The Easter Ski Tour of 2008 was yet again to Les Menuires and we were rewarded with truly memorable snow conditions this time around.  Unusually for this time of year, temperatures also remained quite low for most of the week so all runs remained in excellent condition.  Thanks to two days of snowy weather during the week, there was a good top-up of nice new snow to make the other four blue sky days absolutely glorious.

Les Menuires is a resort that gets better every time we go and there was no doubt that everyone was able to cover far more distance in the week than ever before (several staff had GPS watches and found that they had skied over 90km with their groups on some days).  Despite our familiarity, it always seems to take a day or two to find all that has changed since the last time.  Two new high speed lifts to the Roc des Trois Marches sector made it much quicker for everyone to move around the whole area and several associated new blue and green runs from high altitude back to resort helped to quickly build up the confidence of our less experienced skiers.  It was particularly noticeable that these groups were able to visit Meribel and Val Thorens much earlier in the week than on previous tours. In fact, even the ESF instructors routinely used visits to these resorts for their lessons and almost all groups managed a visit to the top of the Cime de Caron (the high point of Val Thorens) and back within their lesson time (which would not have been possible in previous years).  Also new this year was a fantastic skicross course dropping over 1200 feet that was challenging enough for the experts whilst being easy enough for the less experienced – this must be one of the best in France.  Much fun was had by all on the humps, bumps and banked turns!

The Hotel Piolet continues to be an excellent base for our large party (121 pupils and staff this year) and the hotel manager commented that we had done far more skiing than any other party this season.  In fact, with almost everyone seemingly desperate to ski for at least 6 full hours each day, it would have been difficult to cram any more in – missing the generally excellent pupil-friendly lunch would certainly not have been popular!

For the first time in 9 years, our party included pupils from Junior 1 through to Form 6 and, despite the huge age range, it was surprising how well everyone got on together both on and off the slopes.  The final night Disco in the resort’s night club was particularly successful this time and it was really great to see pupils of all years and the staff up on the dance floor and having such a good time to end a wonderful week.

We have already requested that the Hotel Piolet be reserved for us in 2010.  What surprises will Les Menuires have for us then – you’ll need to be there to find out! Bookings for the tour will probably open in September 2008.