It's pronounced TEEns, not TIGness.

After a quiet Christmas at home with good friends we packed up our cold weather gear and caught a pre-dawn ride to the airport. We were off for a 2 week holiday in the Alps. Our destination for the first week was Tignes, France. Seth had made all the arrangements. The idea for this trip came about after friends of ours in Phuket, Thailand told us they were going to be in Switzerland for a wedding of New Years and asked if we would be interested in meeting up with them their for some skiing. Seth took the reigns and began doing research on places to ski in the area. He has been looking into Telemark skiing for the past several months and was interested in finding a company that taught lessons in this style of skiing. He came across a British company that was holding a course in Tignes and things began to fall into place.

The journey began with a 5:00 am flight on Turkish Air to Istanbul, Turkey. From there we were to catch a connecting flight on to Geneva, Switzerland. Seth and I laughed our way through the flight to Istanbul. It was a pre-dawn flight where most people are only interested in slipping back into the dreams they were shaken out of hours earlier. The crew had other plans. Announcements were made at a volume that ensured the birds outside could hear them, the seat belt chime went on and off constantly and the cabin lights were either on full power or blackout mode with no time wasted on subtle transitions in illumination. When the plane landed in Turkey, instead of taxiing to our gate at a gentle coast our pilot hit the gas causing several of the impatient passengers who had already gotten up to reclaim their overhead baggage to go stumbling backward into one another.

Once in Geneva we made our way to the bus pick up to find our ride to Tignes. We walked up and down the line of buses asking if this was the bus to Tignes and were answered with confused shakes of the head and waves of the hand. A man behind us had over head one such exchange and informed us that what we thought was a town named TIG-ness was actually a very French village named TEENS. Oops. We found the bus, set out for a 4 hour ride up into the mountains on switch back roads with beautiful views.

Upon arrival we checked into our hotel (which turned out to be the original hotel in the town before it grew into the resort it is now) and received a call from the leader of the Telemark course. He took us to a rental shop in town, helped us get set up with our equipment and we followed him to a near by restaurant where the other participants were waiting. The other TWO participants. It turned out that only 3 people had signed up for Telemark lessons this week and I was the loan Alpine (downhill) skiing student. Of the 3 Telemarkers, Seth was the only true novice which meant that classes were divided up in such a way that he and I received private lessons all week (a major deal for the price we paid!)


The first 2 days were challenging as this was the first time Seth has had his feet on two independently moving planks in over 8 years and I am still a bit of a beginner and this IS the ALPS after all. Throughout the week Seth's skill level on skis quickly caught up with mine and, he will argue, eventually surpassed it. The one-on-one instructional time was invaluable for me and I became much more comfortable and confident in my ability to maintain control on (what was for me) challenging terrain. Skiing was starting to become FUN. Not to mention that ever time I got on a chair lift I spent the next 5-10 minutes looking around at the Alps and the spectacular views which included a direct line of sight to Mount Blanc.

The there was the food. I had never had French food before but I had heard people speak of it with mist in their eyes and a slightly gaping mouth glistening with saliva. They weren't wrong. I had French onion soup for the first time (only there they just call it onion soup.) and then for a 2nd and 3rd time. We had steaks with Roquefort cheese and breakfasts of chocolate croissant, rich coffee and yogurt with dried fruit and granola, soft boiled eggs and crusty French bread. I needed to become a much better skier so that this sport could actually become aerobic or else I was in for some marked weight gain.

We were fortunate to meet some fantastic people on this trip. Our instructors, John, Bonny & Graham, were fascinating people with incredible stories to tell. not only had they been teaching Telemark skiing for years but they had also lead multiple summits of mountains in the Himalayas. Graham is an Aussie who manages to earn his living teaching skiing around Europe and Australia all year long. We spent New Years Eve in Tignes with them all. It was a fun night but would have been more so if it wasn't for the Swiss Flu...