So, as you can see from the photos we basically had an AMAZING, powder-filled day at Orcieres, which is a really cool ski station in the Alps, about 2 hours from Marseille. It was just Yann & The Girls or we can say it was Heather & The 3 French People. Whatever you call it, it was so fun. We woke up super early, like 5 am, and picked everyone up. We arrived and there was NObody there, which is always a great thing on a mountain on Saturday morning. The sun was shining bright and we had our picnic packed in the backpack.
We had a great morning and I have to say; I`ve been lucky enough to snowboarded in some great places in the U.S. & France and I am not lying when I say that this day, these conditions were the best I`ve seen. It was so freakin`fun! We were all trying the powder, which was fresh and untouched from it dumping down snow for 4 days straight before we arrived. I always assumed powder was a breeze, but let me tell you, it`s not as easy as it looks. And when you fall, it`s super hard to get up and out of. Of course, Yann has mastered the powder thing by now, but for us girls, it was so hilarious to try it out. Malou and Cecile are really great snowboarders, and it ended up that we were all at about the same level, so we could all stick together on the slopes.
We took a break for our picnic at the top, and after we ducked into a restaurant for some hot chocolate. After lunch, we hit it hard for another hour or two and then the clouds came over the mountain. It was actually pretty crazy; I had never seen thick fog like that. As we were taking a lift up to the top and were getting higher and higher we could really see what a white-out it was. We completely couldn`t see the chair lift right in front of ours! So, by the time we got up to the top the conditions were totally wild. It was much colder and the visibility was no more than 8-10 feet. In the States, I think the ski patrol would have shut down the lift, but not in France! Every skier for themselves! Plus, no one in my group of all-French seemed freaked out, so I tried to be cool too.
Well, as we began to make out way down, there were no other skiers in sight. We had such a hard time seeing the trail markers with our goggles on, so we tried to take them off, but the pure white all around us made us even more blind. So, we basically just had to go slow and squint to see the markers. I realized at that moment how easy it would be to get separated from your group and become disorientated and lost. So, we made sure to stay very close to eachother. It was so bizarre because I literally was snowboarding blind; I became overwhelmed with nausea because the sensor in my brain that detects movement and orientation was totally confused. It was like I was really seasick, but finally we reached the bottom. And that was it for the day, because the conditions had deteriorated so much. It was such a fun day and I am so glad to spend a day on a mountain with dear friends and my husband; it was just on of those days where everything feels right, you know?
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