A little over a year since our last snowboarding trip, I (Warren) was keen to give it another go so I jumped on a plane with my cousin and two of her mates over to Geneva for a van ride into the French Alps, more specifically Argentiere. Argentiere is one of the villages in the Chamonix Valley, all connected by an excellent bus network, meaning plenty of different ski areas to try. If you're keen, you can find a good map of the area (including piste map) by clicking
here:
Sunday morning we went up the closest lifts to Argentiere, Grand Montets, about a 5 minute walk from our hostel. Little did we know that that was to be one of the only clear days, so I probably should've taken the camera, but I was a little worried that without boarding for a year, it might not survive my bails!
We were signed up to have daily lessons, so each morning we went our seperate ways (me to an intermediate snowboard group, the others to various expert ski groups) to do our thing. My group only had 3 members, and we were actually split up, so I got to have lots of one on one time with my instructor (who was very impressed with my knowledge of left and right in French, the only thing I remember from 4th form french classes!). Its amazing how quickly you improve when you have someone watching your every turn, so I managed to make some good strides during the week.
Everyone meeting their groups at 9am each morning outside our UCPA hostel:
After a few days skiing with our groups in Le Tour, we ditched our groups on Wednesday for a days skiing together at La Brevant and La Flegere. It was the best day weather wise all week, hence lots of photos from Wednesday!
From the very top of La Brevant, where we had our picnic. Our hostel provided all the goodies to make a sammie to eat up on the mountain - very handy given the prices on the slopes!
Looking back up the Valley from La Flegere.
Cuzzie Kristal who organised the trip overlooking a run through the trees at La Flegere.
This is probably the only photo I took that is even close to demonstrating the intense fog and cloud we had on a few of our days. The red sign is one of the piste markers at La Flegere - hard to spot, but you wouldn't want to miss it!
With the skiing over for the week, we had our big night out on Friday night. From about midday Friday it had been snowing pretty hard, and it continued right through the night. Note the icicles dripping off the Kronenbourg sign.
In fact, it snowed so hard on Friday night that we quickly threw our things in our bags and headed over to the chairlift at Grand Montets for one last run on Saturday morning. But after getting all suited up, there was too much snow to let us up the mountain! So it was simply back to Geneva airport and through a rediculous easyjet queue only for a 2 and a half hour delay to our flight back to London and the wife!
Another bus ride, this time quite long, right out to the southwest corner of the island for a glimpse at the Needles.
Sunday, after another set of pancakes for breakfast at our B&B we set off for walk from Shanklin to Sandown along the beach. The sun was out, but so was the wind, so we were wrapped up good and warm.
From Sandown, another bus ride, this time down to Ventnor to another nice beach. On the south coast it was slightly out of the wind so we had a bit of a nap in the sun.
Cuzzie Kristal who organised the trip overlooking a run through the trees at La Flegere.
About 6 hours later we made it to our little cottage in Blaenau Ffestiniog.
Thanks to a lack of central heating, our cottage was FREEZING, so we were up early Christmas morning to stoke the fire. We miss having a fireplace, so was nice and romantic snuggling up in front of it for a few days.
After an awesome Christmas breaky, we went for a little walk to see some of the countryside around Blaenau.
Boxing day ended up being a tour of the castles of northwest wales. First up Harlech Castle.
Caernafon:
View of the countryside from the Isle of Anglesey:
Beaumaris Castle:
...and finally Conwy Castle:
The 27th we decided to go for a bit of a wander. Braving the cold we found a nice circuit to do, up and over and through a valley to a nice little pub and around along a river back to the car. Well that was the plan anyway, turns out we cant follow directions very well and the path we were on seemed to disappear, so we had to turnaround and go back the way we came. Still, some spectacular scenery: 
