Comprehensive update!

Right then been a bit lame on the blog front recently with the exception of the La Grave update… which had to be done! So in an effort to capture everything here is a bit of a summary:

• After the Sommet de Quarlie on 2nd Jan we hit La Grave for a day on the 3rd skiing the itineraires – Chancel and Vallon. A great powder day and it was there that we met Marcus the crazy finnish dude who that day took us down the Banana Couloir.
• 8th Jan  travelled an hour and a bit down the road to just south of Briancon to a place called Ceillac. Climbed ‘Holiday on Ice – Right Hand’ with my new buddy Morgan from Oz..
• 10th Jan was the mega day in LG skiing Girose and Orciere.
• On the 13th headed for a ski tour starting just a kilometre east of the Col du Lauteret (at 1988m) and heading up the Pic Blanc du Galibier (2955m). We started at 945 and were at the summit by 1230 so that’s under 3 hours for approximately 1000m of ascent – good to see the fitness is coming back! It was a lovely ski descent as well on nice snow all the way back to the van.

But it’s been the last few days that have been the absolute highlight… floss invited me to head out race training with her and some instructor friends as they all have their ‘Eurotest’ in a few weeks time – a timed Giant Slalom run that they must do within a pre-determined (and not too shabby) time in order to get their full license to work in france. Anyway as if that wasn’t enough of an honour we were also training with a girl called Isabelle who is an exceptional racer… I’m told she has 23 fis points which = very good (if you are in the World Cup you have none and the highest number of is points you can have is around 200). To top it all off her father then arrived to train us and it turns out he is one of the best trainers in the area… he has his own office in which we have been watching videos of ourselves and according to one of the many articles about him on the wall his name is ‘Il Guru’! How awesome is that… not only am I know a wanna be ski racer (I hired GS skis and everything) but I am also being trained by a genuine guru – I’ve never even met a guru before!

Gorka in the Banana couloir

floss coming down Le Banane…

Just posin’ in LG

Holiday on Ice – Morgan leading the 3rd pitch

Holiday on Ice – hold on tight

Holiday on Ice – attentive belayer

Pic Blanc du Galibier – view back down valley

Pic Blanc du Galibier – Markku (anyone else think he looks like Dave Rickaby!?)

Pic Blanc du Galibier – at the col just before the summit (Barre des Ecrins right of my head)

Pic Blanc du Galibier – another party heading from the col to the summit

Pic Blanc du Galibier – me just arriving at the top

Pic Blanc du Galibier – Morgan on the summit with Mont Blanc in the background

Pic Blanc du Galibier – Markku descending

Race training – how to start

Race training – I think that’s called a schuss

Race training – clearing the course

Race training (Il Guru on the left)

Learning to service the planks…

Taking it seriously of course!

My first car was one of these but there’s no way it would have made it up an Alp in winter – check out the flames!

So all in all life is very good! Just feel like I’m running out of time to do everything… not sure whether to ski piste; freeride; race or tour… maybe do a little ice climbing or get down to the bouldering wall for some indoor training (I am joining the local climbing club!) But tomorrow the plan is for a tour with my finnish friend Markku with a bit of mountaineering to a summit then maybe ski La Grave on Tuesday. Hopefully I might be race training again on Thursday and friday – got some serious work to do on my technique to get me out of the old skool and into the new… but with floss and the guru on my side it’s coming on well!