Let me share with you just how good it can get in Paradise.
Monday morning, just four guests in, breakfasted, booted, suited and deposited at their lift.
God's in his Heaven, all's well at Chalet Plein Air; an overnight snowfall and now wall-to-wall sunshine has put a smile on everyone's face. For the chalet host?
A morning in the office, until the phone rings… Pete and Dee, ex-pat friends from wine Country (see part 25) are in town and do we fancy a ski?
Away, dull toil, everything's packed up in a trice and 11.30 sees us spinning up to Vernant.
Even a casualty buried in a drift above Les Molliets does little to impede us, two mins and she's tugged out, a million thanks and we vanish up the hill.
Two lifts later we encounter guests at the top of Grand Vans chair but no time to chat and a cheek-sucking descent sees us at the DMC (cable-car) in Flaine bang on time for our scheduled rendez-vous at high-noon.
Our destination? Fabled Lac Gers, a mountain refuge lauded heretofore in these pages, nestled on the edge of a lake halfway down the Cascades run, open today for the first time this season.
The piste is fantastic, far from the madding crowd (especially boarders who hate the flat sections) and far indeed from any intrusion of civilization, just the odd mountain barn to swoop past.
Then a five minute wait for the moto-neige, and we're careering up to the refuge on four tow-ropes to take our seats at the lakeside.
The sun pops over the ridge at the head of the valley as we sip aperetifs and plump for menu du jour; mountain salad (croutons and lardons) bavette steak, gratinee dauphinoise, a bone-dry chautagne rose and a fantastic nut-gateau with pouring caramel to finish.
Ninety minutes later we sip our espressos as the westering sun slips back behind the ridge and the temperature plummets.
The bottom hairpins of the Cascades piste are narrow and icy but we skitter down somehow and catch the packed bus back to Samoens, then up the new Samoens Express gondola and the newer high-speed chair to Tete des Saix, where the Boss peels off to pick up the van at Vernant while I schuss the ridges to the top of the Les Carroz telecabine for a 4pm meet with guest Scots Bethan and Neil and Manxies Dawn and Mike.
A quick vin chaud on the terrace is tossed down when the pisteurs warn us off as they close the mountain - last off the hill, we race down to Leather-pants (don't ask) for a chocolate-cointreau, then all rosy-cheeked tumble down the off-piste back to the chalet.
It's just a job; someone has to do it . . .
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