{"id":4166,"date":"2018-11-19T09:57:04","date_gmt":"2018-11-19T09:57:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.psyctc.org\/pelerinage2016\/?p=4166"},"modified":"2018-11-19T09:57:04","modified_gmt":"2018-11-19T09:57:04","slug":"someone-switched-the-snow-blowers-on","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.psyctc.org\/pelerinage2016\/someone-switched-the-snow-blowers-on\/","title":{"rendered":"Someone switched the snow blowers on!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>So I&#8217;m all snooty about not watching daytime TV but I make &#8220;daytime videos&#8221; and the biggest excitement in my life over the last three or four days is that someone has switched on many of the snow blowers around me.\u00a0 Now this is where this could get very boring if you haven&#8217;t been infected with the bug of skiing.\u00a0 If you haven&#8217;t you may even be thinking &#8220;Does he mean snow ploughs?\u00a0 But surely he wouldn&#8217;t say &#8216;switched on&#8217; if he did.\u00a0 Hm, do they use snow blowers like leaf blowers?&#8221;\u00a0 No, I mean things that blast a fine spray of water into the air which, as long as the air is below freezing point and the spray fine enough, will freeze in the air and fall on the ground as artificial snow.\u00a0 Here you are:<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"P1090784 snow blowers 18.xi.18\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/301508525?dnt=1&amp;app_id=122963\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"autoplay; fullscreen; picture-in-picture; clipboard-write\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>So that&#8217;s the little green slope to the south of Aime 2000 seen from the terrace outside our apartment here.\u00a0 The sun was beaming strongly when I went out to investigate the blowers yesterday but I suspect the air temperature was below zero and being out there in tee shirt wasn&#8217;t viable for long once I decide to record these things, a fleece and warm shoes were needed.<\/p>\n<p>That slope is where we step out from the <em>cave des skis <\/em>in season, clamp on the planks and put hands in the ski pole loops and head off in season.\u00a0 As you can see it drops away gently to the left and then the whole of the La Plagne domaine opens up for you. As you can see, a fair bit of snow is needed if people are to do that on 15.xii.18 when the season officially opens.\u00a0 I&#8217;m impressed by how much snow the blowers have produced though I think that&#8217;s in at least two days of continuous running, day and night.\u00a0 You can see the three puffs this snow centre left on the big competition pisted dropping down into Plagne Centre. I think those are bigger blowers than these but I could be misremembering.<\/p>\n<p>This, in the video above, is where the cows were not that long ago, 10th of September actually.\u00a0 Here&#8217;s the handheld &#8216;phone video I shot of them then.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"20180910 transhumance cows\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/301561378?dnt=1&amp;app_id=122963\" width=\"660\" height=\"371\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"autoplay; fullscreen; picture-in-picture; clipboard-write\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Coming back to yesterday, here&#8217;s what zooming in gave me on the blower on the right there.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"P1090788: detail of snow blower\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/301507342?dnt=1&amp;app_id=122963\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"autoplay; fullscreen; picture-in-picture; clipboard-write\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Sort of soporific to watch for 13 seconds?!\u00a0 Interesting to see how high above the current ground level the crash padding is now.\u00a0 I don&#8217;t think they rest on the snow in the season, there&#8217;s generally a bit of a scalloped out hollow around the bottom of the blowers, but I suspect that a good half metre of snow is needed there.\u00a0 That blower is blowing onto the area at the end of the little button &#8220;lift&#8221; that gets people back up that slope and on the turning off &#8220;Sue&#8217;s run&#8221; (our name, you may have guessed) above and to the right, so it&#8217;s covering an area that gets a lot of use through the season.\u00a0 Here are some more short videos of snow blowers in the sun in case, as for me, they&#8217;ll do it for you as daytime TV (or anytime TV, vimeo and my blog aren&#8217;t fussy about circadian rhythms!)<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"P1090778 snow blower and the foot of &quot;Sue&#039;s run&quot;\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/301509535?dnt=1&amp;app_id=122963\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"autoplay; fullscreen; picture-in-picture; clipboard-write\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Sue was, is, a friend who came skiing with us and her children some, hm, many, years ago now. I don&#8217;t know how or why that slope got to be &#8220;Sue&#8217;s run&#8221; really. I must consult with the experts in the family with good memories. It&#8217;s almost the only skiing return route into Aime 2000 and a bit steep if you&#8217;re a complete novice so you can come back along that track on the left.