Skiing in Crozet

Yesterday, Saturday we finally made it to Crozet, the ski station about 10 minutes down the road from us. When we first got our apartment here we thought, "Oh this is great we can get a season pass and go skiing all the time!" Obviously that didn't happen. I know, I know we thought we would have gone many times by now but the Jura Mountains don't get as much snow as we thought they would. At our house it snowed once - in November. In case you didn't know the Jura's are not like the Alps...they are more like the Appalachains. The highest peak in the Jura's is about 1,720 meters (5,643 feet) as compared to the highest peak in the Alps, Mont Blanc, about 4,808 meters (the highest peak in all of Europe I believe). So, you can see why the CERN skiing club has been driving to the Alps each week for skiing.
Here is the view when you reach the parking lot and you think...hmmm there doesn't seem to be any snow anywhere! As you ride up in the telecabine you start to see a little snow here and there. Thank goodness they make snow there or there would be nothing to ski on. Regardless, we enjoyed our half day at Crozet-that was another great thing we bought the half day ticket. We felt no obligation to spend the entire day there since home was just 10 minutes away. We didn't have to get up at the ass-crack of dawn, it was a quick drive, we were on the slopes by 9:30 am and it was pretty empty for the first couple of hours. It was great. OK, well the snow wasn't too great. But it was nice to have a nice relaxed morning.

First you take the telecabine up, then you jump on a ski lift - at least there was some snow at this point.

Smile pretty for the camera.Let's see. We couldn't find a map of all the pistes (slopes) so we decided to wing it. Not all the pistes were open so we just jumped on a lift and went wherever it took us. First thing in the morning there were very few people about so "following the crowd" our normal strategy didn't work. We just had to look for signs pointing out open pistes and what color (didn't colors for different levels just like in the States) and go for it. The snow sucked, but we had a good time. Most of the slopes were empty so we could take our time and practice without feeling like we were going to get run over. There were also some great views from the top. I can't wait to go back in the spring/summer and hike around the mountains. On a clear day it's got to be amazing. Hell, it was amazing yesterday. At times we could see the Alps and Mont Blanc, Lac Leman (lake Geneva) and the Jet d'eau (jet of water). It's not a great picture but here's one of DH skiing. He got some better pictures of me, although I had illusions of looking much cooler as a skier...the photos prove otherwise. But, at least I have fun.
I have a great little video of DH doing his little trick (he practiced it all day). I'm ashamed to say that I could not master this trick - a 360 degree turn while skiing down the hill.

I hope that the video works. It's just fun. I loved that the slopes were empty enough that we could do this without getting in anyones way. We would just wait for a group to go by and then we had the slopes all to ourselves.
Since the slopes were a bit icy and the man made snow is never as good as fresh snow we were glad that we had opted for the half day pass. By one o'clock we were ready to call it quits. And a good thing we did since we had to hit up the grocery store and it's closed on Sundays. We discovered that this is one major reason the ski resorts are busier on Sundays than Saturdays. So, a few more pictures for you and I'll be done.