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How a ski sundae put the skidsunder me

That first ski sundae went down like a greased slalom rider, so I ordered another.

Crème de Menthe frappe-d and with a forest of fruit poking around a plastic ski. Well, not everything has tohave a sense of dignity – particularly in a resort where you know you’ll spend most of your time plunging

down a mountainside, arse over tit, full tilt at a medical ward.

Having said that, Chamonix is a place of very great dignity sitting as it does under the glacial stare of Mont

Blanc.

It was me who didn’t have any dignity.

Oh, I’d got all the gear – my quilted jacket made me look as if I should be wrapped around a hot water 

tank and my boots made me move with the elegance of Frankenstein.

But, apart from my apparel I felt quite confident. I knew what I was going to do … and that definitely

wasn’t ski.

I’d been at this, one of the most famous climbing, sk-ing and snowboarding resorts, for less than five hours

and already I’d seen two people tumble down the mountainside like mutating marshmallows. And both of 

them had been carted off to a place of safety i.e. hospital.

And in three days I was about to embark on a once-in-a-lifetime three-month trip to America. And there

was no way that I was going to do that with my neck in a sling.

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So, yep, I’d wear my jacket that made me look like a gay Michelin man and I’d stomp around in my boots

– but the most dangerous thing I was going to do was stand and stare and get drunk.

But what a place to stare at. It is one of the rarest places in the world.

Chamonix has seven miles of blue glacier tracks through the peaks of Grands Montets, Aiguille du Dru

and Dent du Gean. Ski-ing here is like travelling at 90mph without a car.

A gentle snow was beginning to fall, resting like frost in the window frame of the bar at Albert’s. The log

fire glowed against my back.

Ski bums like multi-coloured ants climbed Montets dutifully to the station above Argentiere before

embarking on a mad tumble down the paths and crevasses.

I could tell by the looks on the faces of those who survived that they thought it was heavenly.

And it is heavenly … to look at. It’s as if an ocean has been captured by a freeze frame button. Gigantic

waves of ice cascade into stillness about two thirds of the way down the mountainside.

Mont Blanc’s highest peak is a 15,771-foot snow dome, closely surrounded by jagged peaks of 

the Aiguilles.

. Cable cars criss-cross the mountain,

The famous Vallee Blanche runcan be reached by taking the cable car to the top of the Aiguille du Midi, a

20 minute ride. But it’s all down hill from there.

There is still, though, a hint of the past tragedy in the region. If you want to get across to the Italian side of 

Mont. blanc to, for instance, the resort of Courmayeur, it now takes a three hour trip over the Grand St

Bernard pass. It used to be 20 minutes through the Mont Blanc tunnel but it is still closed all this time after 

the fatal fire.