Fantastic trip, brilliant skiing - can’t wait for next time!

I was lucky enough to be able to go on this year’s school ski trip to Les Deux Alpes ski resort in the French Alps. I learnt to ski at the Chill Factore two years ago and was really looking forward to the opportunity of a week’s skiing in France. I couldn’t wait to get on the slopes and the time seemed to drag.

Eventually the day of the trip came and we set off from school on Friday afternoon. After a long journey by coach, we finally arrived at Dover to catch the ferry to Calais. It was the week of the bad storms: the winds were high and the crossing was extremely rough! Everyone found it difficult to stand or walk without staggering or falling over. Luckily it was only a short ferry crossing to Calais.

We then had a very long journey down to the French Alps. We arrived at the resort on Saturday afternoon and checked into our hotel. It took a while to sort out the rooms, but we eventually got our keys, and I was sharing a room with Zach and Tom.

Later, we went out to explore what the town had to offer. The hotel was perfectly positioned for access to the ski lifts and slopes. It had a games room with a pool table, table football and a Nintendo Wii. The village centre was within easy walking distance and had lots of restaurants and a variety of shops.

I called home to let them know that we had arrived safely, and I was looking forward to my first meal at the hotel. The food was good and didn’t disappoint. After tea, we had to go to get our skis and boots fitted and collect our ski poles. Later that evening we had some social time in the hotel and played some pool.

The next day, we had an early start with an 8am breakfast and a short walk across to the slopes for a 10am meet. We were allocated to our ski groups. There were three groups: beginners, intermediates and advanced, and we were allocated based on our experience. We had 3 instructors for the week: Stefan, Euan and Fabien. There were about 10 of us in my group, and our ski instructor was Stefan. We spent two hours with Stefan skiing on the green and blue slopes and most of us were beginning to learn how to parallel ski. After the morning session, we went for lunch back at the hotel and returned to the slopes for another two hours skiing. After tea, we had a quiz in the hotel and some social time.

The evening entertainment was okay during the week, we had chance to go bowling, play killer pool matches and had a disco in the town.

On Wednesday, we had a chance to ski on a race track called the border cross. We raced in groups of four down the tricky slopes with lots of jumps all the way to the bottom. It was really fast and great fun.

By the end of the week our group had progressed to some red and black runs, which were more challenging, and we could all manage to parallel ski.

On Thursday, the weather was extremely bad, and we only got up one of the ski lifts. The wind was too strong (about 70mph), and the visibility was very poor, so they closed all the lifts. That day we had to ski on the lower slopes all day.

On Thursday night, after packing, we had a presentation night. We were awarded a ski level and badge depending on our ski skills development during the week. I gained a level 2 award.

Friday was our last day in the resort, and thankfully the weather had improved. The week had flown by! We got the cable car up to the glacier near the top of the mountain, and we then took a train to the very top, a height of 2400 metres. We skied all the way down the mountain. This was our last opportunity to ski on this trip, and it was absolutely fabulous. The views were fantastic, and I didn’t want to leave. I had had a great time and the week had gone by so fast!

We loaded the coach later and set off on the long journey back to Wardle. We were woken at 2.30am after we arrived at the ferry, but the port was closed due to more bad storms. We ended up having to go to the Channel tunnel, and the coach joined the train for a much quicker journey ‘under’ the channel. We eventually arrived back at Wardle earlier than expected on Saturday morning.

It was an absolutely fantastic trip with some brilliant skiing. I can’t wait for next time!

Joe Whatmough
Y10, Wardle Academy