Chatel

Yesterday Emilie and I went to Chatel, France, for a day of (downhill) skiing. Chatel is a little more than an hour from Lausanne by car and is part of the Portes du Soleil ski area, which spans both Switzerland and France.

I took the following photo shortly before we arrived. It's definitely been a great season in terms of snowfall -- much different from last year, when there was very little snow and unseasonably warm weather.

It snowed for much of the day, which resulted in plenty of fresh powder but also made the skiing very tiring. Fortunately, there wasn't much wind, so it never really got overly cold. Plus, the weather kept a lot of people off the slopes, so it was relatively empty.

We stopped for a late-afternoon lunch at a restaurant at the base of one of the runs. The owner, "Babeth", loved attention and seemed to be of the opinion that, in addition to a lunch, her customers were also looking for a performance.

She sang, danced -- often with reluctant patrons who were too nice to say "non, merci" despite being in ski boots -- and was a particularly big fan of disco music. But at least she seemed to be enjoying her job, albeit while likely embarassing her teenage daughter, who happened to be a waitress there.

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get a picture of the "entertainment". But I was able to track down the restaurant's website, which includes a large section devoted to Babeth herself (here's the link).

After lunch it was more or less a white-out as the snow started to come down much harder. We kept going for another couple of hours, but the conditions deteriorated pretty quickly and exhaustion also started to creep in.