plus Alison’s Angels all had a ball.
Now for the pics:
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2015 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 2,600 times in 2015. If it were a cable car, it would take about 43 trips to carry that many people.
Lots of new guests arrived during the holidays. The Poffly’s and Whitehead’s were all experienced skiers (having all stayed in Les Gets almost 20 years ago) and introduced the chalet to some serious gaming – ‘Linkee’ and ‘Name in the hat’ were played every night. The Tsar got well involved and enjoyed himself thoroughly. He got so confident that he could be found chairing the contest on some occasions! He did need a bit of advice from his experienced father the few times the decisions became almost too tough to call.
Our Friends The Boreham’s also came for their customary week. Jessica and Becky’s skiing is looking so good these days!! Although, Jessica did manage to lose her ski in the offpiste one day, forcing her father to ski down to a chair so he could go back up to rescue her. A good lunch was very much had that day:))) And, we were able to introduce the Borehams to the new gaming culture in the chalet – ‘Name in the hat’ especially was played on more than one evening.
The second weekend of the holidays saw Jo Burns, her son (Julian) and her friends the Jones’s arrive in the chalet for the first time. Conditions were good with the first serious sign of Spring happening on the Sunday, having been snowing heavily the previous day. Whilst we were in the Nyon Bowl we realised that the temperature had risen almost 15 degrees in less than 24 hours based on the visible gauge.
We really enjoyed showing all the guests around and The Tsar loved skiing with Jessica and Becky. I got to spend a lot of time with an absolute Cherub – Jessie Jones. Her skiing came on leaps and bounds over four days – having just been able to stand on her skis when we first started to following just a couple of metres behind me and matching me turn for turn. Fantastic – a great thrill!!
Finally, just when I thought it was safe to go back on the mountain with the hordes having just receded after the holidays. I spent a great day skiing with Jonathan Callow who I’d met in the World famous ‘Sherpa Bar’. He was busy trying to persuade the proprietor (Star Wars Martin) to go skiing with him, and knowing full well that was simply a non starter I volunteered to show him around Chatel via the two new lifts – ‘Gabelou & Portes du Soleil’. It really was a fab day despite the snow falling since we were able to confine ourselves to tree lined runs:)) Jonty was very fit and just loved to ski and ski – the previous day he had clocked up over 50 miles (Yes, miles not kilometres!). If I’d known I probably would have declined the venture – I did insist he had to buy me a longish lunch, of course!! None of this 50 miles malarkey for me, I’m getting on a bit these days (although we did manage about 30 miles).
Here are the pics:
Lots of fresh snow and the return of the Lawless Boys meant all were bound to have a great time. Then Ian Brennan, alias ‘The Chef’ arrived plus his smooth Bushmills Irish whisky and everyone just became friends in an instant – The ‘Lawless Boys’, new guests The ‘Keenans plus Alastair’ (who introduced us all to the wonders of Tinder – Google it pls) and ‘Chef’. We knew there was a good reason why we run a highly personalised, weekend ski lodge!
Of course, if the Chef is around a trip to the famous Café des Sports, Morgins is in order – think he was a bit shocked he had to do the PDS circuit on his first day though!! As were the ‘Lawless Boys’ when I lead them down some tricky off piste (windblown & sticky). The sensible ones went straight to the traditional Swiss Buvette below us via the piste. There, we met two girls who were completely lost! We assisted, of course but did wonder if they’d turn up in the Café des Sports a bit later, looking for some further help. They did not so we all hoped they were ok – and just enjoyed the food which was XL as always.
Alex ‘the Tsar’ was glad to have Ian B around – he’s his Wii bowling bitch and allowed him to recover some pride after shock defeats in January. We even managed a fantastic poem from Dave Carr on ‘living in France’. Only just though – most were eating their tea & cakes before departure. I’m sure we’ll sample some more when he’s back in March:)))
Here’s the customary pics:
Backs&Blacks@ChaletMargaritka 