<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s the whole of Sue&#8217;s run:<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"P1090785 Sue&#039;s run 18.ix.18\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/301508145?dnt=1&amp;app_id=122963\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"autoplay; fullscreen; picture-in-picture; clipboard-write\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Snow blowers going at the bottom and at least three more up on the skyline at the top.\u00a0 However, not on the run itself as it&#8217;s north facing and holding the natural snow it&#8217;s already acquired. It&#8217;ll need a lot more before it&#8217;s skiable though.\u00a0 Here&#8217;s zooming in onto that skyline.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"P1090780 Skyline above Sue&#039;s run\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/301509078?dnt=1&amp;app_id=122963\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"autoplay; fullscreen; picture-in-picture; clipboard-write\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>I love the way that was all caught in the low but intense sun. Less than a day later as I type and snow is falling steadily all around and we&#8217;re heading into white out.\u00a0 Off behind the ridge at the top on the right there&#8217;s a black run (i.e. the steepest and most challenging of the official &#8220;on piste&#8221; runs.\u00a0 &#8220;Les coqs&#8221;, how could I have forgotten.\u00a0 I did it with tnp on his snowboard at the end of last season, me on my short skis much more suited to its moguls (mounds of snow up to probably 1.5m high on Les coqs and decidedly challenging, I remember doing a lot of very unambitious side slipping!)\u00a0 tnp of course, just shot away out of sight making it look like a walk in the park, to choose a tired old clich\u00e9.<\/p>\n<p>And finally, swinging back to my left from the terrace.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"P1090789 snow blowers in the distance with les verdons on the skyline\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/301507042?dnt=1&amp;app_id=122963\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"autoplay; fullscreen; picture-in-picture; clipboard-write\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Hm, those are the same type of snow blowers on the main competition slope down into Plagne Centre. I know there are some other, bigger ones over there too but I think they&#8217;re hidden below the ridge, further onto that slope.\u00a0 There&#8217;s pretty good snow cover in the relatively (or completely) sun sheltered slopes beyond, a mixture of on piste runs and off piste.\u00a0 That&#8217;s the peak of les verdons in the distance. Over the top there and you drop down into the &#8220;Champagne-en-Vanoise&#8221; or just &#8220;Vanoise&#8221; extension of the La Plagne domaine back where I <a href=\"https:\/\/www.psyctc.org\/pelerinage2016\/my-first-near-visitors-18-vii-18-cycling-and-isolation-loneliness\/\">met up with friends in the summer<\/a> in very different weather conditions.\u00a0 OK, steady fine snow falling now and I must get on with work!<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>So I&#8217;m all snooty about not watching daytime TV but I make &#8220;daytime videos&#8221; and the biggest excitement in my life over the last three or four days is that someone has switched on many of the snow blowers around me.\u00a0 Now this is where this could get very boring if you haven&#8217;t been infected &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.psyctc.org\/pelerinage2016\/someone-switched-the-snow-blowers-on\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Someone switched the snow blowers on!<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4166","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorised"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.psyctc.org\/pelerinage2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4166","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.psyctc.org\/pelerinage2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.psyctc.org\/pelerinage2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.psyctc.org\/pelerinage2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.psyctc.org\/pelerinage2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4166"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.psyctc.org\/pelerinage2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4166\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4170,"href":"https:\/\/www.psyctc.org\/pelerinage2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4166\/revisions\/4170"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.psyctc.org\/pelerinage2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4166"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.psyctc.org\/pelerinage2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4166"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.psyctc.org\/pelerinage2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}