I'M HOOKED

Yip on the Yooner.  Developed here in France in fact a couple of villages away in Manigod, for a different experience on the snow, you are allowed in Praz only to go to the top slopes and yooner down.  So off I went with my friend Caro,her husband mans the piste and is a pisteur so if anything went terribly wrong we could always call him. Off we went having both watched how to do it the night before indipendantly on You Tube and Voila.  Got it first time.  Great fun.  Went down the Blue and Red Piste four times with a break in the middle for lunch of course.

 Going up

 Red Piste

 At the top - 700m up

The yooner

Me

Caro

Best fun, it's fast but easy to control, can't imagine it's so fun when the slopes are packed with skiers but on a quiet day it's superb and I can now go up with the kids and they can ski down and me yooner.  Will have to see who's the fastest.

We went to a little restaurant on the top for lunch and were waiting for Caro's husband (Francois) to join us when we witnessed an avalanche.  The lady sitting behind us said she thought she saw two snowboarders, none of us saw any snowboarders just the avalanche. Anyway she left and obviously alerted the men on the ground because half an hour later the pistes were abuzz with dogs, pisteurs, police helicopters.  It was an amazing operation to watch. It ended at 7pm last night apparently and there was no one in the avalanche so maybe the lady just had had one to many.  Anyway needless to say Francoise didn't join us for lunch he was in his element searching away. It was a yummy lunch and very exciting to have a show at the same time. I took photos - of course.

 The restaurant at the top

 The avalanche and a man arriving with a search and rescue dog

 A good shot of the avalanche - all the brown mud

 Francoise - Caro's husband, arriving on skis

A skidoo equipped with spades

 You can see all the guys looking next to the avalanche, they use long poles to poke the ground.

 Police helicopter arrives

Everyone in a briefing on the base

So that was my exciting afternoon.  The school (Samuel's) was skiing the same afternoon and Caro and I yoonered down with them, this is looking back up with them all coming down behind us....

And to finish of the splendid day we caught up with Caro's son Titioun

What a day.