TUESDAY JANUARY 22nd 2008
Gloomy morning strong winds
PRECIPITATIONS : continuous in the morning - showers later, becoming scattered - rain-snow limit towards 1400 m dropping towards 800 m - expected snowfall: 20-30 cm.
With this forecast, the options are limited to a) Staying in bed b) Shopping c) skiing in a white out or d) site seeing on skis
The c) journey "visite guidée" on skis started by jumping into the Mont-Blanc Express train. I quickly sneeked in a nearby hotel asking for Carte d'hôtes which would give us a free ride for the French side. I introduced myself as a mountain guide and as the weather was very poor, I didn't want to drive and wanted to take the train instead. Just a white snowy lie, as I didn't tell them the clients were actually not staying at their hotel.
We made our way to Les Marécottes, a very authentic family ski resort in Switzerland. We skinned up the summer path venturing into the white wilderness. 700 m of ascent which got us at the bottom of a chairlift. Took rapidly our skins off and jumped on... Yahoo! We were scamming our way up to get to the restaurant. We couldn't believe it: we were the only ones on the lift and the pistes were totally deserted. We had the entire resort to ourselves.
We raced back down the sledging piste. What a great safe tour on a foul weather day!
Had a bit a spare time before catching our train and went to do some repérage, checking the Zoo out! 
Not joking, I'm going there next summer, it has a heated outdoor swimming pool built into the rock.
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