Geoff writes: after looking at the forecast again this morning, we decided to go skiing, but this time to Vall de Nuria. Because we have a season ticket for Masella, we also get free day passes for some other resorts, and Nuria is one of them. We’ve never bothered going before because it’s a bit of a Legoland type of resort – a ski resort in miniature, with only about 7km of piste (yes, seven kilometres). But it is in a spectacular location, so we thought we would go. The other thing is, you can’t drive there. You have to get the Cremallera. This literally means zip, but actually is a rack and pinion railway. This is the only access to the valley, and is a 13km trip, which costs a small fortune, but the ticket was included in our free pass, and it’s a nice ride up the valley.

Unfortunately, when we got to Ribes, and went to get the ticket, the guy said the runs weren’t open because of 78km/h winds – something which wasn’t really forecast.

So we decided to use a different free pass, and went to La Molina. This is just before Masella, much prettier, better views, but usually less snow (not that that should be an issue at the moment), and they are pretty bad at grooming the pistes – which is more of an issue.

We took the telecabina almost to the top, skied down a little, and took a button lift a bit higher, checking first that that run was open. It was, and was amazingly well groomed, and we thought everything was fine. Then the grooming abruptly stopped, and the red run became more of a scree slope than a ski slope. Incredibly difficult to ski down, and with a lot of stones – and rocks – just beneath the snow. Everybody was having a problem getting down (not that there were that many people up there). We were doing fine, almost at the bottom of the rocks, when I hit something, heard that awful crunching sound of stone on ski, and, for the first time for ages, fell. When I finally recovered my skis, there were some big gouges in them. Amazingly, though, it didn’t seem to make any difference and they still behaved properly – maybe because the gouges were in the centre, rather than at the two ends. (Or maybe I’m just so bad at skiing I can’t tell the difference).

The rest of the day went really well. We avoided the slopes with thin snow (thin because it was windblown away) and generally had a nice time in the sun. Judith’s skis are faster than mine, and I did wonder if the damage I’d done was slowing them down, so we tried a slide angle contest – stopping at the top of a small slope, pushing off, seeing who went the fastest. She did …. but what’s new?

At the end of the day, we skied back to the bottom, and I managed to fall again. This time, we’d stopped, I’d taken my skis off and was about to set off walking back to the van when I promptly tripped over them. I wasn’t even going downhill. Pathetic (and embarassing, in front of loads of people sitting outside the cafe).

We had the usual beer and sandwiches, then on the way back, dropped off the skis at Marc’s ski shop in Ribes, so he could fix them for next time.

So apart from trashing my skis, a great day out. And it never was particularly windy (and it was flyable back here, apparently, too).

See photos of today.

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