Chapter 14

Emma’s brothers were also keen to enjoy more of the fresh snow. They had recently purchased some of the new twin tip skis, which allowed you to land jumps backward without the skis digging in and, as a result, had become all the rage within the pro-riding skiing fraternity. Twin tips were also the standard ski seen in the board-parks, which were frequently being overrun by skiers who could perform all the tricks that boarders could and who were developing a couple more. The flying mid-air crossover trick performed using skis was a classic that the boys were perfecting.

Emma was not aiming to be a pro-rider, unlike her brothers, but she won on style. She could easily keep up with all their moves and could perform a trick or two herself. She was an experienced off-piste skier and, whilst she always tried to hire a guide when after new routes, she was very familiar with all the off-piste areas within the Les Arcs and La Plagne area.

Equipped with a shovel, expandable ranger pole and transceiver, as were her brothers, the three of them decided to head off the back of the top glacier in La Plagne – the Glacier de Bellacote. This would provide them with an exhilarating afternoon, and as the weather was fine with relatively low avalanche risk, the route would still be safe enough in the afternoon, being early in the season, with cooler temperatures.

The three students stepped out of the warm air of the restaurant into the fresh alpine day. All of the lifts in Plagne Centre were whirring away. A large queue was waiting for the Grande Rochette gondola as the lunchtime period was coming to an end. The refuelled skiers and boarders were making plans for the afternoon, and there was some jostling by the local ski school groups, who were already as competent skiers as most of the tourists.

Emma and her brothers bypassed the Grande Rochette queue and quickly hit their ski boots with their poles to remove any excess snow. Once the boots were clean, they were standing into their skis, front binding first and then slamming their weight down on their rear ski booted heels producing a reassuring click from the binding, once secure.

Clicked in, they schussed down to the chair-lift that would take them from Plagne Centre to Bellecote. Sam, Emma’s youngest brother, did not schuss hard enough and as Emma and her brother waited to go onto the chair-lift, Sam had worked up quite a sweat by having to skate up the slight rise prior to the chair-lift queue. The lift operator appeared bemused and, in-between the chairs lifting off to float in mid-air, he was shovelling fresh snow across the ground of the chair-lift take-off point.

Nestled onto their chair, the lift machine allowed their piece of metal and seat cover to whoosh upwards with their feet dangling, momentarily, until Emma and her brothers wiggled their skis and robot-like boots onto the foot rests for the long chair ride up to the ridge overlooking Bellecote.