This space was left blank on the eve of the University of Manchester ski trip to les deux alpes in France. Returning yesterday and forming some sort of coma of recovery, I assume this would characterise the ideal opportunity for some blog reportage. Yet a description of the past 9 days is tricky in this space.. it would take a novel… in fact a novel would be insufficient, a whole trilogy of well constructed literature would be required just to scrape the surface, even just the surface of the bus journey to the alps alone. Though many of the memories will be lost in translation between the evenings and awakening of the following mornings, this trip is still fruitfully ripe with shenanigans, fresh powder, awesome skiing and general amazingness.
Where to start… the Armitage car park in Fallowfield, where it all began, provides a pretty good framework for the trip. Anticipation and excitement of that car park is a great treat and not easily epitomized or reconstructed. With the arrival of over three hundred Uni of Manchester students, equipped for the week ahead, but more importantly donning their fancy dress outfits relevant to their assigned coach number, accompanied by copious amount of beverage entertainment, it was obvious it was going to be another epic ski trip. Our coach was coach 10 and had attached the theme of sexy fairies. Maybe a bit unfortunate compared to some but not all of the other fancy dress themes, it had to be done, and I can assure, they were attached to our bodies for the whole duration of the journey to the alps.
The week itself did not quash expectation; it followed very much the word and the build up that was envisaged, and if possible it superseded them….. a fine blend of après and on the slope skiing! Opting to do a lot more skiing than the social pirates amongst the trip, by own standards the hours spent on the slope was less than normal, (maybe due to our living quarters positioning and the additional weather). From the week one big run with Mitch, just after the sun came out revealing the new layers of powder, in which we surfed left across the vast plane of fresh snow, down through the untouched trees, before emerging back out and hooning flat out across open virgin snow again, stuck well in the mind. The days skiing in morph suits with Ben in his full body monkey outfit, and the day in the retro one piece ski suit also provided a nice spin to the days on the mountain and will be remembered. With a presence of three hundred students, the mandatory après was too, monumental, often starting in la Plano at the top of the mountain. Pano, who began pumping out huge techno tunes that could be heard all over the hill from three in the afternoon, would often result in a light afternoon rave before hitting the slopes again for an hour so. If your stamina was that of an upstream salmon, you were a real lad, pockets were hefty then yeti bar was next, and then depending on the night, either Aladdin, pirates, all purple, holiday t-shirts or the one night we were aloud to express ourselves through our own clothing would be exhibited and enjoyed.
Apart from a few injuries amongst the group, including a certain guy falling off a cliff in the search of powder, an incredible week was represented. Serious amounts of banter were packed for this trip and with it an extremely humorous week.What I would give to be back in that car park on that dull Mancunian Friday afternoon… only another 9 months until next season and the next trip.
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