Another sunny morning saw us up at La Croix Fry (1477 metres) by 10.30. There were insufficient pistes open to warrant a charge - we should have bought our passes by the day rather than for three days. Never mind.
The route through trees to the Beauregard Plateau was skiable but icy. It sported good views to l'Aiguille Vert (2322 metres) with Mont Blanc in the distance behind (pictured). Once on the plateau, the green Crulets piste was a delight, including the sound of woodpeckers in the trees.
The longest of the four open pistes was the Lachat, an 8 km circuit. Icy in places but generally good fun. It usually links with other plateau pistes, but today we had to take our skis off and walk to Les Matins Clairs refuge for our morning coffees. There was just one other skier there, and a few walkers and snowshoers. There were very few skiers on the trails, and just a smattering of downhill aficionados on the easy slopes that criss crossed our 'Nordic' pistes.
There is so little snow that we pondered the benefit of snowshoes just now.
After a 'sunglasses and gloves' incident - I left sunglasses at the refuge, they had put them on one side, together with some gloves that I took to be Sue's despite their smart appearance. On return to Sue she denied owning them then embarked on a long dialogue with some French people heading for the refuge who eventually understood that their task was to reunite the smart gloves with their owner.
We then paused for lunch on the steps of a closed chalet that was well out of the cool westerly breeze - teeth jarring butties on which Sue seemed intent on me repeating last year's broken tooth incident.
Then we continued along Lachat, diverting to enjoy the other open pistes, Colomban and Nant.
By the time we had skied back along the access piste to La Croix Fry, we'd covered a satisfactory 17 km; the sky was clouding over and Mont Blanc had disappeared.
There followed a long period of supping tea and biscuits and contented relaxation back at the apartment.
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