With only half a day of lessons I had the morning free to see a bootfitter for new ski boots. I walked into a small shop full of skiboots, pictures and notes with common problems and equipment. The man looked at my feet and immediately saw ‘the problems areas’. He put three different boots in front of me. I stood there for a while, a different boot on each foot. One was affordable, the other a bit pricier. I explained the drama with my last boots, how my toe nail would come off and how I hesitated to invest a lot in new boots. But Jérémy the bootfitter was confident and would make any needed adjustments, even a year later if necessary. The affordable one already felt a bit too comfortable, loose, so eventually, still hesitant, I went with the pricy option.
As in my old boots I needed a footbed, so I stood on a sort of cushion that was moulded to my feet. After a while it was done and time to shape my boots. A hose was attached to the back of the boots so that the liners could be shaped exactly like my foot. First I got stickers with padding on my feet to leave room in certain places. It was covered by a sock to keep it all in place. Hence, getting into the boots was extremely difficult and it got painful as they blew up the liners to get snug around my feet. I had to move my knees in circles while I stood on a slight slope during the process. It took some effort to get my feet out again, but now the liners are completely shaped to my feet.
That afternoon I had my skis adjusted and went out with the group in my new boots. The guy in the ski shop enthusiastically said he loved those boots and used them himself too. Maybe I had made the right decision this time! But even before we skied anywhere I felt like crying. The boots were sooooo tight! I stopped feeling my toes even without closing the buckles! We still had to check our transmitters and I thought I was going mad. In the chairlift I sat next to the instructor and told him I was skiing on new boots and that it was terribly uncomfortable. He said we’d do a longer run, totally off piste, but very easy. I’d survive.
Now his version of easy is very different from mine. We went into Lac du Lou from the top of Boismint chairlift. There were lots of tracks and the snow had changed because of the sun, making it a bit harder to turn in some places. It just wasn’t as fluffy anymore. It took some adjusting. Early one we had to go up a hill, so to reach it we had to go down first at full speed. We saw the first person take off, jumping over a bump at the bottom of the hill. The second person jumped too but didn’t land it. Then the instructor decided to let the rest of us go around the bump. By this time we were all afraid and only made it 80% up the hill because we didn’t go on full speed, so we had to sidestep the rest of it. A good little bit of exercise! In front of us was a wide slope, only for us. Other groups were there but took different routes and we didn’t cross paths. It was so nice and quiet, even though there were lots of tracks already.
At the start there was a little jump, but I leant back to much and lost my ski on the landing. Valentin saw another “little jump”. But his little jumps are often quite impressive. He went first to test it and flew! He immediately turned around and put his poles up in a cross. It wasn’t so little after all. Abort, abort! We enjoyed the quite wavy terrain where sometimes we needed some speed and were rolling over the hills. The scariest part came at the end. The snow was getting heavy and our legs were tired. It got a lot more technical, but we all made it down alright. From the bottom we enjoyed sitting in the lift at Plan de l’eau.
But our off piste adventure wasn’t over yet. For the rest of the afternoon we found some snow in between the slopes. I’m always surprised about the places the instructors find. Valentin found a pretty pristine, but short, steep piste, maybe 35 degrees. It looked super scary, but I think I made the best turns of the day here! It was so exciting! In the meantime my boots had started to be a bit more comfortable. I wouldn’t say perfect yet, but the liner was starting to compress a bit, leaving space for blood flow. I think the real test for the boots would be on the groomed runs, skiing down more aggressively. Well, that would have to wait. There was more off piste for us to explore!
