I went up to do a bit of practice in classic style on the flat les Sagnes trails. Conditions were not great but ok for practice. Still looking to reduce tail slap with good kick.

We probably should have ridden against the wind to start with as it was very hard getting home across the Steppes of the Gresivaudan.

I headed up to the Col de Marcieu for a bit of afternoon classic practice on the blue and green pistes. Basically going around with and without poles.

I realized I'd never descended the West Couloir of the Petit Som. I'd climbed it once and recalled it was a pretty steep afair. More than the 35 degrees mentioned in the guidebooks.

La Ruchère, located in the western Chartreuse mountains, boasts 35km of pistes. However there is a lot of double counting going on as I skied almost all of them in 17km.

This is becoming our regular winter ride but the singles are too wet at the moment until I service my front fork.

3 shadowing hours with Jean-Luc.First was a group less of adult beginners. As usual Jean-Luc (Papi rock n roll) is very good at animating the group with lots of stories from his sporting career.

I shouldn't have bothered really. When I arrived at the trail head it was raining quite hard and the piste was completely waterlogged but as I was on classic skis I thought it might not be too bad.

The link between le Sappey and St Hugues hasn't been prepared for 4 years. I'd lost faith they'd ever do it again but then a message from Chamechaude nordic, it would open this weekend.

From Pipay climb to the chalet de Pipay dessus then turn NE to climb to the ridge between the Soleil and Loup drags.