Wow.

Wow wow wow wow wow.

I love the Alps. And I have decided that although I love Colorado and the Rocky Mountains, they ain't got nothin' on the Alps. Really.

We loaded up on the buses Friday night for the (long) drive to Les 2 Alpes in France. I started the trip only knowing one other person going, Adam (a fellow BCA student from Ohio), but we made some new friends even before we got on the bus. We got to know a group of eight guys who are all architecture students at the Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona (UAB), and we had 10 hours on the bus to get to know eachother better.

On the bus we watched a movie called Whiteout, which wasn't very good but had a lot of snow in it, so I think it got everyone excited about getting away from coastal Barcelona and up to the snowy Alps of France.

We rolled into Les 2 Alpes at about 10am on Saturday mornning. It was snowing pretty hard already and didn't really let up all day. There was already about a foot of powder when we hit the slopes around noon, and my best guess is that we ended up with 24-26 inches of powder by the end of Saturday. It was a little windy, though, so the whole day we were skiing in near whiteout conditions making it very hard to see where we were going or enjoy whatever views we might have been able to see otherwise.

The mountain had over 6,000 feet of vertical change between the village and the top of the ski area, so there was more than enough real estate to explore.

Saturday night we had pizza and burgers with our new friends at the bar right by our apartment and watched FC Barcelona beat Valencia in an important soccer game, then went ourside to do some sledding right by our building.

Sunday morning we woke up fairly early and were on the slopes at about 10am. I led the group through some amazing powder runs, and we had a complete blast. The conditions were pristine...we were able to cut new tracks through a lot of deep powder and the sun was out and it was absolultely gorgeous. Unfortunately, I had a little mishap on a backcountry run where I was trying to cut through a chute between some rocks, caught my ski and twisted my left knee as I fell. It hurt quite a bit for the rest of the weekend, but I tried my best not to let it get in the way of enjoying my first experience in the Alps.

Sunday night we had dinner in the apartment, did a little more sledding, then tried to get some sleep before the third day of skiing.

Monday we couldn't get in a full day of skiing because we had room inspections then had to load up on the bus by 4pm, but I got in 4 runs in the morning, so it wasn't too bad. Then we loaded up for the long drive home and said goodbye to the Alps. We got back to a cool rain in Barcelona, a long long ways from snow once again.

Here are the pics!

French Alps Dec. 6-8