Les Gets is a very small town in the east of France, near the border with Switzerland. It, and many neighbouring towns in both France and Switzerland, are extremely popular destinations for skiing in the winter and mountain biking in the summer.
I was there near the end of the winter season with my good friend Graham Scott, with whom I grew up in Leven. He had been skiing since he was young and often went with some friends, so he and his father invited me along on this occasion. We stayed in a chalet with five other people; two from Scotland and three from England.
I started off on the easy slopes, and Graham was very patient with me. He gave me a few pointers and within a few minutes I was heading down the pistes fairly confidently. Each night after dinner, we headed into the main street in town. There were only a few bars to choose from, we quickly picked a favourite and sometimes followed it up by going to the club nearby. Most nights we were with others from the chalet, Paul and Carol were a great laugh.
By the third day I was a lot better and more confident on the pistes. So much so that I went down a black run with Graham, one that had been cordoned off due to a landslide and there was barely any snow left on it. By the time we reached the bottom my arm was scratched and scraped from a rough fall, the damage wouldn’t have been as bad as it was if I hadn’t been skiing in a rugby top with the sleeves rolled up.
The following day we all got together with a ski guide, who took us on a day trip. We skied through some wonderful scenery, then over the Swiss border and had some lunch. Graham fell behind and was lost for a while, I was part of the ‘recovery mission’ but by the time we were at the top of the piste we got a call to tell us Graham had made it to the bottom on one ski, the other had a broken ankle strap and was the cause of him falling behind. He managed to fix it at the bottom while the rest of us had some hot chocolate and relaxed for a while.
On the last day there was a bit of a blizzard, but we decided to go out in it anyway. On the first run I fell forward and seriously hurt my knee. Which ended my skiing trip and put me out of rugby for 5 weeks. I still made it to the pub that night though.
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