Ding! Autumns over. Brevent's still clinging onto the weekend's snowfall, her south-facing flanks resisting the warmth of the sun and making it look like winter up there. There's no snow in town anymore - all the white that's left is above midstation - but that's enough to make everyone in town very excited. The weather forecast says that temperatures will rise this week, which might do away with the snow that, especially over Brevent, but it's a great taste of things to come.
After popping back to the UK for a few days, I was happily telling my relatives about this early-season dump, and they all seemed to think that this was it - the ski season was underway. They were rather disappointed when I told them that the place wouldn't open for over two months, and it got me thinking...why not? Why not install better snowmaking facilities from Les Grands Montets to Lognan, on the shady side, so you can get the place open at the end of November or before? It would mean a good three more weeks of potential ticket sales for the mountain, of bookings for chalets and hotels, of transfers for the transfer companies and bums-on-seats for local restaurants. Unfortunately, the answer is probably one of demand; the mountain makes more money out of day trippers than season-pass-holders, both in terms of the pass and their spend-per-day, and Joe Skier doesn't think about heading up to the mountains until late December. So you're left with a collective of low-yield freeriders chomping at the bit to get up there, watching ski movies until our DVD players burn out while we're stuck in the valley. Maybe one day. It's nice to dream.
The influx of white stuff has also made me think about getting my lift pass. The MBU this year, which includes unlimited Aiguille, Grands Montets, Courmayeur and now apparently Verbier access, is going to cost me a stomach-churning 700€. To soften the blow, I'm planning to try to save half of it this month, half next. The season pass situation is a real Catch 22 of living up here. To make the most of the mountains, you need the pass...but you can't afford the pass unless you have a decent job. And if you have a decent job, well, generally you're working somewhere so you can't get out to the mountain as much. The compromise is clearly finding a job with a lengthy lunchbreak, understanding boss, excellent salary (or pass included), and plenty of days off which can be taken at short notice. And that job doesn't exist up here. I don't know...if it wasn't for my Mastercard, and various ski shops in town offering generous payment plans, I'd never be able to live up here.
Continuing the theme of frugality, after a short hop down to Geneva and back, I thought I'd share a discovery with you; the two tolls you pass (at Cluses and Geneva) are not simple péages, but orange highwaymen out to rob you blind. I'm talking about the coin bins, in which you throw your 3.50€ and 1.70€ respectively, in order to open the barrier and get your loved ones down to the airport. Four times I threw, four times the machine mockingly informed me (incorrectly) that I was 10c or 20c short. Cue much frustration and searching in the ashtray, under the seat and in the depths of my jacket pockets to find additional loot for the greedy kiosk. The solution, obviously, is to throw the cash in a coin at a time and let the coins drop through - no lies, no errors. Having spent the best part of five minutes in front of the barrier, I found out another vital fact - the coin machines give change. This means that if you've got slightly over the required amount in change, bung it all in (one by one...) and take your change under the flap, cunningly concealed down at the bottom-right. While you're there, scoop out the change from the last two hundred cars who didn't see the flap either.
Right - I'm off to find a second job to pay for my lift pass, and to plan fun stuff this week...I think I might take a mooch around Plan D'Aiguille to check out how much snow came down on that side, or even better, go climb the Aiguillette D'Argentière. Either way, life up here in the definitive year-round resort is still very much going on.
