Serre Chevalier - a.k.a. Honey, I broke the kids.

The start of the "mid-winter" school break was this last Saturday, and we headed our to our 5 day ski adventure in the French Alps, at Serre Chevalier.

In a word, Serre Chevalier is BIG.  You can go up two lifts and be at 2550m (base of 1350m) and ski down to the village you started from, or one of 3 others.  Repeat until satisfied, or take the inter-village shuttle back to your hotel.  The resort claims 250km of ski runs, and I believe them. http://www.serre-chevalier.com/hiver/ski/
Now if you think we were the only people to think that spending part of the school break in the mountains was a good idea, you'd be wrong.  There was a huge traffic jam at the end of the toll road, which took about 1 hr to clear the 100m from the tool booth to the round-about.

OHHHHH, are we on our way?  Ohhhh, we are going way way way way up there, and we have to SKI down???

 Chilln' mid mountain 2000' behind you, and 2000' feet to go.

 ARE WE HAVING FUN YET?????

 So I ask Sarah, with the map in hand, where do we go from here, she looks at me and without missing a beat says, "Down, Dad."

 Hungry work that skiing.  So we introduce the girls to Raclette.  If you've ever been to a cardiologist Raclette is not for you.  If you would like to see one in the future, this is your dish!!!.  Best idea ever, take a huge chunk of cheese (like 1/2 a round), and put it on a holder, and then put a red-hot element next to it so that it melts, scrape the cheese off, and put it on something healthy,...ahh here we go, salami, speck, other cured meats, oh, and OK here is a potato to suck up the left over fat, wouldn't want to waste it!!!

On our last day, we got Christine to come up to the hotel/restaurant about 1000' up the mountain for lunch.  We didn't get her skiiing, but at least we go her up in the vertical environment where the views are cool.

The skiing was great, the village that we choose to stay at, just up the road from Briancon, Chantemerle  had a black run from the tippy top of the mountain all the way to the base, that's 4000' for those paying attention.  Here is what our guide book says about ski run ratings systems in France:
Green - Beginner
Blue - Intermediate
Red - Advanced
Black - Hard as Hell.
No only did the hill have a black run from tippy top to the bottom, it also had a green run.  So for the first day we gave that a try, from the 1000' mark to the bottom was 25 minutes, nice!  From the 4000' mark to the bottom was just over an hour.  WOW.  Rachel still skis in contact with her dad, so that means dad got to hold the snow plow position for just over 1hr ...OUCH.

Sarah and I tried out the blue and red runs also and they were great, so on day 3 we made sure we were skiing black runs, in fact Sarah skied the Luc Alphand Olympic run from top to bottom, about a 1000' vertical drop.  So much fun we did it twice!

In the late afternoon, after the lifts closed, we played a game of spot the wipe-out as skiers of all inabilities made their way off the mountain, and of course if you are tired, but saved the black Luc Alphand run to last because it scared you all day, now is the time...Last run of the day...
We called our game, spot the bugs, because all the skiers looked like bugs from our hotel balcony, where we were drinking wine, eating fresh baked baguette, and lovely French cheese.

Thanks Serre Chevalier for a great ski trip, and none of us used your ski patrol, or their fancy stretchers with inflatable leg casts.